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Jury made right decision in Kramer-Ortiz case |
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Sunday, 01 June 2008 |
More than three years ago, back when disgraced former Sen. John Celona was indicted for the crimes that eventually saw him sentenced to prison (this was on the state charges, not the federal charges; he ultimately copped to both), Politics as Usual asserted that prosecuting corruption should not stop with crooked pols.
Subscribing to the theory that it takes two to tango, this column said that for justice to be complete both the bribee and the briber must be punished and the penalty should include jail time.
Here is what was said in this space at that time (April 25, 2005):
“If true justice is going to be done in this case, the law is going to have to come up with more than just the toupee-ed scalp of John Celona. And I don’t mean a measly four-or-five-figure fine to billion dollar corporate entities. People high up on the corporate ladder who can be convicted of putting Celona on the company payroll and those who approved that action, should spend actual time in prison.
Only then can anybody say justice was done in this case. Making John Celona the sacrificial lamb doesn’t accomplish that.”
That was true then; it is truer than ever today. I should have said, in retrospect, that those convicted of corruptly putting Celona on the payroll should go to jail.
But, that being said, the jury in the just-finished U.S. District Court case against former CVS executives Jack Kramer and Carlos Ortiz did precisely the right thing, in fact the only thing they could have done, in finding the defendants not guilty.
My only question is: why did it take them so long?
Ninety minutes? They must have all stopped off at the bathroom or something before gathering in the jury room and, one imagines, hearing someone ask: “Is anyone going to vote to find these guys guilty based on what we saw and heard out there? Didn’t think so.”
Defense attorney David Fein hit it right on the nose when he told the jury: “you may be wondering why you are here at all,” because the prosecutors offered “no evidence of criminal activity.”
Not once, not even once, despite all the changes in his story and all the blatant fibs he told on the stand, not once did Celona ever say: “Kramer and/or Ortiz told me to kill that bill.” Not once.
Celona said former Sen. William Irons, whom the feds would have you believe is also up to his neck in unsavory relationships and dealings with CVS and others, told him to “take a walk,” when a CVS-related bill came up, and that Irons had his fingerprints on the fate of other legislation in other years.
But he never said Kramer or Ortiz did. And — tellingly — the prosecutor never asked him to.
Imagine that! You are the prosecutor trying to convict two guys for bribing your key witness to do their legislative bidding and you don’t even ask that witness to give examples of the defendants telling him how to vote or, as a committee chairman, which bills to bring up (or not) for a vote. Why would you not ask that, for Pete’s sake? In fact, why didn’t you make sure that you knew he would, and could credibly, testify to that before you offered him time off of his sentence in exchange for his future cooperation?
Nobody thinks the U.S. Attorney’s Office — with a U.S. Department of Justice guy sitting right next to them — would torpedo their own case by not asking that question if Celona were ready to sit there and say “Yup, Kramer and Ortiz told me to deep-six that bill.” So the only possible answer is they couldn’t get him to say that. That was obviously a line that even the lying, arrogant, self-serving dimwit Celona was not willing to cross.
Even when the trial was going on, I asked myself Fein’s question: What are we all doing here?
That moment came out of earshot of the jury.
It came, in fact, while U.S. Attorney Robert Corrente was addressing the court personally, an unusual event in itself. But what Corrente told the judge was even more extraordinary, not to mention absolutely outrageous.
Defending the prosecution against a motion that it improperly elicited untrue testimony from its star witness, Corrente actually said of Celona’s testimony (I swear to God, I heard it with my own two ears) that he had already changed his story so many times and given so many different versions that, “we couldn’t be sure until it came out of his mouth what he was going to say at trial.”
Really? Are you serious?
You are putting two men on trial for what is effectively their lives — at ages 75 for Kramer and 64 for Ortiz —almost solely on the basis of one key witness, and you have no idea what that witness is going to tell the jury until it comes out of his mouth on the witness stand? Because he has changed his story virtually every time he has told it?
Am I the only person who thinks that is spectacularly, staggeringly, unbelievably irresponsible?
If that doesn’t qualify as prosecutorial misconduct, why the hell doesn’t it?
I asked to speak with Corrente to ask him exactly that question and others (such as why they didn’t ask Celona whether the CVS execs requested a legislative pro quo for the $1,000-a month quid they were paying him), but a spokesman said the U.S. Attorney’s office is constrained from commenting on cases outside the courtroom and that they would let what was said in court stand for itself.
The government obviously didn’t have the facts or solid evidence to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that Kramer or Ortiz committed a crime, so hey, shove that Bozo Celona up on the stand and maybe he will say something that incriminates them. It’s worth a shot: you never know what the guy is going to say until it comes out of his mouth.
“We have a mess on our hands, Judge.” Corrente understated in describing Celona’s kaleidoscopically-mutating testimony. Indeed. It was the prosecution’s own mess. Good luck for justice that the jury came in and cleaned up that mess quickly before any further harm was done. And don’t kid yourself – harm was done.
Yes, they were found not guilty, but Kramer and Ortiz suffered years of harm being under the gun of a 23-count federal indictment for bribery, conspiracy and mail fraud that would have, had the jury swallowed Celona’s account, put them in prison for the rest of their lives. They had to hire lawyers, they had to give depositions, they had to appear before a grand jury and they had to stand trial on more than a score of felony counts. Their names were in the headlines for months. Their reputations in their industry and in the general community were sullied if not completely destroyed on what we now see was absolutely no basis at all.
So what now?
Obviously, the idea of any future prosecutions featuring Celona as the star witness is a non-starter. You have to wonder about the upcoming retrial of the ex-Roger Williams Medical Center executives that may rely on Celona’s testimony. Even a bum defense lawyer could make mincemeat out of anything Celona says now.
If the government’s prosecution strategy in that case relies on Celona’s testimony, Corrente should do the right thing and tell the judge: “we would really like to convict these people, but Celona is our star witness and we don’t know what he’s going to say until it comes out of his mouth, so we can’t in good faith pursue this matter.”
Every good Rhode Islander wishes the U.S. Attorney’s office well in cleaning up Statehouse corruption through Operation Dollar Bill (we also wish they would hurry the hell up, but that is for another day). We need prosecutions that will clear the crooks out of government – and the people responsible for bribing them, don’t forget – but we don’t need bogus prosecutions that hang on the word of a lying buffoon, which will make future cases all that harder to prove.
I developed a psychobabble theory of my own while sitting watching most of the trial.
Despite his outward arrogance and pomposity, Celona is a supremely insecure man with a puppy-dog-like desire for approval and praise. Just as the defense attorneys suggested that he was changing his story to suit what the prosecution wanted to hear in this case, to please the benefactors who cut his prison time, maybe that was what happened with Celona and CVS. They wrong-headedly signed him to a $1,000 a month consulting contract, so he was going prove what a team player he was and impress his new paymasters by killing the bills they didn’t like.
Just as the prosecutors will say they didn’t tell Celona to lie on the stand or change his story, maybe they now have a better appreciation of the possibility that Kramer and Ortiz might not have been the ones pulling Celona’s strings on legislation, either.
Like I said, it’s just a theory. |
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Last Updated ( Saturday, 07 June 2008 )
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