Bearing Witness by Michael A Kahn

Author:Michael A Kahn
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Poisoned Pen Press
Published: 2015-05-21T04:00:00+00:00

Chapter Sixteen

I spent most of that afternoon in the chambers of Judge Catherine Wagner. The occasion was our final pretrial conference—a standard meeting of the attorneys and judge scheduled one week before trial. Typically, the final pretrial conference is an opportunity for the parties to resolve any remaining evidentiary disputes and for the judge to once again explore settlement possibilities. Kimberly Howard was there for the evidentiary disputes, and Stanley Roth was there for settlement discussions. I was there alone, with my client waiting in the courtroom alone.

The judge focused on the areas of contention first, but after two hours of wrangling, the key issues remained in dispute. Kimberly Howard objected to my plan to introduce evidence of the relationships among the various co-conspirators during the decades prior to the period covered by my lawsuit, and I objected to her motion to exclude all evidence of what she characterized as Conrad Beckman’s “entirely irrelevant childhood curiosity in certain aspects of German nationalism.” Although Judge Wagner was leaning toward granting Kimberly’s motion, she agreed to defer her ruling until the trial began in order to give me an opportunity, outside the jury’s presence, to try to demonstrate that Conrad Beckman’s involvement in the American Nazi movement of the 1930s enabled him to forge an important link with at least some of his co-conspirators in what became the bid-rigging scheme.

“Time’s running out, Counselor,” she told me sternly, “but I’ll give you until the first day of trial.”

When Judge Wagner turned to settlement, Stanley Roth took over for the defendant. He gave a lengthy spiel on Beckman Engineering’s innocence and then magnanimously announced that in the interest of saving the parties and the court the time and expense of a lengthy, acrimonious trial, his client was prepared to raise its settlement offer from $150,000 to $250,000, the payment to be characterized as an “enhancement” of Ruth’s retirement package and paid in full following her dismissal of the qui tam claims with prejudice.

I conferred briefly out in the courtroom with Ruth Alpert and returned to chambers to decline the offer.

To say that Judge Wagner was unhappy with our response was an understatement. She sent the other side out of the room, gave me a blistering lecture on the risks of litigation, and demanded that my client and I come up with a counteroffer. I again conferred in the courtroom with Ruth and this time returned with a counteroffer: $10 million, to be treated as a settlement of the qui tam claim (under which 30 percent of the settlement would be paid to Ruth and the rest to the government). In the language of diplomacy, our proposal triggered a full and frank exchange of viewpoints followed by a consensus among those present that conditions were not yet sufficiently propitious to justify a continuation of negotiations.

But on the way down the hall toward the elevators, Stanley Roth asked me to join him for a moment in an empty jury room. Once inside, he turned to me and said, “Your settlement position is preposterous.

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