Infamy Page 14

  Karp met back in his office with Fulton, Katz, and Jaxon. “If all goes well, we could have a verdict as early as tomorrow afternoon, or possibly the next morning,” he said. “If it’s guilty, and I expect it to be, we’ll see if he wants to roll over on his pals. If he does, the dominoes are going to start tumbling fast. Where’s Fitzsimmons?”

  “He’s in solitary,” Fulton responded. “Apparently, he likes to get in fights in the general population. We didn’t want someone to stick a shank in him, so we put him away for safekeeping.”

  “Good. We may need him,” Karp said with a nod.

  Even indicted for the murders of Clare Dune and Jim Hughes, Fitzsimmons, who’d hired one of the best criminal defense attorneys in Manhattan, was still refusing to talk. The press had, of course, gone to town with the story, leaving Constantine to fend off questions about his “right-hand man,” as described in an article by Stupenagel, being accused of murdering his wife and a New York City Council member.

  “Mr. Constantine hired Shaun Fitzsimmons based on recommendations from friends,” his publicist had said at a press conference following Fitzsimmons’s arrest. “Having said that, Wellington is concerned that these accusations are politically motivated to get to him. However, he’s willing to let justice run its course, confident that the truth will prevail.”

  When he thought about Fitzsimmons in the grand scheme of putting the case together, Karp couldn’t help but recall the night of his arrest and the request he’d made of the Moores. Separately, they’d both picked Fitzsimmons out of a lineup as the “friend” who’d stopped by their house to visit their son, Teddy.

  “He said his name was William . . . I can’t remember the last name,” Martha Moore had said, her voice cracking. “But Teddy didn’t know him by that name. That’s when he told me his nickname was Fitz. He seemed like such a nice man, but after he went back to Teddy’s room, we heard loud voices like they were arguing. Then he left and . . . and . . . and Teddy did that.”

  Martha had broken down into tears and loud sobbing, and had to excuse herself to go to the restroom. After she left, her husband explained that they were Irish Catholic and that suicide was a mortal sin. “She’s worried that we won’t get to see him in heaven.”

  Ted Moore Sr. had then looked at him as if contemplating an unpleasant thought. “This isn’t about making a case against this guy for Teddy’s death, is it?”

  Karp looked in the old man’s eyes, which were brimming with tears but they held his gaze. He shook his head. “No, I’m afraid not. We believe that your son was involved with the man you just identified in a murder.”

  “Is this about that shooting in Central Park? The one where Teddy was the hero?”

  “Yes.”

  “I knew something was hinky about all that,” Moore said. “You don’t spend thirty-five years with the NYPD without developing a sixth sense about these sorts of things. Not to mention there aren’t enough off-duty jobs in the city to suddenly be able to afford a fifty-thousand-dollar boat, a sports car, and a truck. I don’t know why Teddy thought his old man wouldn’t know that, but maybe I didn’t want to see at first.”

  The old man choked up, and Karp reached out and put his hand on his shoulder. “I’m sorry,” he said. “But I’m going to need you to identify that man in court to connect him to your son.”

  “I understand,” Moore said. He hesitated, then asked, “Any way you can keep Martha out of it?”

  Karp grimaced. “I don’t know. If this goes to trial, there’s going to be a lot of publicity and media coverage.”

  “Martha doesn’t watch a lot of news or read the papers,” Moore said. “She says it’s too depressing. Still, she’s bound to hear something when she gets together with her friends. But I was hoping maybe you won’t need to call her as a witness. I think that might be too much for her.”

  “I think I’ll be able to get by just with you,” Karp had said. “I take it you’ve testified before?”

  “Yeah, a few dozen times,” Moore said. “I’d appreciate whatever you can do about Martha.”

  “What about Constantine?” Karp asked his associates.

  Jaxon spoke up. “He’s in Geneva, where he enrolled his son in school. A little bird told me there’s been a flurry of calls going back and forth between Switzerland and the White House.”

  “Any idea what’s being said?” Karp asked.

  “Unfortunately not,” Jaxon replied. “It’s all on secure lines, and there’s no way I’m going to get a federal judge to give me a warrant for a wiretap.”

  An hour later, after Fulton and Katz left the office, Jaxon remained behind. “You know that when you make your move on Constantine, all hell is going to break loose,” he said. “You took on some major players in the Sam Allen murder, but this will make that look like a tempest in a teapot.”

  “You saying I should back off?”

  Jaxon laughed. “I know better than that. But it’s not just Constantine’s wealth and connections you’re going to be dealing with. He’s popular with the media and with the public. I’d hate to see some wacko go after you or your family.”

  “I’ve thought of that,” Karp said. “When the time comes, if it doesn’t look safe, Marlene and I have agreed they’re all going to New Mexico. Lucy and Ned’s ranch down there is pretty much off the grid. It would be tough on the boys; this could fall right at the end of their senior year. But it can’t be helped.”

  “The boys are proud of their dad,” Jaxon said. “They might not be thrilled, but they’ll do what they need to do.”

  The next morning, Karp was still thinking about the ramifications of what that day might bring when Judge Rainsford called upon LeJeune to deliver his summation. The defense attorney spent two hours picking and choosing through the evidence, and then reiterated the testimony of his three witnesses before closing with an impassioned plea.

  “There is no doubt that my client, Dean Mueller, shot and killed Colonel Michael Swindells,” LeJeune said. “However, he is not a murderer. He is—through no fault of his own—a disturbed individual who did a terrible thing, but at the same time was not responsible when you carefully apply the insanity defense. After all, everyone knows he was suffering from a severe mental disease and defect, which seriously impaired his rationality, his judgment, and his ability to distinguish between right and wrong. He had a false belief mentality.”

  LeJeune walked behind the defense table and put his hands on Mueller’s shoulders. “I would ask you to remember that we sent this young man off to a foreign country to fight for your freedom and mine. He laid his life on the line for us and was injured in the process. It’s not the sort of injury you can see. He didn’t lose and arm or a leg. There are no scars on his body. But there’s a scar up here.” The defense attorney pointed to Mueller’s head.

  LeJeune came out from behind the defense table and walked dramatically over to stand in front of the jurors. “Colonel Michael Swindells was an American hero. There is no doubt about that. But so is Dean Mueller, and he does not deserve to be thrown into prison like so much trash.”

  When LeJeune finished, Rainsford announced a fifteen-­minute break. “After which we’ll hear from Mr. Karp.”

  After the break, standing in front of the jury, Karp began his own summation by agreeing that “the act of taking another life is crazy by normal standards. Whether it’s with bullets, or a knife, or drowning someone, the purposeful taking of a human life is an insane, irrational act. But that is not the question before you today. The questions you need to answer are whether Dean Mueller knew that what he was doing was wrong and whether he understood the nature and consequences of his actions.”

  Karp let it sink in. “That, ladies and gentlemen, is what differentiates ‘crazy’ as we understand it going about our lives, and ‘insanity’ in the legal sense of whether the defendant can be held responsible for his actions. And if you ans
wer the questions yes, then you must find him guilty of murder.”

  Karp then went through the question-and-answer cross-­examination of Dr. Winkler. “The gun was loaded with bullets, not raisins. He understood that a gun was a weapon capable of causing death. He knew that death could result from pointing it at the victim’s head and pulling the trigger. He didn’t shoot wildly, or shoot the deceased in the hand or foot, or point the gun at him and say, ‘Bang bang, you’re dead.’

  “From the evidence, we know that the defendant leveled the murder weapon at the deceased’s head and pulled the trigger, intending to murder Colonel Swindells with a single shot.

  “Now let’s take a moment on the issue of wrongfulness. Immediately after the defendant murdered the deceased, he fled the scene, took hostages, and tried to make a deal because he understood that he would be arrested and charged with murder. Clearly, he knew what he did was wrong.”

  Karp marched over to the defense table and pointed at Mueller. “The defendant, this man right here, confronted with overwhelming factual guilt, is attempting to avoid responsibility and mock the justice system by invoking the not guilty by reason of insanity defense. The fact is that one of the most corrosive aspects of the criminal justice system is the insanity defense, which can provide an escape mechanism for wrongful violent mis­conduct.

  “If allowed, it would permit this murderer to beat the system by establishing that he was suffering from a delusional belief system that induced irrational motivations, which compelled him to act out his violent impulses. Through his defense counsel, he is claiming that, based upon a mental disease or defect, he did not know or appreciate the nature or consequences of his acts or that they were wrong. Accordingly, his attorney would have you believe that he was not responsible when he executed his victim.”

  Karp returned to his place in front of the jurors. “Even if we believe, and I suggest there’s ample evidence that it is simply not true, but even if we believe that the defendant suffers from a mental disease or defect that spawned a delusional mind-set, or false belief, that impelled him to kill the deceased, should our criminal justice system allow individuals with a delusional belief system that induces irrational motivations that result in violent wrongful criminal conduct to be exonerated?”

  Patrolling in front of the jury box, Karp continued: “Isn’t one of the major purposes of the criminal justice system to incarcerate those violent criminals who cannot control, but act out, their violent impulses? It offends notions of common sense that the criminal justice system creates by use of the insanity defense the very tool for these violent offenders to avoid responsibility and escape punishment.”

  Karp then blasted the “pervasive” use of psychiatric experts by both the defense and prosecution at trials. “In virtually every ‘insanity’ case that goes to trial, each side—the prosecution and the defense—hires its own so-called expert psychiatrist. Both psychiatrists proceed to give ironclad divergent opinions regarding the defendant’s state of mind. Such testimony is at best conjecture, mere opinion and not scientific, empirical truth. It mocks the truly expert opinion that derives from a reasonable degree of scientific certainty.

  “Also, it betrays the purpose of a criminal trial, which is the search for truth and the meting out of justice. Instead, the insanity defense gives criminally violent and unpredictable individuals in our community an opportunity to avoid being held accountable for their actions. In effect, they are exonerated not because they have provided a legitimate defense, such as a justification like self-defense, for example, but because their hired-gun psychiatrists are more convincing than the ones testifying for the opposition.”

  Karp turned and pointed at LeJeune. “The People did not resort to such tactics,” he said. “But the defense did, in order to try to pull the wool over your eyes. The victims of crimes, the deceased’s families and friends, care precious little for such gamesmanship. They only want to see justice done. The People are asking that you set aside the smoke and mirrors of the insanity defense and find the defendant guilty not just beyond a reasonable doubt but beyond any and all doubt. Thank you.”

  Looking at the jurors as he took his seat, Karp saw in their faces that he’d won the case. They affirmed that fewer than four hours later when they returned a guilty verdict. But even he was surprised by what happened next.

  Mueller suddenly turned to Karp. “I want to talk to you,” he said.

  Shocked, LeJeune grabbed him by the arm. “Now is not the time, Dean,” he said with a tight smile. “We’ll appeal. This will never stand. You still have many friends.”

  “Yeah, friends like that cop, or whoever put him up to it, who want to see me dead,” he scoffed. “You’re fired, LeJeune. Karp, if you want to talk to me, you better get me out of here now.”

  Karp turned to Fulton. “Clay, would you please escort Mr. Mueller to my office: I believe he has something he wants to share with us.”

  16

  Six months later

  “OYEZ, OYEZ, OYEZ, ALL RISE. All those having business in Supreme Court Part 42, State of New York, New York County, draw near and ye shall be heard. The Honorable Supreme Court Justice Vince Dermondy presiding.”

  Chief Administrative Court Clerk Duffy McIntyre stepped back and nodded to Dermondy, who sat down at his dais. “Be seated,” the judge announced. “We’re here in the matter of the State of New York vs. Wellington Constantine. The defendant is present with counsel, Mr. Michael Arnold. The People are represented by District Attorney Roger Karp and Assistant District Attorney Kenneth Katz. The jury is present, so let us proceed.”

  Dermondy looked over at Karp, who had remained standing and was looking down at his yellow notepad. “You may call your next witness.”

  “The People call Dean Mueller.” Karp nodded to Fulton, who stood next to a side door leading from the witness waiting room. The detective opened the door and the witness shuffled into the courtroom dressed in a jail jumpsuit.

  Nearly six months after the conviction of Mueller, and three weeks into the trial of Wellington Constantine, Karp was laying out his case with all the attention to detail and structure of a master builder. So far he’d weathered the storm of media attacks and denunciations by politicians, “community organizers,” movie stars and musicians, and the liberal establishment, who’d rallied to Constantine’s accusations that the charges were politically motivated and untrue.

  As predicted by Jaxon, there’d been a lot of threats and even one poorly constructed explosive device that had been found by NYPD bomb squad dogs outside the family loft on Crosby Street. Poorly constructed or not, it had been enough to ship the family off to New Mexico, where Marlene reported that the boys were not missing the start of summer in New York City in exchange for playing cowboy on the ranch.

  Alone at night in the weeks leading up to and into the trial, he missed his family, but it allowed him to concentrate on the case. The only other change to his normal schedule was a concession to Fulton to allow extra security outside his building and a promise to let Ewin drive him back and forth to the Criminal Courts Building rather than enjoy his customary walk.

  After the opening statements, Karp proceeded to lay the foundation for the prosecution of Constantine much the same as he had with the Mueller case. The crime scene was described with the diagram and photographs, and Assistant ME Gail Manning had ascertained the cause and manner of Swindells’s death for this second jury. In every murder case, there are two things that the People have to prove: that the deceased is in fact dead, and that the deceased died as a result of the criminal acts of the defendant.

  After the “official” witnesses, Sasha Swindells was called to the stand. She testified that her father had been deeply concerned about something that had occurred during his last tour of duty while stationed in Saudi Arabia. He had not told her about any specifics, she said, but she knew it was connected to a text she received asking her to deliver somet
hing to Ariadne Stupenagel.

  “Did you know Ms. Stupenagel?”

  “I met her once, a few minutes before my father was shot,” Sasha had testified. Up to that point, the young woman had done her best to present herself as a newly commissioned officer in the U.S. Army, but now she broke down and cried the tears of a daughter.

  Wisely, Arnold had not tried to cross-examine her. There was nothing to be gained by grilling the daughter of the deceased.

  Sasha Swindells’s testimony had been followed by Ariadne Stupenagel, whom Karp eased into her testimony by having her describe how she knew Colonel Swindells, as well as her career as an investigative journalist.

  “What prompted you to go to Central Park to speak to Colonel Swindells?” Karp had asked after several preliminary questions to set the stage.

  “A source told me about a black ops mission in Syria in which a file, code-named MIRAGE, had been seized,” Stupenagel said. “During this mission, several highly placed people connected to the governments of Russia, Syria, and Iran, as well as a leader of the terrorist group ISIS, were killed just prior to U.S. forces arriving.”

  “Do you know, or were you told, who killed them?” Karp asked.

  “I was told they were killed by a Russian assassin named Nadya Malovo,” Stupenagel said. “The source also informed me that one other person had been expected at the meeting but wasn’t present, a wealthy, well-connected American.”

  “Did this source tell you the name of this American?”

  “No. The source did not have that information.”

  “Did the source know any details about MIRAGE?”

  “Only that it involved powerful people with connections to the governments of these other countries and had something to do with black-market oil.”

  “In Central Park, did you ask Colonel Swindells about ­MIRAGE?”