Whipping Boy (28 page)

“No, but it didn’t much matter. We had what we needed to prove conspiracy.”

Perhaps the most intriguing evidentiary link between Badische and Barclay surfaced during a forensic analysis of two versions of a single photograph. The altered picture, which appeared on the Badische website, showed the president of Malta receiving Colonel Sherry at the palace in Valletta. However, the original photo depicted Prince Robert,
not
the colonel, shaking the president’s hand. More relevant to the charge of conspiracy was the presence of the Zelig-like figure standing at attention in the top-left corner. It was Cesar. Date-stamped 2-1-90, the photo confirmed that a relationship among the con men existed years
before either Barclay or the Badische Trust Consortium existed. (The Trust, the older of the two enterprises, was only incorporated in 1997.)

Evidence of conspiracy: The Badische administrator charged expenses on a Barclay AmEx card paid by Cesar.

Despite the ostensible arm’s-length relationship between Badische and Barclay, Sherry’s bank checks displayed Cesar’s residential address.

Once Quilty had assembled the evidence proving fraud and conspiracy, he did one more thing. He shared that evidence with the suspects.

“I always give the defense everything—
everything.
Why? To prove the hopelessness of their situation. If they want to fight, I tell ’em, ‘Go right ahead. The government pays Quilty every two weeks whether we go to trial or settle.’ I tell ’em, ‘Fellas, the choice is all yours.’”

“And Cesar chose to go to trial?”

“At first it seemed he might be willing to cut a deal. We talked for a while. I said to him, ‘Did any of your clients ever get financing?’ He said, ‘No.’ I said, ‘Didn’t you suspect something was fishy when no deals ever took place?’ He said he hadn’t thought to ask. I told him, ‘Why don’t you come in and talk?’ He was about to. Then his lawyer got involved. She said her client would cooperate if the US Attorney’s Office reduced the charges to a misdemeanor.”

“What did you say to that?”

“I said, ‘Quilty don’t work for no stinkin’ misdemeanors.’ The proposal was ludicrous. I only consider a case a ‘win’ if the criminal spends more time in jail than I spend putting him there. I had two years into the case. I told the lawyer Cesar had to cop to a felony, which the government proposed offsetting with a 5K1 letter.”

Named for a section of the US Sentencing Guidelines, a “5K1” is a lot less generous than the nonpros Gurland negotiated or the proffer deal signed by Glass. It promises nothing more than a
recommendation
for sentence reduction if the defendant pleads guilty and provides the “substantial assistance” to the prosecution.

The Badische website included a photo (left) showing Colonel Sherry being received at the Valetta Palace by Vincent Tabone, the president of Malta. The undoctored original includes Cesar in the background.

“A 5K1 can shave a few months or years off a sentence, but it also brands you a snitch.”

Cesar found himself confronted by a variant of the classic prisoner’s dilemma. Option A: Plead guilty, betray your accomplices, and receive a reduced punishment. Or option B: Keep your mouth shut and hope the jury finds you innocent.

“A lot of times it comes down to every man for himself,” Quilty notes. “But these guys never ratted each other out. That’s unusual.”

“Could Cesar have been paid off?”

“Can’t say. What I can tell you is most of the stolen money was never recovered.”

“So it is possible the bankers bought Cesar’s silence?”

“Possible? Sure. But I don’t believe money was the reason Cesar clammed up. The impression I got was he refused to cooperate because a 5K1 compels the admission of
all
prior crimes. Not just the one being prosecuted.”

“Meaning?”

“Meaning Cesar had stuff in his past.”

Finally! The conversation zeroes in on the question I’m most keen to have answered. “Stuff? What kind of stuff? Violent stuff?”

“All I can tell you is that Cesar was involved in other things, criminal things, that prevented him from cooperating. When he realized
he had to come clean on his
entire
criminal history, that’s when he shut down.”

For two or three minutes, I press Quilty, but my efforts get me nowhere, so I approach the subject from a different angle.

“Do you think Cesar has cleaned up his act?”

Quilty shrugs. “All I can tell you is that I put him out of commission for the time he was in jail. After that, guys like Cesar are usually back to their old game, or a new version of it. Fraud is an addiction and addictions are very hard to break. Fraud is what con men know. It’s what they’re best at. It’s what they love.”

A few days after I return from Florida, I receive an email from a Department of Justice staffer I had cold-called months before. To my surprise, he agrees to sit down with me at the headquarters of the US Attorney’s Office. Although I can’t be sure, I suspect some sort of back-channel intervention by one of my informants—Quilty? Feeney? Feiter? I have no clue—has prompted the outreach. Once more, I travel to New York.

Security is tight at the Southern District Headquarters of the US Attorney’s Office. To enter the building it’s necessary to relinquish one’s driver’s license and cell phone, and submit to metal detectors and inspection by a guard with a wand. Once that’s done, the visitor is issued an ID sticker and directed to a waiting area.

Ten minutes after completing those preliminaries, I am escorted into an elevator filled with guys carrying sidearms. From there I’m led in silence to an overheated windowless interrogation room. Eventually, the staffer who contacted me enters the room. We speak for about an hour. What he tells me is only mildly illuminating since I already know way,
way
too much about all things Badische. I explain what I’m after: evidence of Cesar’s criminal activities prior to his
federal conviction on multiple counts of wire fraud and conspiracy. The staffer sidesteps the subject entirely.

“Right,” he says at the end of our interview. “I pulled some files from Varick Street. These here are the public records.” He sets two boxes down on a grimy Formica table. “Government exhibits entered into evidence at trial are public. As such, I’m authorized to provide these materials to you,” he adds redundantly.

“Great.”

“And
those
boxes over there”—the staffer cocks his head toward some cartons stacked near the door—“
those
materials were
not
introduced at trial. I am
not
authorized to release them. Do you understand?”

I give a nod, though I’m not really sure I do understand.

The staffer looks at his watch. “Right. It’s eleven a.m. now. I’ll be back to get you at three.”

“Great,” I repeat, this time more tentatively.

Then, just like that, I am left alone.

The staffer has made it clear that he has
not
authorized me to inspect the boxes near the door, so I stick to the public records on the table. Leafing through the sanctioned materials reminds me of my manic law-firm excavations during the blizzard. Five years have passed since I first figured out that my former roommate is a convicted con man. Yet here I am,
still
immersed in paper,
still
trying to get a bead on Cesar’s criminal life.

The government files are scrupulously arranged. Each piece of evidence, organized by witness, is cross-referenced to a master list of the government exhibits. The material doesn’t help me much, but it is exciting to hold the physical evidence introduced at trial. Using a point-and-shoot camera overlooked during the security screening, I snap some pictures:

      
GX 316. Wire transfer confirmation ($27,000) from Barbara Laurence to Barclay Consulting Group.
[Click!]

      
GX 270. Contact report from Merrill Lynch on meeting with representatives of the Badische Trust Consortium.
[Click!]

      
GX 110. Handwritten $90.3 billion tally (“Assets to Finance Deals”) drafted on Clifford Chance legal stationery.
[Click!]

      
GX 361. Creditanstalt flowchart documenting funds transferred from a Vienna account in the name of Brian Sherry to the Barclay Consulting Group.
[Click!]

      
GX 415. Photograph showing the president of Malta greeting Prince Robert (with Cesar in the background).
[Click!]

      
GX 967. Title and dealer invoice for spindrift-white Jaguar purchased by Brian Sherry at Manhattan Jaguar.
[Click!]

Taking unauthorized pictures in a building occupied by gun-toting law enforcement officers makes me feel like a spy. More precisely, a cowardly spy. No spook worth his cyanide pill would steer clear of the restricted materials near the door.

I finish with the public records by noon. The off-limits stuff beckons. I peer around the room. There don’t appear to be any security cameras, though who knows what’s mounted inside the AC vents. My curiosity ratchets up, and so does my anxiety. What if someone were to catch me with my hand in the cookie jar?

For an hour at least, fear trumps temptation. Then the second-guessing begins. Why did the staffer leave me alone with material he
didn’t
want me to look at? Wasn’t I expected to be—what’s the word I’m looking for—
nosy
?

The impulse to peek continues to grow. Actually, the staffer never said I wasn’t allowed to snoop. He only said that he didn’t have the authority to allow me to snoop. There’s a difference. Did he make the statement to establish plausible deniability? I’m pretty sure he did. Still, I’m unwilling to face the consequences of being wrong.

Around one o’clock, my indecisiveness becomes unbearable. I slip out of the interrogation room, head down to the lobby, retrieve my cell phone and ID, leave the building, and call the magazine editor
who commissioned the search for Cesar. I update her about my predicament and ask for legal guidance. She calls back a few minutes later. “Go for it,” she tells me. “Our lawyer says it’s fine.”

The moment I receive her go-ahead, I feel like a complete doofus. Suddenly it’s so obvious.
Of course
I’m supposed to poke through the files.

I race back into the building, subject myself to another round of security checks, and reach the interrogation room with barely an hour in which to review the unauthorized papers. At first I try examining the material in small batches. (Less to hide if someone enters the room.) But that proves impractical when I come upon a carton crammed with the contents of Sherry’s carry-on bag.

I dump the stuff on the table and snap a bunch of pictures. The box includes three international cell phones, one portable printer, hundreds of business cards, and a marked-up copy of the
International Herald Tribune
. Some of the paper’s classifieds, taken out by “individuals seeking funds,” are circled in ballpoint, with the words
sent letter
and
contacted
scribbled next to the names of potential marks.

The impounded bag also includes a copy of a $246 welfare check from the public assistance division of New York’s Department of Social Services. The business cards in the box make me wonder which name he used when depositing his welfare checks. Colonel Brian Sherry of the Badische Trust Consortium? Sir Brian Sherry of the House of Badische? Major Sir Sherry, Ambassador Plenipotentiary of the Knights of Malta? Colonel Brian Sherry-Berwick, Managing Trustee for Badische Anlage Treuhand? Brian D. Sherry, Doctor of Business Administration, Finance, and Management? Dr. Brian Sherry, Director of Highfit Holdings, Hong Kong? Or perhaps—this was my favorite card of the bunch—Brian Shaer, Director of B.S. Financial Services?