Another Anniversary Approaches

Every May, it's inevitable that I get flashbacks to the day the authorities lowered the boom on me. It happened on May 16, 1990 so this is like the 28th anniversary coming up. I (we) sort of knew that it was coming eventually... but the federal wheels turn so slowly that it easily recedes into the background of your daily life. it was almost two full years between Stu's bust and what happened to me... We had seen the ridiculously obvious black unmarked monitoring the driveway on our quiet suburban street. And, of course, we were 100% spotless immaculate and sanitized by then.

But when we went to bed that Tuesday night, it was just like any other... Practically two years after the first card fell, and well after we had emptied the various evidence stashes... we knew they were investigating since every once in a while, we'd hear from someone who needed a lawyer or who had been contacted or questioned. The tensions ratcheted up and simmered down at different times and frankly, most of my 'friends' were in denial... as though there was no way I was going to get dragged into this case that was already so far above me... and so far in the past.   "That's not how it works." said some... "You paid your taxes and they have nothing to physically tie you to anything." said others. "It happened years ago and it's your word against theirs." was a common line. All the reasons in the world to believe that we were going to skate on this.

And that's the thing with 'historical' cases. There is rarely any hard physical evidence, and it's virtually all circumstantial or based on informants who are pressured into talking to save their own perceived vulnerabilities. I vividly remember all the associated people saying how unlikely it was that I was going down. I can still hear them. In any case, we had retained a lawyer, Gerry Labush, a few months earlier on a high recommendation from another lawyer who was my first choice but already had a client in the case.

After a few meetings, Gerry realized that I was not just vulnerable but that I had a long history and knew pretty much most of the names and faces in the scene. He was somewhat surprised that most of them didn't know me but hey... back then, there was so much going on that it was impossible to keep track of all the people. And he was, just like most of the other criminal defense lawyers, deep into his own version of a gold rush. He was defending Hong Kong heroin smugglers, hippie pot dealers, distributors, smugglers and money launderers. He had the 'Mayflower Madam' as a client and I ran into her quite a few times at his office. He had a staff that included the son of the NYPD Chief of Detectives, a former T-Man, form G-Man, numbers guys, translators, runners, etc. It was, in many ways, the same type of operation I was working, except his job was to keep me out of trouble while stealing as much money from me as he could. My job was to make it through this swamp of my own making. 

The lawyers were literally swimming in money. There was so much money around... and their clients would pay anything... and did.

 Right... so where was I? Tuesday night... It might have been a few years ago since I wrote about our house so it's worth explaining a bit...

The property was originally 2+ acres and during the Carter administration, when interest rates popped to around 18%, the real estate market was totally dead. Mortgages were simply unaffordable and people were sitting on some nice property that nobody would buy regardless of the cost. Mortgages drive the real estate market and when rates soar to stupid levels, people are not investing. In 1981, though, when Reagan's people took charge, rates fell and we happened upon this perfect property and could get what seemed like a good rate on the financing (12%!! Can you imagine?).

The owner had raised his kids there and it was time to go. I've already described the house in some detail elsewhere in this tale. The seller had gone for a rezone of his 2.3 acres (since the area was 1 acre to build) and we bought it for like $170k (Putting down 70K and borrowing the other hundred). the rezone freed up the lower acre on this gentle rolling hillside and it included an easement for the upper 1.3 acres (where the house sits) for access from the street. In 1986 or so, we sold the lower acre for way more than half the original purchase price... I think it went for $120k. Anyway, it turned our upper acre into a flag lot. A flag lot is where you have a long driveway from the street that allows access into a much larger property. The image from the air looks like a flag on a flagpole, with the pole being the driveway.

So... as it happened, the house was a sprawling ranch with lots of doors... There was a front door... a side door near the garage, a sliding back door from the kitchen, another sliding door from the rear of the living room into the back yard, a full wall of glass sliders at the front of the living room, overlooking the hillside and pool/cabana area... and even a door from the hallway that ran 50 feet from the living room to our master bedroom. Lots and lots of doors (aka escape routes in the minds of the authorities). The house sat in a relatively open, sparsely treed area with a 4 foot chain link fence that completely encircled the 2+ acre property...

This all meant that a take-down required something resembling a platoon of cops to make certain nobody was getting away and all the exits were covered.

It's 6 o'clock in the morning on Wednesday, May 16 when the front doorbell rings....