CHEATER'S GAME (Jake Lassiter Legal Thrillers) by Paul Levine

Author:Paul Levine [Levine, Paul]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Herald Square Publishing
Published: 2020-04-19T16:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER FORTY

Sorcerer’s Apprentice

“This is the story of a very intelligent young man,” Margaret Bolden began, “a young man who could have been a success at virtually any endeavor but chose to be a major player in a nationwide criminal conspiracy of deception and fraud. For him, a very lucrative criminal conspiracy. For others, a trail of destruction, criminal records, and shattered reputations.”

Bolden turned away from the jury box, walked several paces to the defense table, and pointed at Kip, her pink fingernails a foot from his face. “This is that man. The defendant, Chester Lassiter, also known as Kip. The man who directed the criminal conspiracy and profited from it.”

Bolden’s opening statement was pretty much what I expected from an experienced, savvy trial lawyer. She didn’t cling to the hackneyed structure that begins, “The evidence will show . . . blah, blah, blah.”

She told her story, establishing the theme in the first two sentences. A damn interesting story, I’m sorry to say, that would make a decent movie. It had a hero, an FBI agent named Peter Wisniewski who, with a cast of hundreds, uncovered the villainy and put together the government’s air-tight case. It had a villain, the angelic-looking, yet evil Kip Lassiter, an avaricious, manipulative, deceptive young man who preyed on the insecurities of decent parents who only wanted the best for their saintly children.

As in dramas dating back to Aristotle, the villain had an ally, the mastermind Max Ringle. Yes, Ringle was a scam artist, but he finally saw the beatific glow of justice, not unlike Saul on the road to Damascus being bathed in divine light.

Victims? Oh, there were victims galore. The students themselves, some of whom supposedly did not know their parents had paid a ringer to bounce their test scores by thirty percent. I looked forward to cross-examining these entitled brats about their galactic ignorance. The universities, too, were victims, the prosecutor said. They were deprived of their “property,” those priceless admissions slots. We were going to hear from university administrators about the damage to dear old Ivy. And yes, I hungered to cross-examine the starch out of those administrators’ shirts.

Two other A.U.S.A.’s sat at the government table, a man and a woman, both in their early thirties, each with a laptop. They were typing away, either taking notes or playing solitaire. Behind them, in the row of chairs in front of the railing that separates the gallery from the well of the courtroom—technically the “bar”—sat three more government types. Assistants or consultants or investigative personnel, who knows? They had their own laptops. At their feet were neatly arranged expansion files with color-coded folders.

Oh, bring on your minions. I’m always outnumbered but never outgunned.

Margaret Bolden told the jury that Agent Wisniewski would be the first witness and would give them a tour of the conspiracy. He would explain both the larger conspiracy involving Max Ringle and this particularly devious scheme involving Kip Lassiter. The “exam bribery tentacle,” she called it. Agent Wisniewski would play numerous recorded conversations for the jury, each of which would implicate the defendant.

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