RUDY VERITAS

J'ACCUSE - Part IX

On the day my indictment was unsealed - St. Patrick's Day 2003 - I was arrested at my home and taken first to the U.S. Attorney's Office.  I was then moved to a holding cell beneath the courthouse.  This was a big day for me since I had never been handcuffed before and had never been in jail.  With the exception of a few speeding tickets, I had never had any interaction with law enforcement on a personal basis. 

Before being put in the cell, I was fingerprinted and photographed.  "Wow, this is my mug shot," I thought to myself.  I arrived in that holding cell at about 9 AM.  I had spoken to Jerry Shargel, my attorney, from my house before I left.  I expected him to meet me and get me out of that cell as quickly as possible.  But that was not to be.  Jerry had been waiting for days for the jury in Peter Gotti's case to return with a verdict.  Although I did not know this while in the cell, the jury had announced they had reached a verdict that morning and Jerry was at Federal Court in Brooklyn (Interestingly, Gotti and I would later be in the same unit in prison).  I sat in that cell and grew increasingly pissed and nervous.  Why wasn't he coming?  Why was this taking so long?  What did it mean?  I was a total neophyte to all this and every tea leaf I interpreted as bad news.  Around noon one of Jerry's associates came to tell me what was going on and why he hadn't shown up.  Although I wasn't happy, at least now I knew why.  

When I was first brought down to the holdings cells I was put in a cell by myself.  I was grateful for this.  As time went by other men were brought in with me.  I was conspicuous by being the only white person not to mention the only one in a suit.  Although very nervous at first, in time I was glad for the company.  None of these guys was particularly scary.  I remember one young hispanic guy in particular.

You know how you read about suspects/defendants who are placed in cells with government informants and in short order the defendant is giving up all sorts of information about his crimes to a total stranger?  I always had a hard time believing that.  Who is stupid enough to tell a total stranger something you didn't want your prosecutor to know?  But sure enough this hispanic fellow is telling me about his drug crimes and where all the money is hidden that the government is looking for.  Was he being truthful?  Who knows.  But I thought it incredibly odd he was telling me this.

At some point the guards brought lunch which consisted of turkey sandwiches from a deli.  I looked at the sandwiches and turned up my nose.  I did not eat them.  I mention this only because when I returned to this same cell two years later, I would have a much different reaction to that turkey sandwich.

At around 3 or 4 PM Jerry finally arrived and I was taken to a holding cell right outside the courtroom.  At this point I had no idea who the judge assigned to my case would be.  As you may know, in the Federal system it is done by lottery.  Jerry and I had discussed beforehand who we would want as a judge and who we definitely did not want.  The spectrum ranged from Judge Sheindlin - positive - to Judge Casey who is known by everyone as 'the blind judge,' because he's apparently legally blind - negative. 

I was taken into the courtroom and the rest you pretty much know from watching TV court dramas.  There was however a lot of press there.  The one thing that struck me as very odd, then and in the future, was that Judge Lewis Kaplan never asked me to plead to the charges.  He never spoke to me at all.  The prosecution asked for half a million dollars and a whole host of conditions for my bail.  I turned to Jerry at one point and told him to object to them.  He refused.  He told me if we contested anything, the Government would read the chats that were supposedly found on my computer.  I said, "Let them," and he replied, "you don't want that."  I had no way of knowing at that point pre-discovery that these additional chats were mainly fabrications as well.  I knew what I had chatted about on the computer.  And however embarrassing, they were all perfectly legal and constitutionally protected speech.  One of the conditions requested by the Government was so broad and vague that even the judge couldn't approve it.  The Government wanted language inserted in the conditions that prohibited me from going anywhere where children might be present.  Kaplan rightly pointed out that this would prevent me from shopping at Bloomingdales.  He said he would not approve that one and told them to come back with better language.  They never did.  As we walked out I asked Jerry how Kaplan rated (meaning 1-10 as a good judge).  He paused and said without much conviction, "He's a five."  Jerry's poor judgement would prove to be never worse than in that assessment.

I learned a lot from that exchange between Kaplan and Deborah Landis, my prosecutor.  Debbie had somehow gotten into her head that I was the embodiment of evil.  I was simply the worst person on earth.  As such, she would behave in every instance in a completely over the top manner.  She would lie, exaggerate and use the worst kind of hyperbole.  What I started to realize that day was if you pushed back hard she would cave. 

Unfortunately for me, Jerry pushed back maybe once or twice during the entirety of my case.  In almost every instance he refused to challenge her.  One of the reasons I had hired Jerry was the incorrect notion on my part that because he was personal friends with Debbie that would benefit me.  Just the opposite turned out to be true.  In every instance he would excuse her behavior as normal and routine. By the end it was only Jerry who believed that. 

We left the courtroom and I waited for an elevator.  Jerry and Henry Mazurek, his associate, called me over to an open elevator.  It was full of reporters.  More than that, Tom Robbins who had started this all by co-creating and printing a series of fabricated chats attributed to me was in the cab as well.  As we exited, Robbins said mockingly, "Good luck, Russell."  I was furious at Jerry and Henry for putting me in that position. 

We went down to a room where defendants arrange bail.  Unbeknownst to me, Jerry and Ray had arranged my bail previously.  We were there to sign papers.  This was also the first time I had ever come face to face with my prosecutor, Debbie Landis.  Since I'm my father's son and was taught to always behave in a civil manner, I walked over to her, put out my hand and said, "Debbie, Russell Harding."  She looked at me with utter horror.  Like Pol Pot was casually introducing himself to her.  At first she wouldn't shake my hand but then reluctantly gave me a fish handshake.

As we exited the building there was a huge mob of reporters and cameras.  Jerry turned to me and whispered, "Gotti didn't have this many (meaning John, not Peter)."  It was a long walk to the garage where Jerrry had parked his car and the cameras followed and the reporters shouted questions. I didn't rate the waiting Town Car that you usually see when high profile defendants exit that building (Bernie Maddoff, Martha Stewart, etc.).

Jerry and I drove a few blocks and met Ray who was waiting in his car.  I drove back to my house with Ray.  He told me during that trip that he had met Debbie a few weeks prior when he went down there to arrange bail.  "What did you think of her," I asked him.  "Total cunt," he said.  Ray told me that during the entire time she was asking him questions she kept referring to Liz Harding as, "Russell's mother"  Finally at some point Ray said, "you mean my wife."  Debbie said no, not your wife, his mother.  She would not be convinced that Liz Harding was not only my mother but Ray's wife.  And that Ray had only been married once.  This was typical of Debbie. Her research somehow told her Ray had remarried and I was the product of his first marriage, and even Ray couldn't convince her otherwise.  That's Debbie in a nutshell -  bad, lazy research that she then defends to the death. 

As luck would have it George Bush announced a deadline for the start of the Iraq war that night.  I was relieved because I knew my story would be moved further back inside the papers the next day.

As the weeks went by Jerry received huge binders of discovery from the Government.  It was mostly receipts from trips I took or meals I had that were billed to HDC. Amusingly, at least half a dozen binders were e-mails from my deputy Luke Cusack's office account.  I say amusing because Luke had this strange habit of refusing to ever delete an e-mail.  The head of IT at HDC had complained to me about this because his e-mails were taking up a lot of space on the server and he asked me to talk to Luke. 

I did but Luke didn't want to delete anything so I didn't push it.  It was odd because in most cases like mine where a conspiracy is alleged you would expect to find some, any, e-mails between the parties confirming the conspiracy: a hint, a mention, an allusion - something.  But there wasn't a single e-mail or Blackberry post that could in any way have backed-up the charge of a conspiracy.  I mean really nothing.

That wasn't surprising to me since I wasn't engaged in any conspiracy, but I thought how disappointed the staff at the U.S. Attorney's Office must have been after going through all those documents and finding nothing.  Especially since I am sure they thought they had a gold mine in having Luke's entire e-mail correspondence with me intact.  The only e-mail worth mentioning was one from Luke to me that mentions Richard Roberts' expenses (he was Chairman of HDC and NYC's Housing Commissioner).

Through this period I was continuing to see my psychiatrist, Dr. Allan Collins.  Judge Kaplan had made a condition of my bail that I continue to see Collins; at my expense of course.  Collins, as Chair of Psychiatry at Lenox Hill, wasn't cheap.  He was costing me $250/hr.  I found our sessions increasingly less useful but was now compelled to see him regardless.  In addition, I was speaking and occasionally seeing Mark Mills the forensic shrink my first lawyer had hired and Jerry had kept on.  Mills was continuing his practice of shaking me down for large amounts of cash while never, ever presenting me with an invoice. 

As I've told you before, Mills' MO was to have his assistant call me say on a Thursday and tell me I had to Fedex to him that day $5,000 for them to have on Friday.  The calls were always urgent, frantic and out of the blue.  Since I had come to rely on Mills as a last resort for my panic attacks I was afraid not to send the money.  I came to believe - and Shargel later agreed - that Mills' millionaire lifestyle (home on Foxhall Road in DC, week long trips with his family first class at Claridge's in London, new 7 series BMW, St. Albans for his kids, etc.) was not being met by his consultant fees.  I came to believe that the frantic calls were associated with his Amex bills being due.  But that was just a guess. 

Around this time Jerry hired a jury consultant who did a few hours of work and billed me $10,000.  I met her once for a few minutes and she threw some questions at me to see what kind of witness I'd make, since it was always my intention to appear as a witness on my own behalf.  She gave me all sorts of accolades after my grilling, but who knows if that was the truth.

My days at this point were spent almost entirely alone and I was in a perpetual state of fear, panic and dread.  With the exception of the MCC, no time in prison ever rivaled the horrors of this period.  Those commentators and yahoos who tell you that defendants out on bail living in a nice apartment are carefree enjoying their freedom have never been through this experience.  It's beyond hellish.  Your life comes to a complete standstill and even the ability to move about freely only serves as a constant reminder that others are moving forward with their lives while yours is stuck in limbo.

Early every morning I would take Seabe for a walk to Central Park.  I would be in shorts or sweats and stare at all the men in suits along Fifth Avenue starting their day.  I imagined they had not a care in the world as they went off to work.  I, on the other hand, was trapped in this time vortex - never moving forward or backward, just standing still and slowly losing my mind.

Jerry seeminlgly kept to his promise to check with me before speaking to Ray or answering any questions from him.  I say this because Ray had become increasingly more direct in wanting to know what was going on in my case.  I blamed him slightly for having messed things up with my prior lawyer and their joint strategy so I wanted him kept away from the case going forward.  I placated him unsuccessfully by saying, "everything's fine."  He didn't believe it but I would offer him no more.

It became ever more difficult for me to visit Shargel in his office.  Every time I would go there I would get physically ill.  That's not helpful when you're under federal indictment.  Around this time Jerry informed me that Debbie had subpoenaed my medical records from every doctor she had found in my Rolodex.  As a Harding, I have an abiding belief in quality doctors and I had many of them: GP, internist, podiatrist, orthopedic surgeon, dentist, diet doctor, five different psychiatrists going back 20+ years, dermatologist, opthamologist and on and on.  Debbie subpoenaed my medical records from every single one of them.  Let no lawyer or TV cop drama lead you to believe that in the face of a federal prosecutor your medical records are confidential - especially your psychiatric records/notes. 

I exploded and insisted Jerry contest these subpoenas.  He flatly refused.  He argued that we needed to pick our battles carefully and in any event, what would they find.  As I knew and was borne out, whatever it was Debbie was looking for turned up nothing, but that was never my issue.  This was about never giving an inch.  Jerry's philosophy turned out to be give in on everything.  Especially when it meant accepting the idea that his personal friend Debbie was out of control.  According to Jerry, everything she did was routine and matter of course.  This was all just following the pattern of any criminal matter.  I never could accept that, although he convinced himself of it fully.

 

 

 

 

J'ACCUSE - Part VIII

All during the summer and fall of 2002 I started to grow more alone.  Some of my friends continued to reach out to me, but most took a walk.  That was the expression I would use to describe this, "took a walk."  Most of the friends who continued to reach out to me I pushed away.  One close friend from the Mayor's Office wrote me several sweet letters and I did not respond to a one.  Hard to explain why.  There are some experiences in life that unless you go through them yourself, you can never fully comprehend.  I imagine cancer or a debilitating illness would be one, the loss of a child by a parent would be another.  You can empathize or try to relate but you will never become fully imbued with the emotion and terror of the thing.  That is what a full fledged federal prosecution coupled with a libelous smear campaign in the press was for me.  It was something I could try and convey but you simply could not 'get' the nightmare unless you lived it personally or with me day in and day out.  I pushed most of my friends away because of the terrific amount of shame I felt about all this.  I wasn't just a deeply closeted homosexual who was outed by the Village Voice, I was now labeled a pedophile (pervert and sicko were the words the NY Post most often used/uses).

The rest of my friends I ignored because I just didn't want them getting involved in this.  I had no desire to make more people go through this with me.  I mean emotionally, not legally.  Most people I had known - personally and professionally - began to ignore me.  I lived near and worked out at the same gym with Jeff Blau, President of The Related Companies (see post: Home, Sweet, Home).  We had done a lot of business together and I had been very good to Related.  Now when he saw me at the gym or on our block he would walk away briskly or cross the street'.  I just simply couldn't understand that type of behavior.  But as time went on I came to blame no one for taking a walk.  People react to these types of things differently.  Although I had proven that I could never behave that way, I just couldn't blame others.

{I say 'proven' because back in 1991 a former Giuliani staffer from the 89 campaign was sentenced to federal prison.  He and I had become close friends.  His crimes were committed while working as Director of Advance for Elizabeth Dole when she was Labor Secretary in 1990.  His name was Mike Kaiser and he had a long history with Bob and Elizabeth Dole.  It was Mike who had arranged for her to do a Rudy fundraiser in 89.  Anyway, he was indicted for stealing Mrs. Dole's credit cards and taking off to Europe.  He had been living far, far above his means for years.  He had a penchant for antiques in his Capitol Hill townhouse.  There were other embezzlement charges to go along with the credit cards. 

Like me he had shut down and withdrew.  I followed his case and became aware through a mutual friend that he had been sentenced to a prison camp in the desert near Los Angeles.  I was planning a vacation to LA to visit friends and decided I should visit him.  I mentioned this to my friend Mindy Franklin, Randy Levine's wife.  She was extremely opposed to me going to visit Mike.  She too had been close friends with him during the 89 campaign.  The three of us had spent a lot of time together.  She mentioned my intentions to Denny Young.  Mindy relayed that Denny said if I were to visit Mike, I would be threw with the them (Rudy, Denny, et al.).  I then told Mindy something that would become prophetic.  I said, "He's all alone.  His family wants nothing to do with him, he has no friends.  If I were ever in prison, all alone, I'd sure as hell want someone to come visit me."

And so I called the Bureau of Prisons and inquired what the procedures were to visit someone.  I then wrote Mike and asked him to put me on his visitor list. I drove deep into the desert and like a mirage there appeared Camp Boron.  I believe it has subsequently been closed for some reason.  My father had told me to bring lots and lots of quarters (for the vending machines).  We had a good visit and he told me very quietly of how the US Attorney had taken a dislike to him.  They had arranged that he be placed at Lorton outside DC.  Bad, bad things happened to him there that I will not repeat here.  He was housed at max. facilities while he made his way to the West Coast and more bad things took place.  It was all very sad from every perspective, needless to say.}

The one person I had become closer to during this time was Mo Rocca.  You might know his name from the Daily Show or other TV appearances.  Mo and I had been introduced in 1999 by one of my oldest friends who happened to be his agent.  Mo having an interest in government and politics, learned from his agent what I did and asked her if she wouldn't mind asking me if I could arrange a tour for him of Gracie Mansion.  The administrator of GM was a friend so I arranged a private tour for him.  He wrote me back a nice thank you note and we became friends.  

Mo and I started to spend more and more time together.  I didn't have any openly gay friends so it was nice to finally have one. Mo and I socialized before my troubles, but we started to spend more and more time together after they began.  Mo is an interesting fellow.  He has a lot of varied interests and is incredibly bright, personable and funny.  

Mo had an abiding dislike of Jon Stewart, his boss, and especially of the show's executive producer, Madeline Smithberg.  He felt that Stewart unfairly slighted him in favor of Stephen Colbert, a Stewart favorite.  Mo thought Colbert a preening, no talent and resented the attention he got from Stewart.  Mo eventually left the show just as it was becoming a national phenomenon.  It was probably the worst career decision he could have possibly made (kind of a Shelley Long, David Caruso career choice).  Stephen Colbert, Steve Carrell, John Oliver, Ed Helms, Demitri Martin etc. would go on to great success from that show.

Ironic side note.  During our friendship, Mo had mentioned to me at one point that he considered the lowest appellation an entertainer could have was "TV Personality."  I was reminded of this while in prison and listening to NPR's current events quiz show, Wait, Wait Don't Tell Me .  Mo had always been introduced as Daily Show contributor and then author.  On this day - and every appearance that followed - Peter Sagal introduced him as "TV personality Mo Rocca."  I cringed for him.

Mo started to do morning pop-culture analysis for VH-1, CNN and then The Today Show.  I helped him with material for many of those appearances.  I have a small knack for finding old movie quotes or scenes that analogize or contrast current happenings.  Mo loved using classic movie allusions.  He would tell me stories of Katie Couric.  She took a big shine to him and eventually convinced him to fire his agent - my friend - and hire hers.  Mo liked Katie but was also scared of her.  She apparently treated poor Matt Lauer terribly.  Mo told me story after story of how she would announce to Lauer shortly before a big interview that he was to conduct, that she would be doing it instead.  According to Mo,  Lauer always took these slights and never said a word, like a cuckolded husband.

Mo also knew lots of people in the entertainment industry, especially gay industry types.  He knew the producer for a very popular Fox News show (still on-air) who told him that its anchor (still on-air) was gay and a coke addict.  Another cable star on CNN was not only gay -which most people already know - but is into some real serious S&M.  Mo had an amazing knack for meeting someone and finding out that they were gay and befriending them.  He did that at an benefit dinner with a famed New York Times reporter.  I was in awe, not only of his gaydar, but his ability to bring the topic to the fore with someone he had just met.  He was disarming that way. He had a voracious sexual appetite too.  He lived across the street from a bar in the Village where he would go most nights and manage to pick someone up and bring them back home.  He certainly didn't seem the type, but he was awfully successful at it.  

The worst part for me during this time was the waiting.  When you are being investigated your life comes to a complete standstill.  Your fate is completely out of your hands during this period so you just keep waiting for the shoes to drop.  I was a nervous wreck.  My depression deepened and thoughts of suicide preoccupied me regularly.  I had no will and asked my father to find me an estates attorney who would draft one for me.  He did and I met with them to lay out my assets.  I didn't have very much but I had my apartment which had increased in value four fold since I had purchased it six years earlier.  I had mentioned suicide to Jerry on a number of occasions and he informed me that should a defendant kill himself before the case reached a jury the indictment would be dismissed (this would later become a national issue when Ken Lay dropped dead).  This was of interest to me since I didn't want my assets seized by the government after my death.  But at this point there was no indictment, just an on-going investigation by the U.S. Attorney.

There also appeared during this time hateful internet postings and blogs devoted to my supposed venality while at HDC.  Tom Robbins had reported that my secretary used petty cash to pay for breakfast for me.  It was made to sound like this was a daily occurrence.  In fact, over 3 1/2 years this happened maybe 15-20 times and it was just a bagel in each instance.  Someone told me there was a mocking website where you could supposedly contribute towards the cost of my bagels.  It was even more ridiculous because HDC had a long standing policy - long before I arrived - that any employee who worked through lunch could order-out on the corporation.  HDC was filled with take-out menus from local places where we had accounts.  The bills each month were high but it was an HDC culture issue - just like the 100% 403(b) match - that contributed towards us paying average salaries but attracting top-flight talent.  I had revamped the corporation from top to bottom but tried to remain mindful of what made HDC such an attractive place to work.  

Fall turned to Winter and came the New Year 2003 without any resolution to all this.  It was still unknown to us how many images Debbie Landis was claiming had been in my possession beyond the one she said they had found on a disk.  She would never say and just kept claiming that they were still looking.  All the while the grand jury continued to meet and evidence was apparently being presented.  I continued to stay at home most of the time with Seabe.  No joke about being man's best friend.  He certainly was mine. 

Early in 2003 the forensic psychiatrist in my case, Mark Mills, asked me to pay him a visit in D.C.  Coincidentally, I received a call from Frank Luntz asking how I was doing.  I mentioned I was going to D.C. and he asked that I stop by his house for a visit.

Frank is a quirky, funny, loyal and extremely intelligent guy.  We had become friends during Rudy's campaign.  Frank doesn't have close friends and during those years I would have to say I was one of his closest.  Whenever he was in NYC we would meet for lunch or dinner.  Frank never gives you notice of his appearances.  He'll just call and say, "I'm here, what are you doing right now?"  I would also visit him at his home or office in D.C. regularly.  I flew down for instance for his so-called retirement party (he was retiring from polling for political candidates) that was held in a reception room in Congress.  I had a long, very engaging talk with Tom Delay that night.  Only Luntz could manage to get Tom Delay and Tom Daschle at the same party.  As a surprise I had stopped off beforehand at Sarge's Deli on Second Avenue to pick up his favorite food, noodle kugel, and brought it with me to D.C.

Most people don't know for instance that Frank's Jewish.  He also abstains totally from alcohol but we could never figure out if he was an alcoholic.  He would always dodge the question when asked.  The other two great mysteries about Frank were if he wore a toupee (we debated it constantly) and whether or not he was gay.  Frank never had a girlfriend and no one had ever heard of one in his past. 

In 2007, following Luntz's prediction in the New York Times that Rudy would receive 60% of the vote, Rudy wanted him fired.  It was up to Ray to calm Rudy down but also to calm Luntz who completely freaked out, realizing his error and not wanting to be sacked.

There is also a sad, dark side to him that the public is unaware of.  Frank would go through episodic bouts of deep depression.  They were related, I believe, to a lack of self worth and serious father issues.  When these episodes would come he would disappear for days, sometimes weeks.  It was up to his staff to cover for him.

The great thing about Giuliani people is their loyalty and heart.  Frank has a lot of professional friends and clients, but during these episodes it was only the Giuliani people who would gather round and find him help.  Ray would usually be the point person on this.  I don't think it's widely known but on at least one - and I think more - occasion Frank had to go away for treatment.  I believe Ray arranged it.  I never asked Ray directly when I found out at the time and he didn't volunteer.  At Frank's bad times Ray and Rudy would talk about what needed to be done and Ray would usually reach out to Luntz to set things right.  Giuliani people are never given the proper credit for being extremely thoughtful and compassionate at moments like that.  That was the old Rudy whom he all respected.

Sadly, for me, that get together at Frank's house in Virginia would be the last time I would see or hear from him, other than on TV.

At some point early in the new year, Mo called and asked if I wanted a computer.  He was upgrading to the latest Mac and was giving away his old one.  I had been without a computer since Jerry needlessly acquiesced to the prosecution request that I should consent not to have one at home any longer.  I had been without one for about 11 months and I was very bored siting at home all day.  So I brought Mo's computer home and reactivated my Time Warner internet service. 

The U.S. Attorney's Office would claim it was this internet service reinstatement that caused them to "rush" to indict me more than a year after they began investigating.  They would use words like 'urgent' and 'deeply troubling' to describe their need to move "swiftly."  So at 6 AM on St Patrick's Day 2003 the lobby intercom rang.  The person on the other end said in a loud, seemingly drunken voice, "Happy St. Patrick's Day, Russell."  I hung up and wasn't really quite sure whether to go back to sleep.  On the one hand, Jerry and I knew this day was imminent.  On the other, I didn't think it would be on St. Patrick's Day.

Sure enough, a few minutes later the doorbell rang and I was being arrested by investigators from the U.S. Attorney's Office and DOI.  As I knew this was coming I had made arrangements with a neighbor to take care of Seabe.  I told her I would inform the doorman and he would ring her.

My favorite story as it relates to what idiots DOI investigators are comes from that morning's arrest.  First, you have to understand that DOI has absolutely no legal standing in any of this.  When my apartment was searched a year earlier they were there in numbers but couldn't touch a thing since a Federal search warrant gives them zero jurisdiction.  But they hung around all day acting smug doing nothing productive.  Every court appearance I would ever have, there were not US Customs officials from my case, nor U.S. Attorney investigators.  They were all working; their presence wasn't required for motions and arguments.  But sure enough the first two rows were filled with DOI staff.  Every single court appearance there they were as opposed to actually working on City business.  As I have said before, absolutely the most useless and inept City officials are DOI personnel.  

But I digress.  As I was getting dressed, in my bedroom hovering were a Fed agent and the "lead" DOI investigator, a guy named Brian Foley (You'll most likely recall him as the lowlife who posted a threatening comment on the first day of this blog).  At one point he starts yelling at me regarding how I was getting dressed.  He screamed that I was stalling.  Since a young age, when I donned a suit with dress shoes I would put on my socks and shoes before my shirt, suit and tie.  Why?  It's what my father did.  He told me in the army this was how they had instructed him to get dressed (the idea being in an emergency you would have your footwear on first in order to leave the barracks quickly).  Obviously, whether you put your footwear on first or last, it still takes the same amount of time, only the order is changed.  Well this guy was so stupid that he couldn't grasp that.  So I started screaming back.  Finally, the Fed guy who couldn't believe what an idiot this DOI guy was, said, "Lets everybody calm down." 

After I got dressed I kissed Seabe goodbye.  He was very confused and naturally wanted to come.  Seabe is a gorgeous yellow lab and was unusually attached to me.  He did not like being away from me, ever.  I was always afraid during law enforcement's presence that Seabe's boisterous nature could get him hurt (You may recall the young married couple who had their two yellow labs shot and killed a few years ago during a raid of their home by a Sheriff in Maryland.  After storming the house to arrest the owner and killing the two labs it occurred to them that they had the wrong house).  When I knew the search warrant was coming I had sent him away to stay with friends.

The Fed guy at this point explains to me that he's going to do me a favor.  He's going to cuff me from the front instead of the back.  This was breaking procedure and he wanted me to know this so that I should be grateful.  It's so unbelievably idiotic that they were arresting me in the first place as opposed to self surrendering.  Now I was supposed to be grateful that he was handcuffing me.  This lead investigator from the U.S. Attorney's Office, whose name I forget, and I would meet again one more time.  But while I wasn't contemptuous of him the way I was of DOI lackeys, this guy was always just a little too slick for my taste.  Like most Feds I have met before, and since, he thought he was cleverer, suaver and better dressed than he actually was.  I don't know why they all suffer from these same delusions, but they all do. 

I was lead out of the building just as the night and morning doormen were changing shifts.  They gave me very sympathetic looks and I told them to ring my neighbor to look after Seabe.  The porter volunteered to get Seabe and walk him right away.  As I sat in the back of that car heading to Federal Court, I thought to myself, "OK - at least this is now ending, so it can begin."

{Next installment - How a Gotti Kept Me in Jail, Arraignment and How Many Times Could Jerry Shargel be Wrong?}

J'ACCUSE - Part VII

During the summer and fall of 2002 the investigation went-on and the grand jury continued to do their work.  It was during the summer - and months after the search on my home - that Debbie revealed they had found one illegal image of child pornography.  She explained they were continuing to look.  {For the full story on that discovery see J'Accuse Part V}.  I was devastated.  I was sure there was nothing to find.  My depression was getting worse.  I was also gaining weight which always added to my depression.  I decided to start exercising and went for 5-7 mile walks around the Central Park Reservoir every morning with Seabright and a friend of mine.  It was a very hot summer and I started to sweat off a few pounds.  I had a wedding to go to in Los Angeles that October and I wanted to lose as much weight as possible before then.

After the search warrant was executed, before anything was found, Debbie insisted to Jerry that I agree not to have a computer in my home.  Jerry agreed.  I thought this was ridiculous.  I won't argue the merits of whether I should or shouldn't have had one.  I will say that it was another of a long list of 'gives' by Jerry to Debbie.  I was merely under investigation.  At that point they had absolutely no justification for making the request or getting anyone to enforce it.  What was her leverage?  That she was going to indict me sooner?  That's a meaningless threat and a good lawyer would have told her to fuck-off unless there we a reason to say yes beyond "goodwill."  But Jerry was completely bamboozled by Debbie.  He would go on and on about what a tough guy he was with prosecutors and judges and then in the end he was always the creampuff.  In the three years he was my attorney he fought Debbie on two or three things, succeeded in one,  and that was it.  And the one thing he succeeded on, while important to me at the time, was very minor in the case.  It was also the only time I saw Jerry truly stand up to Debbie and she backed down.  If only that had been his regular practice. 

As I have said, he would always rationalize her behavior.  This was long after his associate, Henry Mazurek, came to agree with me that Debbie's behavior was vindictive and totally out of the norm of his experience.  Henry confided to me that he saw that Jerry was simply blinded by his friendship with Debbie to see her true nature.  She was a vicious, deceitful person.  It spoke so little of Jerry that he would even be friends with the likes of her.  I could never reconcile that. 

In the fall, as my depression worsened, Mark Mills, the forensic psychiatrist in the case, prevailed upon me to seek out a therapist.  Mark had been kind enough to talk me through some bad days, but he wasn't a therapist - that's not what he did.  So I asked my walking partner if she was happy with her shrink and she told me he was very good.  She told me he was the Chief of Psychiatry at Lenox Hill Hospital.  That sounded impressive so I went to see him.  My first appointment with Dr. Allan Collins was on the one year anniversary of 9/11.  For reason I won't bore you with now, that day is always very difficult for me.   At first, I thought he could help me.  He was very understanding and told me flatly that whatever chats I had online about sexual subjects, even illegal ones, were not deviant and can in fact be healthy.  He did not believe the prosecutorial view that discussing something means you will act on it.  Quite to the contrary.  He believed those chats could be a useful outlet for some as sexually repressed as I was.  He charged $250 an hour and recommended I come 2-3 times a week. 

He quickly suggested that I go on medication for the depression.  I wasn't opposed, as I had been on various anti-depressants in the past.  I had one condition.  I would not take anything that had as a major known side effect of weight gain.  I had been fat, was fat, and knew that gaining weight would defeat the purpose of any pills to cheer me up. He said he would prescribe nothing that had that side effect, he told me there were options in selecting which meds to choose.

After trying a few different things, he ended up putting me on Lexapro, Desipramine and a third pill I cannot now recall, to be taken in combination.  They never really worked very well and the depression did not let-up substantially.  But I continued to take them.

During part of this period, Tom Robbins and the Village Voice continued to run the fabricated chats that Robbins and Fred Sawyers had created.  It was amazing to me that he could get away with this.  Real newspapers continued to pick-up his stories and run them.  I developed a new disrespect for the integrity of the New York media. 

In one piece he quoted a fired HDC employee regarding my use of my company car.  Robbins went to great pains to point out that this employee was fired by me for no apparent reason.  I came off looking like a capricious, heartless boss.  The truth was that this employee - a mail room worker who backed up my driver at night - had disappeared for three days from work.  He simply didn't show up with no phone call as to his whereabouts.  When he returned he gave the VP of Human Resources some excuse and he was warned.  Again he disappeared for days with no word.  His mother called to say that he was in jail again (we had no idea he had been previously) for having beaten up his sister.  When he returned he was dismissed.  All of that was left out of Robbins' article. The fired worker came off a saint in Robbins' hands. You think all I have just relayed might have cast some doubt on the employee's credibility?

For those of you who have read Tom Robbins, whether in the Voice or the Daily News, you know that this is his modus operandi.  Why he behaves this way is a mystery.  I have to assume it is because he is just a bitter person who thinks he should have done better with his life journalistcally than bounce back and forth between the Village Voice and the Daily News.  But with Robbins, the axe is always out and the ethics sit on a shelf.  Ironic since his bread and butter stories are based on the ethics of others.  Can there be a lower form of journalist than one who simply concocts his facts and quotes?

As I have said previously, Debbie Landis, the prosecutor, was convinced of two things in this case: that I had absconded with millions of dollars as yet undiscovered and that I had done much, much more than chat on line about kids.  Towards that end she turned the world upside down trying to find some "victim" who would come forward and point an accusatory finger at me.  Of course, nothing came of it.  But Jerry and I were tiring of this.  Jerry suggested and found a polygrapher whom he hoped would allay Debbie's baseless concerns.  Jerry hired a man out of Virginia who had the longest CV either of us had ever seen.  He was the former chief polygrapher for the US Army and the FBI.  Jerry asked me before he hired him and then again on the day of the test if I was sure I wanted to do this.  I did not particularly want to, only because I resented the need.  I was not obligated to prove I had not committed a crime.  She was required to demonstrate that I had.  Jerry had never seemed 100% convinced that my assertions were true.  He told me that if I had something to hide we might not want to do this even though were the test to come out badly he naturally wouldn't turn it over to Debbie (she had no idea we were doing this).  Jerry clearly had had clients lie to him before and he wasn't taking anyone's word as fact.  I told him for the 50th time, I had done nothing, and there's nothing to worry about.  It was after meeting the polygrapher that I saw in the modern era polygraphs are done on laptops, not those huge machines with bouncing needles and paper.

It's a myth that questions in a polygraph are usually sprung on a subject.  i have done some research into this since I took mine.  A bad reaction is heightened by the subject knowing a particularly troubling question is coming.  On TV shows the questions are sprung on the subject without any warning.  In real life an examiner will tell the subject what's coming, as it heightens the fear of that question you want to evade.  The examiner in my case told me broadly what he was going to ask.  He mentioned that he would ask me questions regarding sex with minors; the word he used was 'minors.'   I told him not to ask me that.  I told him it wasn't exculpatory enough.  In some states it is legal, with consent to have sex with 14 or 15 yos.  I said ask me if i have ever had any sexual contact or relations with anyone under the age of 18, as I had not - ever.  Because of my sexual repression I had done nothing until college and then only with men my age or older. 

When the test was done Jerry went to talk to the polygrapher and I waited.  He came back beaming.  I don't think i had ever seen him that happy.  He told me I passed with flying colors (In reality, the polygrapher explained to me, this expression has no meaning, what you hope to score ideally, which I did, was the lowest possible on a deceptiveness scale).  Jerry seemed relieved that what I had been telling him all along had been proved.  He would send the results to Debbie who could not challenge this polygraphers work, much as she would have liked to.  She did however back off on this part of the investigation.  None of that episode made me especially happy.  I resented that I had to take the test and then later on that it was and remains totally inadmissible.  Debbie would frequently make cryptic allusions in court to not knowing what I may have done in my past with children.  Since the polygraph wasn't admissible - however she knew and did not dispute the results - it was a cheap shot and another in a long series of disadvantages that defendants suffer under in Federal Court.

In Part VIII I am indicted and arrested.

J'ACCUSE - PART VI

Funny story.  When I went to see Mark Mills in DC, he had me take an MMPI (Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory) test.  It's a standard forensic diagnostic tool to ascertain personality disorders and/or addictions.  It tries to give a complete psychiatric profile.  It is over 500 questions and takes a few hours to complete.  Since that first one I have taken about 15 of them.  The questions are phrased very simply and require yes or no responses.  One of the features of the test is repetition. The MMPI is designed to detect deception in the answers.  It will ask maybe 20 questions related to drug or alcohol addiction but phrased differently and spaced throughout the test.    So it may ask, "I think I have a drinking problem."  If you were in denial or attempting to deceive, your answer would be NO.  But it will also ask, "My friends think I drink too much."  You might very well answer YES to this question not believing your friends are correct about your alcohol consumption.

So I took the test.  Some of the questions I answered YES to were, "People are talking about me," and "I think I am being followed."  Now those questions are there partly to detect schizophrenia or psychotic behavior.  I answered YES because people were talking about me and the press and photographers were following me.  But the test is not designed for high profile targets of criminal investigations.  Mills faxed the answers and waited an hour for the results.  He told me I had to take the test over; I had scored the highest possible on the paranoia scale.  He told me ordinarily that score would make me committable.  He said to try and answer NO on the questions that regular people would respond to in the negative.

It is hard to fully explain the feeling after a search warrant has been executed on your home.  If it were a piece of clothing you would burn it.  I am in no way comparing rape to a search warrant, but there is a similar feeling of being violated.  My apartment never felt right to me again.  But it was not a shirt or even a car, it was my home and I could not get rid of it.  So I put back everything that they had strewn about and tried to clean up the mess as best I could.

That took place on a Friday.  I had planned previously to travel to South Carolina the next day to see Seabright.  I decided to go to get away from the apartment and clear my head.  No sooner had I arrived there then Ray called me to suggest that I fire my lawyer, Irwin Rochman and replace him with Gerald Shargel.  I was unhappy with Irwin's performance.  He should have had better intelligence that the Feds were involved in this case and had been for weeks.  He was too focused on DOI.  I also wasn't happy with how he had treated me personally; always as Ray's kid and never as a real paying client.  But the thought of firing him in the middle of this hadn't really occurred to me until Ray called.  Ray seemed unusually adamant that I do this, which was odd to me since he pulled Irwin's strings and had things totally within his control, which was how he liked it.  My guess is that Ray felt horribly guilty about having mucked this up.  He was calling all the shots and yet he had missed the whole federal piece of this.  Things were now going to be much more serious with federal involvement as opposed to state.  Something else would make this urgency by Ray seem unusually odd.  Ray had made the secret $25,000 payment to Irwin a few weeks before (I would only learn of this about 8 weeks after I fired Irwin).  Why pay him that money and then urgently seek his dismissal?  Something was fishy about all this but I never pursued it with Ray. 

Why Shargel?  I think he thought Jerry was a good criminal defense lawyer but also through Ray's partner, Rick Fischbein, a friend of Shargel's, Ray believed he could still exercise control over the case.  In that at least, he was mistaken. 

I had to be the one who called Irwin and I did a few minutes after getting off the phone with Ray.  I thought Irwin would be happy to be done with me.  But he argued and resisted being taken off the case.  I didn't tell him the real reasons, I felt it would be rude - stupid I know.  So I told him I wanted to go with someone who had more federal experience.  Ray had also managed to find out in that short window of time that Jerry was friends with the federal prosecutor in my case.  Irwin admitted that he knew her and that they had had bad experiences.  Of all the mistakes I committed in my handling of this case, this, right there, was the biggest.  I thought that having an attorney who got along well with the prosecutor was a good thing; having an attorney who didn't was a bad thing.  At least in the federal system, that was a horrible miscalculation on my part and more than anything else that would happen in this case, cost me most dearly.

So after getting off the phone with Irwin I called Shargel. We set up to meet in his office when I returned to NYC.  It bothered me that Irwin had made away with so much money.  Given the hours expended and his hourly rate of $600 he hadn't used up even half of the $50,000 retainer I had given him just 8 weeks before.  Not to mention the $25K he had gotten from Ray.  All this without a legally required Retainer Agreement being signed.

I met Jerry and wrote out another check for $50,000.  He, his associate, and I met for more than three hours.  Most of our initial meeting was taken up with me just telling them the story of Fred.  It's an extremely complex tale and much longer in its totality than what I have given here previously.  Telling the story was, back then, always difficult.  I have since gotten over some of the embarrassment factor; either because of time, the number of occasions I have had to tell it since then or that it's been written about so much subsequently, but at that time it was very difficult and emotional to talk about all these very private sexual matters.  I was, as I have said, an intensely private person and all this revelation, even to one's attorney, was extremely hard to do.  But I did it and held back nothing.  I also told him that if we were to go forward on this together I would have to have his absolute assurance that he would have no communications with my father regarding this case; certainly not without my prior approval.  He agreed completely and said he would have it no other way. This was the first week of May, 2002.

He told me his impressions of the prosecutor and his first conversation with her regarding my case.  He said she was very thorough but not harsh and that this was her first case involving child porn.  She said she wasn't familiar with the statutes and would have to get up to speed on all this.  He told me that he and the prosecutor, Deborah Landis, were friends; they had dinner together fairly often.  His impressions of Debbie Landis would in no way match the woman who prosecuted me for the next three years.  Somebody, either Ray or Tony, spoke to the person who hired Debbie in the US Attorney's office.  His impressions were similar to Jerry's although without any warmth.  That same person, when asked about her conduct a year later, would say that it was beyond any reasonable investigation and that her behavior was "over-the-top." 

One of Debbie's first actions was to use the Rolodex they had taken from my apartment and subpoena all my medical records from every doctor - medical or psychiatric - in my life.  Back then I went to lots of doctors: podiatrist, weight loss, dentist, ophthalmologist, internist, dermatologist, orthopedic surgeon, etc.  All received subpoenas demanding my medical records.  I was furious.  Jerry informed me of this very casually.  I told him I wanted it stopped.  I didn't understand why he was allowing this; there was no basis whatever for requesting these records.  And worst of all, she had subpoenaed my psychiatrists dating back to when I was 17 years old.  Wasn't there some patient confidentiality; I see it on cop shows all the time.  No, he told me, there was no confidentiality.  I was floored at that discovery and not sure that I ever fully believed him.  But forgetting that for a moment, how could she do this with absolutely no rationale?  It was completely a fishing expedition.  And fishing for what? 

Jerry absolutely refused to do anything to stop it.  He thought I was being silly and kept telling me to save our objections for the big things.  "What was there to find?"  He asked me.  "Nothing," I said, "but that's hardly the point. Why should we allow her to do this?  Not to mention that this is going to poison the relationships I have with my physicians.  Nobody wants a patient whose records are subpoenaed by the US Government in a criminal matter."   Of course he could have stopped it and successfully.  No judge would have allowed those subpoenas with no basis for the records had they been objected to.  But he refused and that would become a pattern in the case.  She did something outrageous and he would defend her actions as completely reasonable and ordinary.  He would tell me over and over again that I simply didn't understand federal criminal law.  As for my doctors; I turned out to be right.  Two refused my requests for an appointment and a third made so many nasty remarks about the case that I stopped going.

There was now, at this point, a grand jury convened.  Debbie began subpoenaing nearly everyone I knew.  Most of the witnesses could not possibly have added anything to the case.  This was all being done to harass me, to fish, and because Debbie is just a bad person.  The stories that came back from the grand jury tore my heart apart.  Tony Carbonetti's wife, Carol, was called (at that time she was still his girlfriend).  Tony told me that Debbie was so hostile - screaming and carrying on - to Carol that Carol actually broke down on the stand.  You need to understand that Carol is a sweet girl but has a tough Irish side to her too.  I realized that Debbie's behavior must have been truly over-the-top to make Carol cry.  Then there was Ralph.

Ralph was my dog walker; a great, 25 yo Puerto Rican kid.  Seabright worshiped Ralph and Ralph was a real rock for me while all this went on.  Remember back, when I told you that I had cleaned out a storage room before I was planning on killing myself?  And that they had discovered its existence on the day of the search warrant?  Well apparently they went to the storage facility and got the videotapes of the day I cleaned it out.  They then had FBI agents scour the neighborhood with those photos trying to identify the person I was with.  I think in the end one of my doormen gave Ralph up.  Debbie sent four (4), yes four (4), FBI agents to the Upper East Side one afternoon while Ralph was walking dogs to hand him a subpoena to appear before the grand jury.  The subpoena listed his full name as "AKA Ralph."  Can you imagine - with 9/11 only a few months old - Debbie had four FBI agents wasting their time handing a subpoena to a 5'6, 120lb, unarmed kid.   Any NYPD cop could have done this or even one armed FBI agent, but four?  Further, there was a memorandum to US Attorney's offices from Robert Mueller, Director of the FBI, only weeks before specifically prohibiting this type of use of FBI personnel, it was revealed in Newsweek.

I got Ralph a lawyer, especially after the Carol episode.  He told me that, again, Debbie had yelled and threatened.  She did this first in front of the grand jury and then when Ralph asked to speak to his lawyer, in front of them.  Ralph had nothing to say.  He helped me throw out some books, boxes and memorabilia from HDC and EDC.  The whole thing took 30 minutes.  He had nothing to contribute.  Debbie wouldn't accept this.  It was another extraordinary waste of time and money on Debbie's part. Ralph told me that it was obvious by their reactions that the grand jurors were embarrassed by Debbie's behavior.  When she was done she asked the grand jurors if they had any questions.  They had one.  What type of dog did I have? 

The really remarkable thing to me then and as time went on, was Debbie's obsession with that storage room.  It would be one thing, I admit, if something or things were missing from HDC - documents or ledgers, I don't know what.  But there never was a single allegation of anything missing.  Since there was none, what was her obsession with that room?   Jerry once asked her what her obsession was with that room since HDC reported nothing missing.  She had no answer.  Jerry and I eventually came to agree that Debbie could not accept the fact that I had misused my HDC expense account with no effort whatsoever to cover-up and that I had not done anything else. She believed that no one would misuse their expense account, leave a paper trail miles long behind and not do anything else.  In her prosecutor's mind it didn't add up.  Jerry and I became convinced that Debbie firmly believed that there existed some Swiss or Bahamian bank account with millions that I had stolen; even though there was not the slightest suggestion that any monies had gone missing or were unaccounted for at HDC.  Moreover, we believed, she thought that the storage room and any documents I had thrown out were the key to discovering this.  I asked Jerry over and over, "How could I have destroyed HDC documents when HDC isn't claiming that any documents are missing?"  It was one of the few times we concurred that Debbie's actions made no sense. 

Like the alchemist who believes, - no, is absolutely dead sure - that the key to turning lead into gold is just a matter of persevering to find the proper formula, so I became equally obsessed with time.  I was not in a good mental state during this period.  Everything made me think of past years.  Any reference to a past event or incident would instantly cause me to think of the month and year in question.  And the constant question in my mind was: would I want to go back to that point in time?  I was almost convinced that if I tried hard enough I could cause myself to return to a point in time before all this happened.  I just didn't know the secret or wasn't trying hard enough.  Each time I would look at a TV section I would see movie listings and beside them the year of release.  1983, 1999, 1990, 1971 - was this a year I would want to return to as opposed to being in the present.  Anything and everything I encountered would instantly translate into that question.  From looking at cars on the street and guessing their model year or what year I purchased a piece of clothing in my closet.  Everything represented a potential time when this nightmare wasn't happening.  And my most fervent desire was to escape from the present.

J'ACCUSE - Part V - The Search

DISCLAIMER:  I had planned to state this at the beginning of Part V even before my hearing in Westchester, but afterward it seems even more imperative.  I pleaded guilty to the charge of possession of child pornography.  I did, do and will maintain that acceptance of responsibility inherent in my plea.  My plea agreement prohibits me from denying my guilt, and I do not and have not denied it.  I have in various forums raised questions about the evidence used against me.  I freely admit to that.

But I made myself a promise in prison.  I swore that when I got out I would at some point relay the factual series of events that surrounded that possession.  I did not know back then that this opportunity would be that venue, but so be it.  Every word here, as with all on this site, is 100% truthful and almost all can be verified by the individuals involved or the records that exists.  You have to take my word alone for very little of what appears below.  It is of no concern to me whether you believe the following.  The important thing is that the truth finally exist.

When we ended Part IV I was in DC after discovering that the Village Voice had not run the chats with Fred but rather a Richard Roberts story.  I had just left my dog in S.C. with friends believing that the story would appear and I would move to take my own life.

I headed home from D.C.  I thought a bullet had been dodged and the Voice wouldn't run the chats.  I believed that the chats they had were genuine chats I had engaged in with Fred.  I had, at that time, no way of knowing what they were planning to run instead were chats fabricated by Fred and Tom Robbins.  My fear in their appearing in print was not criminality, since nothing I had said or done with Fred on line was criminal, but rather the unendurable embarrassment of their salacious content.

So I went back to NY and made a conscious decision to leave my dog in S.C. for the time being.  Why did I do that?  Why not just turn around and retrieve him?  You should know then as now the most important thing in my life was Seabright, my dog.  Nothing came in at a close second.  Why leave him?

My attorney, Irwin Rochman, and I had discussed numerous times the likelihood of a search warrant being executed on my home.  We knew Fred was alleging child porn and that the NYC Department of Investigations and, we believed, the Manhattan District Attorney would come looking soon.  Irwin asked me many times, "Is there anything we should worry about?  Is there anything in the apartment or on your computer?"  I assured him repeatedly that there was nothing there.  But I was concerned.  It had become apparent at this point that Fred Sawyers was a total psycho out for revenge for what he perceived as my having abandoned him.  I did have in my home a few zip disks and floppy disks that contained pictures of adult men I had chatted with over some time.  Since Fred was alleging child porn and I knew full well that we had never exchanged any was there something here I was missing?  Irwin put me in touch with a computer expert and I asked him about this.  He mentioned the possibility of something being embedded that I might not be aware of.  Fred had indeed sent me dozens of nude pictures of himself.  Was it possible that something had been in one of those e-mail attachments to which I wasn't aware?   It didn't seem likely but I wasn't going to take any chances, especially after it became clear that Fred had weaved these elaborate lies about himself over years.  He was capable of anything.

My computer resided in a small second bedroom/office in my home.  It was a very small space.  So on more than one occasion in the weeks that followed I cleaned out that room.  I made absolutely sure that there were no disks.  The only thing that remained of external storage were one or two shrink wrapped bundles of unopened zip disks.  Seemed no point in throwing them away. 

The reason I left Seabright in S.C. for the time being was based on the belief that a search was coming.  I did not want Seabright there when my place was swarmed with cops.  Seabright is a Labrador and like most Labs unbelievably friendly.  We used to joke that if a burglar ever broke in Seabe would grab one of his toys and nag the burglar until he threw it for him to fetch.  He was also something of a jumper.  He liked attention and sometimes jumped on people.  He was over 90lbs.  I worried for Seabe's safety should armed cops enter my apartment and mistake Seabe's friendliness for aggression.  So I left him in S.C. and waited for things to play out.

Meanwhile Irwin was in touch with DOI.  DOI wanted very much for me to come in and speak with them.  Basically undergo interrogation.  This was mid April, 2002.  Finally, DOI gave Irwin a deadline: Come in by Thursday or were not interested anymore.  The implied threat being that some legal action would ensue.  We debated the merits of talking to them and decided that because DOI was a joke as an investigatory agency there would be no benefit.  We would wait for the Manhattan DA.  Moreover, as the drip, drip of DOI's investigation went on, I started to become more unhinged.  I couldn't take the daily revelations of some new thing I was accused of doing at HDC.  As I said previously, the 9-5 torture of waiting for the phone to ring was absolutely getting to me.  I begged Irwin to go to the Manhattan DA now and see about cooperating.  "Make this end," I pleaded with him on many occasions.  But he said no, there was no benefit, we should wait.  That would prove to be one in a series of fateful mistakes.

So the Thursday deadline from DOI passed.  In hindsight it was always a phony offer because what happened the next day had been planned for some time and DOI was just seeking to impress their masters by hopefully getting something from me before the anvil fell.  It would make them look like leaders in the investigation instead of lackeys.

Friday morning at around 7AM the doorbell rings and the visitors announce themselves as U.S. Customs Service.  DOI was also there.  They brought a battering ram, the whole 9 yards.  It was, as with all these Federal things, just over the top and ridiculous.  They had a search warrant.  I asked to see it.  They began by treating me as though I was in custody.  Telling me what I could and couldn't do.  I told them I was going to call my attorney.  They said no, that I couldn't  make any calls as a search was also underway at Luke Cusack's home and they didn't want me tipping him off.  Fine I said, you watch me dial.  No, I couldn't make any calls.  Well, I told them, I have a right to speak to my attorney and I am going to pick up the phone and call him.  Are you telling me you are going to physically prevent me from speaking to my attorney?  They looked at each other for a minute and finally said no.  I couldn't find Irwin's home number at that moment and instead called my father to ask him for it.  He gave it to me and I called Irwin. 

Neither of us was surprised by the search but the inclusion of the Feds was a big surprise.  If you've never been witness to a search, it's an interesting process.  They take paper and put letters on them: a,b,c,d, etc and place one in each room.  Two guys went into the small room and started working on my computer looking for child porn.  One guy saw that I had a lot of blank videotapes.  I had gotten one of the first available VHS VCRs back in the late 70's for a birthday present and had tapes of TV shows for over 25 years.  He proceeded to use my VCR and put in tape after tape after tape for hours.  Three other people went through my bedroom and one my kitchen.  There must have been about nine people in total for a small one 1/2 bedroom apartment.  One guy said he was going out to get coffee for everyone.  I asked if he would buy me cigarettes.  I had just run out and was very much in need of smoking.  He thought about it.  He reluctantly agreed and I gave him money.  They stayed for many hours and still did a very poor job.  I'll detail later how, as an observer, not even the target, I was able to see areas they missed. 

I sat in a chair in my bathrobe and watched.  They found out from the super that all tenants had a storage space in the basement.  They asked if I consented to them searching it.  I said sure.  They discovered in my living room a contract for the storage space HDC rented for me that apparently after weeks and weeks of digging DOI hadn't uncovered at HDC.  They took this as a major "a-ha" moment.  This is the thing big busts are made from.  I told them the storage space was completely empty.  I offered them the key and gave my consent for them to search it.  It was only three blocks away.  No, they said.  They were getting a search warrant.  OK, I said, suit yourself, it's empty.  Later on in the afternoon they came back with the revelation that it was empty.

Then towards the very end of the search it happened.  One of the agents walked out of my study into the living room where I was sitting with a zip disk held aloft.  He held it high in the air and had a big smile.  I got very nervous.  Why?  Two reasons.  One, there was no loose zip disk in that room.  I had cleaned that room 3 times in the previous month.  The room measured 10'x8'.  I missed nothing.  Second, the way he emerged holding that disk high in the air and smiling was creepy and staged.  Bear in mind an extremely key fact in my case, disputed by no one: when they left my home that day they had discovered no child porn on the premises.  The U.S. Attorney does not deny that fact. 

They had spent hours on my computer looking but had turned up nothing so they took the computer and tons of other stuff away to search deeper.  Pure common sense and the law tells you that had they found any I would have been immediately arrested.  So why was he walking out with that smile and the disk held aloft?  For whose benefit?  And where the hell did that disk come from?  Had he known at that moment there was something on the disk I would have been arrested.  And since he didn't know, why was he parading it around as though it had some significance?  All that remained were one or two sealed bundles of blank zip disks.  There was no loose disk on the premises.  I told the agent-in-charge I was going out into the hallway to call my attorney again.  I went out by the elevator and called Irwin.  I explained to him about the disk and how I know it wasn't there before they came.  He asked if I was sure.  Absolutely, I said.  OK, we'll just have to wait and see, he said. 

So they took my stuff away.  As they were leaving one of the agents started to take the pictures off my wall.  Some were artwork. Others were scenes of City Hall and Rudy's inaugural.  I stopped him and asked where in the search warrant those pictures are mentioned or covered.  His response sums up better than I ever could the belief that most federal agents, of any agency, have regarding individual rights.  He said, " we'll take them and if they're not covered by the warrant we will return them later."  I explained to him that I was getting my lawyer on the phone and he could discuss it with him.  He dropped the issue and left the pictures.  The search warrant meant nothing.  The reason they exists is to state very clearly what is covered and what isn't.  Remember the 4th Amendment?  But his view of the constitution was: we'll take it now and if we can use it to prosecute you we'll justify its removal later; If not we'll return it.  This is very dangerous stuff and happens every day.

I am going to depart from the narrative and chronology for the remainder of Part V.  I will resume at this point in Part VI.

So we waited for the analysis of my computer equipment to come back.  Weeks turned into months.  At the end of over three months I received a phone call from my attorney, Gerald Shargel.  I was at my parents house, upstate.  I remember that day very well.  My father handed me the phone and I went outside to talk to Jerry.  He had never called me on a weekend and I knew this was either really good  or really bad news.  He told me that Debbie (Deborah Landis, the Assist. US Attorney) had called and told him that they had found one (1) picture of child pornography on a disk and that they were continuing to examine the disk for more.  The old law on this matter basically protected you up till three (3) pictures. After that you were culpable of a crime.  The newer law made possession of any images a crime.  I was devastated.  I was sure they would find nothing.  But here it was - they found nothing on my computer but on a disk.  Jerry even mentioned it being a zip disk.  It was that disk. 

Debbie would later say (her story changed many times in court and in the papers on this point) that the disk contained child porn and a few hundred other images of porn.  By that she meant pictures of adult men.  Here's my first question.  Let's say there were 500 pictures of nude adult men.  I am liberally interpreting "a few hundred".  So in total there were 510 pictures and as it would turn out a 30 second video clip that was also child porn.  How long would it take the average person to scroll through 510 pictures on their computer when you were not only looking for something very specific, but what you were looking for was so vastly different than the rest.  Imagine if I gave you a disk of 510 pictures and told you that most were of a skiing trip - snow and mountains.  But a few were of my trip to the desert.  Meaning, they would be in stark contrast to the many.  How long would it take you to find the 10 desert pictures?  My guess is less than an hour, maybe 90 minutes.  You would scroll through on a computer very, very quickly.  Would it take over three months?  And at the end of the three months would you say: I've only found one desert picture but I'm still not done looking.  It doesn't seem plausible.

Bear something else in mind.  When that call came from Debbie Landis she said they had found a single picture (I will switch now to the legal term which is 'image').  Debbie would eventually claim that on the disk were found a few hundred pictures plus 10 images of child porn and one (1) video clip.  Any of you who are computer literate knows that the little Microsoft icon for a video clip is different and distinct from the icon for pictures.  According to Debbie there was only one video on that disk.  Wouldn't a competent computer expert - and that's whom they claimed was doing this work, not some putzy lawyer - check the icon that was unique and distinct from all the rest, first?  Especially when it was a video and the only video and they were looking for child porn. But according to Debbie the first thing they found was an image, not a video.  Further, if you're looking for holes in what I am saying, there never was a claim that anything was encrypted.  It was all just there, plain to see.  

After that call came from Debbie about the one image found, Jerry never heard another word on the subject.  He told me that he asked Debbie many times if anything else had been found.  Her answer was always the same, "we're still looking'.  We never found out the answer until the day I was indicted, March 17, 2003, nearly a year after the search.  When the indictment was unsealed we learned that the number was 11; 10 images and 1 video clip, all found on a zip disk, nothing found on my computer.  Moreover they had seized either 2 or 3 other computers from HDC that had once belonged to me.  No images were found on any of those computers either.  

Many people have said to me that they found the number 11 not only a very low number for such a case, but odd.  Who would have only 11 images if this was their predilection?  The number 11 isn't odd.  It is highly, highly significant.  Before I get to that let me make one more fact perfectly clear.  In the vast majority of child porn cases there are three categories of images discovered.  First, legal images of pornography.  Second, obviously and unquestionably illegal child porn; think a two year old toddler.  No question there.  Third, are what's called grey images.  Is the person depicted 18 or 16?  In many cases the government will bring in a forensic expert to examine the images and state the person couldn't be 18 for various reasons: bone structure, facial development, hair growth, etc.  But the key point is that in almost every case there are grey images found.  In my case there was not a single one.  A few hundred pictures, presumably of men I spoke to on-line and the 11 images.  The point being that the 11 were not chosen as the most obvious out of a pool of potentially hundreds of illegal and grey images.  It was black and white.  Legal and then the 11.  No grey.

The law at the time of my arrest on this subject, as in most federal crimes, had various steps.  More drugs, more time.  More money embezzled, more time.  You get the point.  As it related to child porn the law at the time had increases in points for possession over certain numbers (all federal prison time is calculated using the Sentencing Guidelines which assigns points to various aspects of a crime and enhances the crime for various reasons, i.e bank robbery 30 points, gun used 20 extra points, look up 50 points on the chart and you see how long you have to serve).  Guess where the first big increase in Guidelines points comes in?  Possession of over 10 images.  For those of you who aren't math whizzes, that means 11.

By the time the indictment was unsealed Debbie knew that the porn aspect of her case was on shaky ground.  Debbie had gone, along with Special Agent Castro of the U.S. Customs Service, to Judge Fox in Manhattan to obtain the search warrant for my home. Debbie used four pieces of evidence - all from Fred - in order to get Judge Fox to sign that warrant.  The first seemed dubious - the Fred/Tom Robbins chats themselves. Second, was a fact that Fred provided Debbie that I had told him I was in Chicago on a certain date on business.  They checked with HDC and I was indeed in Chicago.  (I have no doubt that during my on-line relationship with Fred I told him that.)  Third, was a single e-mail Fred provided them purportedly from me to him.  In it I reference an attachment which I suggest is child porn.  Fred also provided a single image of child porn to Debbie that he claimed was that attachment.  It was later shown that the e-mail like the chats was fabricated.  (I have no knowledge that Robbins helped Fred create the e-mail, but I assume he did.  Why would their conspiracy to forge documents only extend to the chats?)  Moreover, Debbie's interest in not verifying Fred's accounts extended to the fact that she never brought him to meet her in NY.  To my knowledge, this key informant was never seen by Debbie, my understanding is he did this all by fax and e-mail.  More damning, in the only case of this I have been able to find anywhere in a federal prosecution, someone came forward, claimed to have child porn (Fred, claimed it was from me, but none-the-less, he had possession) and their computer was never seized.  No search was conducted on his home.  It is simply unheard of for an individual to come forward claim to have child porn and the FBI does not do a search of at least their computer if not their home.  Unheard of!   Debbie clearly wanted nothing to interfere with Fred's story.   

Lastly, Fred gave Debbie 2 pictures he claimed were me and that I had sent to him at some point in our relationship.  This, like the Chicago trip, was intended to establish our relationship that would presumably buttress the validity of the other exhibits he was providing.  One problem.  One of the two pictures wasn't me.  It was simply some other guy.  The second picture was me sitting behind a desk with a tie in shirtsleeves.  Had Debbie done her job, as she was duty bound to do before presenting a federal magistrate  with a search warrant request, in even the smallest way, she would have discovered that that very picture had been on HDC's website for 3 years.  Moreover, because I liked the picture, it was used in 3 HDC annual reports.  I never, ever sent Fred a picture of myself.  At the least, Debbie knew that the one was just simply not me.  But she lied and told Judge Fox that Fred had provided two pictures of me to support his bona fides.  Mentioning neither that one was phony and the other highly, highly dubious to say the least.  

Further, Special Agent Castro of the U.S. Customs Service provided Judge Fox with a totally over-the-top affidavit stating that based on his expertise in these matters and long record he was sure to find troves of child porn in every nook and cranny of my home, including in the air ducts.  He assured Judge Fox that there would be pictures, magazines, videos stashed everywhere.  During the search, since they had come up with nothing, Agent Castro did indeed open the ceiling air duct in my kitchen that plainly had not been opened in many years.  All he got was a face full of dust that poured down on him.

I said earlier that the US Customs agents who searched my apartment did a very poor job.  Here's why:  I thought of this in prison, you have a lot of time to think in prison.  In my living room was a wall of CDs.  I had a few hundred at least.  The computer they seized was the latest model.  It had at least a CD burner, maybe even a DVD burner.  Not a single one of those CDs was examined.  Special Agent Castro would claim that he expected to find child porn everywhere.  Wouldn't a good hiding place be those CD cases?  Couldn't I have burned hundreds, if not hundreds of thousands of images onto CDs and disguised them as commercial CDs and put them in the commercial jewel cases in plain sight?  In retrospect if that were my intention it doesn't seem very hard to do.  But Agents Castro and his men never looked at a single one.  They went through every book on my bookshelf, but never touched a single compact disc.  Once I thought of this in prison, it seemed like such an incredible oversight and such sloppy work.  Easier to steal the pictures off my wall than think cleverly.  If I can still find it, I will post Agent Castro's afadavit.  You have to read this thing to believe it.  The bravado and macho arrogance that comes through is astounding.  In the end, his expertise amounted to air ducts but not compact discs.  You judge if you feel better knowing these guys are searching international cargo and for potential terrorists on your behalf.
 

Now, Debbie was promising her bosses a big payoff here.  She was a Senior Assistant U.S. Attorney.  For those of you who don't know, Senior AUSAs handle only one case at a time and a case of their own choosing.  They make well in excess of $100,000 a year.  Further, unlike an Assistant District Attorney in some county who may have to juggle 50 cases by herself, Debbie had a full staff to assist her in this one case.  I was her only case for almost three years.  Debbie would eventually spend millions of dollars, thousands of hours of her office and other federal agencies' time on this.  She had a very bad search warrant having used fabricated chats and withholding evidence that cast doubt on the veracity of their only informant from Judge Fox.  After all this do you think it's likely she would have said to her bosses she produced nothing on Issue II? 

But Debbie's lying and disrespect for the truth and the office she held went further.  Other than in the original indictment, Debbie never again mentioned the number 11.  She always spoke in court or in documents vaguely as though the number were much greater.  The effort was to make me out to be a crazed psycho deviant.  On the day of my sentencing I wanted to make sure that the assembled reporters in the court knew the number was 11.   I was tired of Debbie's repeated attempts to suggest through innuendo and speculation that the number was greater.  So I stated very clearly to what I plead.  The next day in the New York Times'  story of the sentencing, it is stated that the Government had found 5,000 images of porn in my home.  That number, 5,000, exists nowhere in my case.  It was never mentioned in any document, referred to in court or in any other manner you can imagine.  It simply never existed. 

Henry Mazurek, an attorney of mine at the time, told me Debbie was pissed that I had mentioned the number 11.  It deflated the grand case she was trying to make.  Most of the reporters had no idea before I said it in open court that I was being prosecuted for 11 images.  They were all under the impression it was far, far greater than that.  A source at the Times confirmed that number, 5,000, came from the US Attorneys Office.  Debbie wanted to undermine the number 11 so she created the number 5,000.  The New York Times would later go on to use that fabricated number in a Gail Collins anti-Rudy editorial during his presidential campaign.  The big lie that spreads.

The really low and underhanded aspect of what Debbie did, other then lying to the NYT, is that she did it intentionally knowing that since the matter was now resolved there would be no opportunity to rebut it.  She would never have dared use that number in court or in any document.  In fact, I have made many motions since that date and she has never used that number again.  It was the worst kind of smear because the case was effectively over and I would not have a chance to defend myself or confront her in court about it.  It is the lowest thing a prosecutor can do.  Not only lie, but make up seemingly damning facts.  As the case proceeds, you'll see it is just one in a series of lies Deborah Landis would tell.  She lies routinely by omission and co-mission.  The irony, as I'll show you in the coming weeks, is that for all her outrage and indignation at my crimes, she committed, as I have said, a serious Federal crime herself, having nothing to do with my case.  Based on evidence provided to me in 2005 by Messrs. Shargel and Mazurek, I think you'll find it appalling that I was prosecuted, and for what I was prosecuted for, by someone like this.  The lies and hypocrisy of former Senior Assistant United States Attorney Deborah Landis are just starting.

And what of the zip disk and the 11 images?  What became of this crucial evidence?  Debbie Landis says that it is unaccounted for.  Notwithstanding that the US Attorney's Office is required to keep it because of the SORA process I faced after prison, at some point between 2003 - 2007 the disk mysteriously disappeared.  That's pretty sloppy, unless it isn't.

J'ACCUSE - Part IV

It's now March 2002.  The Village Voice runs its first story on my expense account at HDC.  While the stories are written with the venomous quill of Tom Robbins the facts themselves are basically true.  He lists my expenses from records provided to him by Chuck Brass, President of HDC.  I hate that this is happening.  Hate to have to read about myself and hate that my friends and family have to as well.  In the story Robbins will make his only mention of my aptitude as HDC president.  He says that by all accounts I did an 'adequate job.'  You need to realize that 'adequate' in this context is like saying I was Lincoln, Reagan, FDR and Washington, and jack Welch all rolled into one.  For Robbins to have to admit that would prove what I would later claim; namely that I had done a pretty good job running the corporation.

During this period, my attorney, Irwin Rochman, attempts to convince me to see a forensic psychiatrist.  He says he knows a top guy and that my spending might have irrationality attached to it that should be looked at by a shrink.  Part of the reason he says this is that I had never made an attempt to cover anything up within HDC.  All of my records were there for the Board, the audit committee, the internal auditor and Ernst & Young to see.  E&Y came once a year with a team of accountants and stayed for two months.  I had never even hinted that anything should be hidden from them.  It had never for a second occurred to me that I was doing anything wrong, let alone illegal.

I resisted Irwin's suggestion strongly.  I told him that I was sick and tired of reading about people who got into legal trouble and immediately claimed some mental condition.  I suffered from depression but there was nothing seriously wrong with me and I had done nothing wrong.  I would not see his shrink.

Also around this time it became apparent to me that Robbins was going to write about the fact I was gay.  Either in a Fred context or merely to 'out me' out of vindictiveness.  It's weird to be 'outed' by the Village Voice, the great champion of gay rights.  Irwin suggested that I had to discuss this with Ray.  He knew that I had never told my father I was gay and lived in death fear of him finding out.  Why?  I cannot give you a sensible reason and looking back it all seems rather silly.  All I can say is I was totally terrified that he would ever find out.

Did he already know I was gay?  He had to, of course.  I hadn't had a girlfriend since I was 13 years old.  As I have written before, there was no question of him throwing me out of the house or disowning me.  As a teenager I can't say I knew that to be 100% true but certainly as an adult I did, especially when I had stopped living at home.  So where did this fear come from?  I just don't know.  All I know is that it was real.  And now I knew that I had to have the conversation before it was actually printed.  I had to act like a man and say the words out loud to him.  I owed him that.

So after leaving Irwin's office one day I took the bus up Third Avenue to my father's office.  I am sure in retrospect that Irwin had told him everything.  He was my lawyer in name only.  He kept none of my confidences as in a usual attorney-client relationship. I had told Ray I needed to talk to him about something important.  I sat at the far end of his office in a chair.  Far away from his desk and from him.  I beat around the bush but finally said the words.  The entire time I kept my head averted.

During the time I was in his office, from the moment I walked in till the moment I left, I did not look at him.  I turned my head away as I told him and then when it was over and he wanted to give me a hug I told him not to get up - still not looking in his direction.  I was slowly becoming an emotional basket case and that day wasn't much different.  I cried softly as I thanked him for being so decent about this.  The shame of that confession still haunts me and I can't understand anymore why I felt it so deeply, although at the time it was searing.  He told me in a jocular way that he still intended to use the word 'fag' which he had always done.  He never directed it at me and used it in a non-hostile way that people of a certain generation do.  I took no offense.  He wasn't a homophobe.  My brother, on the other hand, I knew very well was deeply homophobic and I was grateful that he and I had stopped speaking years before.  I will write another time regarding my realization of how scared my brother was of gay men.  It had to do with him disowning a friend, I believe, he discovered to be gay.

At some point after repeated requests I finally acquiesced to see Irwin's forensic psychiatrist.  The meeting was at Irwin's office.  His name was Mark Mills and he had a forensic practice in D.C.  We had a brief meeting alone in a conference room where he told me that we would meet in a few days for him to do some testing.  He used offices in NYC of a colleague.  During this brief introductory meeting he said at least 5 times that I had to FEDEX him a check for $11,000 that day.  He said it over and over.  It started to piss me off.  I would come to learn that this was Mills' M.O.  His assistant would call me out of the blue, frantically, that Mills needed me to FEDEX him $5,000 or $9,000.  I never once saw an accounting of hours spent on this matter. 

But a few days later I met Mills and he did hours and hours of testing.  He told me afterward that he was going back to Irwin's office and I should go too.  When we got there I waited for Irwin while he consulted privately with Mills.  When I went into Irwin's office his law partner was there and they both looked very somber.  Irwin came at me hard.  He explained that he had found out from Artz that Robbins was going to run Fred chats.  He claimed Fred had given him these chats and they included lurid discussions about kids and sex.  I was stunned.  Irwin was behaving like a total asshole to me at that point.  Very hostile and accusatory.  I said nothing.  He said finally, "So what do you want to do?"  I responded, "I want to talk to Mark Mills, alone."  Irwin and his partner looked surprised and told me he was in another office. 

I went in and asked Mills if he already knew about this.  He said he did.  Irwin had told him earlier in the day but he didn't tell me so as not to ruin the testing.  He asked me what I was thinking.  I told him I wanted to pose a hypothetical question.  "OK," he said.  "What would you do if a patient told you that....ummm..well lets put it this way, if a patient had made a calm decision that he had no alternatives and choose to do something about it...ummm...what would you feel compelled to do?  I mean, if he had no options and chose, lets call it Option 1.  Would you feel you had to do something.  Does choosing Option 1 by definition mean you're crazy?"  Mills answered back calmly,"choosing Option 1, as you call it, doesn't necessarily mean you're crazy.  There are a lot of situations where that would be a logical choice of last resort."  "So you wouldn't feel compelled to intervene in every case?" I asked.  "In most cases I would and have. But not in every, no."  "There going to print a story that I am basically a pedophile.  That can't happen, Mark.  I couldn't live with that," I told him.  I explained to him that to be 'outted' and labeled a pedophile, however untrue, on the same day was more than I could bear.

I was an intensely private person.  My friends know that, my parents knew that.  I still couldn't understand, even amidst all the anguish I was feeling, how Fred was going to release these chats.  He came off way worse than I did in them.  What would all this say about him?  It hadn't dawned on me, even then, even after finding out from Decision Strategies that they turned up no suicide attempts and no institutionalization, that Fred was going to fabricate these chats.  Even after discovering that most of what he had said to me on-line to keep me hooked to him was all a lie.  The thought simply didn't occur to me.  Newspapers, even a rag like the Voice, don't run fabricated AOL chats with no verification and checking.   

I told Mills that I had no choice and I needed to go home and make some preparations.  He asked one thing. That I wait until the morning to do anything and that I call him then.  I told him I couldn't promise that but I had things to do that wouldn't be finished by 10AM so I didn't see a problem.  I came out of the office and Irwin asked what I wanted to do?  "Nothing," I told him, "I'm going home."  He was dumbfounded.  I asked him if Ray then about this.  Yes, Artz had told Ray earlier in the day.  Great, I thought.  OK, I said, I have one request.  Tell Ray that he shouldn't try to contact me for 24 hrs.  I want to be left alone.  Irwin said he would tell him.

I walked home trying to come to grips with the reality that my life was over.  This was it.  I cried as I walked.  I just never saw my life ending this way. I just kept staring at all the people on the sidewalks going about their business and all with futures.  I had none.  I was extremely sad, but I realized there was no other choice and I had better get on with doing what I needed to do.  I made two phone calls.  First to a friend in South Carolina and asked him if he would take Seabright, my dog.  He said yes and I told him I would drive there on Sunday.  This was Friday evening.  I next called my dogwalker and asked that he help me clean out a storage space I had.  He agreed to do it the next morning. 

When I left HDC I had the Corporation rent me a space to store all of my possessions until I had decided what my next job would be.  It was mostly books and papers from 8 years in government.  Also a lot of framed news stories from HDC ribboncuttings and groundbreakings.  I had also brought my winter clothes there to store until next year.  I decided my mother would have to clean out my apartment but I should at least clean out this space.  Since I knew I was throwing out almost everything in it, it wouldn't take me and Ralph long.

So I met Ralph the next morning and we cleaned out the space. We threw away most everything and I took back the clothes and a few boxes of things back to my apartment.  I spoke to Mills and told him of my plans.  I would drive south, drop Seabe off and then leave on Tuesday for South Dakota.  I had always wanted to see Mount Rushmore before I died and I decided I would do that since it was doable and then take my life in a hotel in Keystone.  Mills asked that I stop by D.C. after I left South Carolina before I want to S.D.  I agreed to see him on Tuesday.  I spent the rest of the day cleaning my apartment and prepared for the 11 hour drive to South Carolina the next morning.  We left early Sunday, before dawn.  While In North Carolina a huge 18 wheeler tried to drive me off the road and I wound up in a ditch with a flat tire in 100 degree heat.  Because of the angle of the car we had to wait for a tow truck.  Back on the road I finally reached Charleston.  I spent the next day making sure Seabe was acclimated and set off early Tuesday for D.C.  The story was supposed to come out on the web that day and hit the newsstands the following day.

When I reached Mills' office there was no story yet.  We went out for lunch.  It was funny because at one time I had lived just a few blocks from his office when I first moved to D.C.  When we returned Robbins' latest story was up but it wasn't about me.  It was about Richard Roberts and his use of the HDC credit card for strip clubs.  I don't think I had ever been more relieved in my life.  Robbins couldn't pull the trigger.  They couldn't publish the chat because Fred would look as bad as me, or so I believed. After that I decided to head back to NYC.  I had a reprieve.  I didn't know for how long, but I knew it felt good to live again. { I left Seabe in S.C. and I will explain why next time. }

Irwin had been having conversations with the General Counsel for the Voice, Victor Kovner.  Kovner and his wife were old left-wing activists and he served for a time as Dinkins' Corporation Counsel.  For those not from NYC, he was the City's chief lawyer.  Irwin had been trying to convince and warn Kovner that Fred was unstable and he was not to be believed.  Kovner told Irwin that he would not run any chats involving Fred unless there was an HDC connection.  It was all a snooker.  I knew, as did Irwin, that I had purchased something for Fred, a VCR, with an HDC credit card.  This excuse of Kovner's was going to, in his view, give the Voice free reign to run anything Fred would say.

I've promised you to reveal how Fred and Tom Robbins manufactured those chats.  Let me do that now  (How and when I found about this is explained in the POSTSCRIPT at the end of this post).  Here's how it worked.  At first Fred had chats already created.  The idea for the fabrication of Internet chats was his.  But Fred is no genius, although he is clever and also deeply psychotic. The chats were somewhat ham-handed and didn't contain enough useful non-sexual information for Robbins.  So Robbins told him the topics that he needed chats on and what key words and phrases Fred was to have me say and questions Fred would need to ask in the chats in order to elicit the appropriately incriminating response from me.  These had to appear to be natural conversations. 

Robbins also provided Fred with Internet links and newspaper stories that had been written about me and Ray. The goal was to take real events and turn them into chats that had some criminal component to them.  Let me give you an example.  In one chat, that resulted in a major Village Voice story, I tell Fred about a bribe I supposedly took.  According to me, in the chat, at a ribboncutting ceremony for an HDC project I took a paper bag full of money from the developer.  I think it was $10,000 I don't remember the amount the story claimed.  Now the weird thing when I first read this was that there was a ribboncutting for that project around the time claimed.  The correct developer of the project was named.  How could Fred have known that?  He was in Indiana.  How did he know of my schedule and HDC projects.

As Fred would tell me, Robbins sent him a copy of a Daily News story that ran the day after the ribboncutting announcing the new project.  Sure enough that story had the date, the developer, the project.  But if I took this bribe, where was the money?  Fred told me Robbins identified that problem but Fred came up with the solution.  In the chat/story I tell Fred that same evening I drove to Atlantic City and lost all the money at a casino.  When I first read that story I thought, "doesn't any one else see how incredibly convenient this all is?"  Money leaves a trace, usually.  Had I taken this money there would be a deposit or a large purchase or something.  So Fred and Robbins disposed of the question by having me be an inveterate gambler.  In the series of fabricated chats I routinely tell Fred I am stealing HDC funds to support a gambling habit.  As anyone who has ever known me knows I spend most of my time in casinos sitting or standing behind Tony Carbonetti watching him play blackjack.  I lose my $200 and then watch him play.

In another major Voice story I tell Fred about a conversation Ray had with Rudy.  Ray is attempting to enlist Rudy's help for a client of Ray's law firm.  I remember the day vividly when my attorney, Gerald Shargel, called to tell me there was a new story and Ray was mentioned this time.  I was completely bewildered.  I had never known anything about the things I was supposedly telling Fred.  Not to mention the most obvious point that I had never, ever mentioned Rudy Giuliani or my association with him to Fred.  That part I got.  It was obvious to me that Fred had written these chats after reaching out to Robbins so he now knew all about my RWG connection.  But how could he know this stuff about Ray?  I had never heard of this client and knew nothing about any meeting Ray had ever had regarding his legal work and Rudy.  It turned out the client was real.  But how could Fred have know that?  It plagued me. 

Fred would later explain that Robbins had sent him an old Newsday story regarding questions about Ray's client and possible Rudy assistance.  The story alleged a conversation between Ray and Rudy on this matter.  Once you read the chat it's an almost verbatim transcript of the Newsday story.  It was so obvious that the thing had just been lifted.  But no newspaper or media outlet bothered to check, certainly not the Voice.  These allegations - more than allegations, because I am supposedly saying them - were reprinted over and over. 

Fred told me that Robbins, like a good editor,  would frequently mark-up his chats.  Telling him where to expand on something or delete something else.  Fred said that the majority of the ideas for the non-sex chats came from Robbins. Especially those chats that were used to support the expense documents that Robbins had gotten from HDC.  He, Robbins,  very much wanted to tie my expenses with an overt acknowledgment by me that I was committing criminal acts and knew it.  Fred said that most of the expense chats were written by Robbins since he didn't have the documents and we, Fred and I, had never in reality discussed  anything to do with HDC or my expenses.  Fred also said that the idea of claiming I was using HDC funds to procure prostitutes came from Robbins.  He said Robbins suspected that some of my charges were for that but he hadn't been able to secure any proof.  Having me actually tell Fred that I was, in his mind, was good enough.  Of course, I never hired hookers using HDC funds. But that didn't seem to matter.

Fred said, in fact, that the most famous chat - the one that would prove Fred and Robbins undoing - was Robbins idea.  Robbins apparently was determined to have a story showing me to be a racist.  Fred said he wasn't sure why but Robbins was obsessed with showing that I hated blacks.  And in fact there is a Voice story alleging that.  The chat - that would prove the lead-in and backbone of that story - revolved around me saying racist things about blacks in Harlem as prompted by the occasion of Bill Clinton's office being located there.  Fred and I in this chat are just shooting the breeze when this subject comes up topically.  According to the the story and the chat this conversation happened in November of 2000.  The chat is apparently time stamped with the date as all chats would be. 

Well the problem with that is we knew historically that Bill Clinton not only didn't mention his office being in Harlem until after he left office, it came after a fruitless attempt to locate to Carnegie Tower in Midtown.  There was no way I could have been talking about that since it wouldn't happen for months.  It would be like me discussing the aftereffects of 9/11 and what a great job Rudy did in June of 2001.  It simply couldn't have happened.  The first time I read the story I didn't catch it.  But readers of the Village Voice did and wrote letters to the Editor asking how this could be and stating that they didn't believe these chats.  The next week Robbins responded by giving Fred a platform to explain how this could have happened, at the very end of another story.  Fred came up with the nuttiest possible excuse.  He said that some chats had become intermingled in his computer while downloading.  This was akin to saying that two books fall off a bookshelf at the same time and not only do some pages neatly swap with the covers but that full coherent text manages to insert itself in the different pages.  Were these chats real what he was saying was patently ridiculous. 

Fred told me that Robbins was furious and very nervous when this was uncovered.  Fred believed too that this was going to expose the whole thing.  But the NY press corps, deciding that I was a sleaze and Robbins a hero for exposing me, ignored it.  I've even read that Robbins won awards for this coverage.  It boggles the mind to think in this day and age that someone could perpetrate a fraud this massive and for so long - these Voice stories ran for months - and never be called to account even after it was revealed the chats were phony.

That the press corps in NY is so lazy as to not raise the issue is deeply troubling.  It is not a matter of liking or defending Russell Harding.  It comes down to the fraternity of journalists and the rules about policing yourselves.  If people begin to routinely question everything they read in a newspaper - not that the Voice is a real newspaper - then the Fourth Estate would crumble.  Is the world materially affected because Jason Blair called in some stories he wasn't actually at?  No, not really.  But if the world believes that the NY Times doesn't care enough about the stories it prints to verify that they are in fact true, then the paper disappears.  That's why the Times took the matter so seriously as did its readers. And that's why a rag like the Voice undertook no internal inquiry after it was revealed that the chats were fabricated or that they had been warned by Rochman.  A rag like the Voice has no integrity or journalistic ethics.

These articles went on for months.  Almost every one predicated on a Fred chat of some kind.  It was of little consolation that I knew they were phony or that my close friends did.  Tony Carbonetti said he knew immediately that they were fake when in one chat Fred has me calling Ray, 'Dad' or 'Daddy'.  Anyone who has ever known me or Ray and especially those  who've known us both know I only call him Ray.  I have been calling him Ray since I was a young child.  And if I am referencing him for the first time to someone who doesn't know him, I always say, 'my father'.  But such is the age we live in - scandal now, facts later.  I will expose how that same ethos played out in my prosecution in J'ACCUSE - Part V.  Look for it in the days ahead.

POSTSCRIPT:

At some point in early 2005 I was at Federal Medical Center Butner in North Carolina.  I was still pre-trial.  I did most of my sentence pre-trial.  One day at mail call I received a card with a Virginia return address.  I got very little mail in prison so I was intrigued.  The card was from Fred.  He struck this nauseatingly sympathetic tone about how badly he felt for me and how sorry he was.  I ignored it.  A few weeks later comes another card.  I was now furious.  Here was this true, genuine sexual predator, roaming free thanks to Debbie Landis, my prosecutor, sending me mocking cards in prison.  I called my attorney, Henry Mazurek, and told him to tell Debbie to make this stop.  Fred was her creation and she had to put a stop to these cards.  A few weeks later Henry told me that he spoke to Debbie about this and she said she would do nothing.  Fred wasn't her witness anymore and she intended to do nothing. 

That's when I got the idea.  I wrote Fred back and said I accepted his apology but that I couldn't resume a friendship with him unless he came clean and told me everything that had happened.  His first letter didn't say much and I responded back that I needed everything in order to move on and forgive.  In his second and third letters that's when he laid out how this all worked in detail.  Some of it confirmed hunches and suspicions I had, but other things just blew me away.  Even knowing what a lowlife Robbins was I still didn't think him capable of all this.  But Fred didn't know most of the stuff he had me saying in the chats, he couldn't have.  It all fit together once he explained.  Naturally, I was using Fred.  He's a demented psycho and I would have rather had nothing to do with him.  If Debbie had leashed her creation then I would have been happy never to have written to him or heard from him again.  But after the third letter, I had gotten what I wanted and I never wrote back. 

J'ACCUSE - Part III

As Tony left that night after demonstrating how Fred had fabricated the chats, he strongly urged that I should hire some private investigators to look into Fred.  I hadn't thought of this and considered it a good idea.  I could show that he had been committed to a mental institution and had several suicide attempts, thereby refuting his credibility.  Tony recommended a firm headed by a Rudy protege named Bart Schwartz.  Tony told me that given the closeness of Schwartz to Rudy this could be comped.  I said great, let's do it, but I need to talk to Irwin (my lawyer) first. 

I saw Irwin a day or two later.  When I told him of Tony's idea he hit the roof.  Irwin had said many times that he would control all aspects of this case and I was not to do anything without consulting him first.  I explained that nothing had gone past the discussion stage and that no one had been contacted.  "What firm is this?  Irwin asked. "I don't know the name but the main partner is a former Rudy guy named Bart Schwartz," I answered.  "Oh, I know that firm, they're good.  They're called Decision Strategies.  Yes, that is a good idea.  I'll call Bart Schwartz."  A day or two later I was back in Irwin's office and we had Bart Schwartz on a conference call. 

I remember it was the beginning of a weekend.  Schwartz said there would be no problem getting background on Fred.  I emphasized that he should focus on the suicide attempts and his commitment.  I said that there must be public records of these things.  Schwartz asked if I wanted to have Fred tailed that weekend.  He explained that they would have to hire someone local in Indianapolis and this I would have to pay for. I thought out loud to Irwin and Schwartz, "what would be the point?  It's not like we know he's going to do something this weekend.  No, I don't think so."   Schwartz and an associate then asked me a series of questions about Fred and I endeavored to provide as much background as I knew.  That was the beginning and end of my involvement or any involvement during this case with Decision Strategies.  No contract was ever signed by me as this was all going to be on the cuff.  {I mention this as a year later Bart Schwartz would contact me with a past due bill for $23,000. I was flabbergasted.  The net product of Decision Strategies investigation of Fred was that he had a Visa Card and a drivers license.  The report they gave us I could have gotten off the internet for $30.  It was worth what I thought we had payed for it which was nothing.  Included in the bill Bart Schwartz would present me with were such items as $150/hr for reading Village Voice articles.  More about that bill later.  But suffice to say, Decision Strategies are ganefs; yiddish for crooks.}

Let me step back a moment.  From the time I first heard of this investigation I had contacted Luke, who was still a Sr. VP at HDC.  He and I met on a few occasions to go over the expenses. Many of the trips under scrutiny we had been on together.  At first he was his usual calm, collected self.   But as the days wore on, Luke started to lose his grip.   HDC was ordering him  to cooperate with DOI. Moreover, it was starting to become clear that Deputy Mayor Doctoroff had taken a big hand in this and was a driving force behind this investigation. One day Luke called to tell me that Doctorff had ordered that Luke cooperate or else.  Luke said he was going to march over to the bullpen at City Hall and tell off Doctoroff.  I had never heard Luke this angry about anything.  This was of course madness.  Dan Doctoroff had no idea who Luke Cusack was, other than being my right hand.  Furthermore, he probably would have had Luke arrested, if Luke had managed to make it to the second floor cubicles at all.  Cops let me pass routinely.  They would not have done that for Luke.  I told him very calmly that this was a dumb idea and that it would probably be wiser for him to quit HDC.   He resisted that suggestion until he hired an attorney who advised him to do the same thing.  Luke and I had an agreement since the start of this whole thing; if our interests were no longer aligned in this matter, we would say so frankly and not attempt to harm the other.  One day Luke told me his attorney thought that we should no longer speak to each other. I was sad naturally, but understood completely. 

Since I had hired Irwin to represent me I had assumed that his advice and counsel was geared solely towards my interests.  One of the first things he told me to do was to reexamine my expenses from HDC.  He instructed me to review any expenditures that might seem, not illegitimate, but lavish, which is different.  If I stayed in a very nice hotel on a business trip, for example, Irwin suggested that I calculate the difference between the nightly rate there with that of a Holiday Inn or Motel 6 and refund the difference to HDC.  I thought this completely idiotic.  I was the president of a multi-billion dollar corporation, not a city agency.  Even city commissioners didn't stay in Holiday Inns.  Moreover, this struck me as some sort of admission of guilt; that I was acknowledging having done something unethical or illegal.  Irwin and his law partner repeatedly assured me this was not an admission of guilt.  We must have discussed this particular point a dozen times.  During the first weeks of this, prior to DOI even entering the picture, I ended up paying $57,000 for these types of things as well as trips and some meals that had only a marginal business purpose or none at all.  (Gerald Shargel, my second attorney would later tell me that those repayments were suicidal from a legal perspective.  He said he had never heard of a criminal defense attorney advising a client on the verge of a possible criminal investigation to do something that injurious.  He also revealed to me that it was those repayments that first interested the U.S. Attorney's Office in me when they read of them in the newspaper.)

Tom Robbins was soon to start reporting on my expenses in the Village Voice.  Apparently they wanted a current photo to go along with the piece.  The doorman in my apartment building tipped me off that someone was watching the building and he thought it was a reporter or a photographer.  He was absolutely right.  I decided that I couldn't remain a prisoner in my home and drove to my parents house upstate.  It was during this trip that I realized for the first time that my father, rather than helping me or at least not harming me, was actually intending to sacrifice me and my legal defense in the name of his own political interests. 

Ray called a meeting in his office with Irwin, Artz, and me by telephone upstate.  Ray & Artz wanted to have me put out a statement.  I said fine. Let me have 15 minutes and I would call them back with a statement written.  The statement I wrote said basically that I do not believe I had done anything wrong, was proud of my record in creating affordable housing, but that if the Board of HDC had a question about any expense during my tenure there I would repay it the next day.  When I read this to the group, Ray and Artz were not pleased.  "The press isn't going to like that statement," Artz said.  "You can't say that," agreed Ray.  I noticed Irwin wasn't saying anything.  Finally, I said, " I want to hear what my lawyer has to say."  Irwin mumbled something but was extremely passive.  "You're my lawyer," I yelled, "say something."  Artz then read something he had written which basically had me admitting a crime and apologizing for it.  "You would let me say that?" I asked sharply to Irwin over the phone.  "Uhhh, no...we should tone it down somewhat," he said quietly.  I told them I would never agree to that statement.  What they wanted me to say wasn't true and I was not going to say it.  Ray then crafted something more moderate and in an attempt to guilt me into compliance, mentioned how harmful this was to him with the press.  He then turned everyone's attention to what statement Artz would release from Ray.  I told him that I didn't want him issuing a statement especially the one he had in mind.  His statement was so bleak and ponderous.  It clearly gave the impression that he believed something seriously wrong was going on - another admission of guilt.  You have to bear in mind there wasn't the slightest suggestion at that time or ever that Ray was somehow involved in my spending at HDC.  His actions that day had no legal significance for himself, they were completely self-serving to his PR and political objectives.  What do I mean by this?

2002 was an important election year for Ray.  The party he lead, the NYS LIberal Party, needed 50,000 votes in the election in order to survive another 4 years (all political parties in NYS are required to obtain 50,000 votes in every gubernatorial election in order to be considered a permanent party).  He was promoting Andrew Cuomo for Governor that year and needed all other distractions put aside.  Ray's lifeblood was his relationship with the press.  With my troubles only starting and possibly increasing, no reporter was going to let Ray sell his story of that election season.  They were going to hammer him about his son and HDC.  Ray calculated early on that the only way to get himself back in front of the press was to remove the news value from this matter even at the expense of the legal strategy.  You see Ray was behind Irwin Rochman's urging me to make repayments and Ray was behind Artz's admission of guilt statement.  If I am admitting guilt and making repayments, the press may still be very interested in me but what could they say to my father?  Ray needed desperately to have me admitting guilt and point to those repayments so when he went back on NY-1 or chatted with a New York Times reporter he could say, "I have nothing to say,  Russell has admitted his misdeeds and is making restitution."  And he was right.  What could a reporter say to the father after that? Nothing.  Anything else would just be overkill.  You cannot visit sins and he is not my keeper.

Had I steadfastly maintained my innocence then the reporters could have dragged out all sorts of examples of spending and asked my father did he think they were justified.  He never would have focused them on his message - a Cuomo candidacy.  But once Ray removed that obstacle, the press had nothing more to say to him about me.  Consider this: the first indication of any trouble was around the second week of February.  I didn't let Ray know about it until maybe 10 days after that. He was back on NY-1 giving a live interview - in studio- less than 4 weeks after this started.  Remarkable.  He had orchestrated this whole thing: my hiring Irwin as my attorney, hiring Artz as my publicist, the repayments and the statements; all to get himself back on TV in record time.  And it worked.  After that first somewhat uncomfortable night in the studio with Dominic Carter, Ray was back to being a regular guest.  The reporters were calling again about politics, not about me.  Once again Ray had masterfully controlled events to his advantage.  I would find out later that a few weeks following that conference call and the release of those statements Ray would make a secret payment to Irwin Rochman, my attorney, of $25,000.  I was not short of cash at the time and had Irwin needed more money - hardly likely since he never came close to expending the $50,000 - I would have provided it.  Why did Ray pay this money to my lawyer and why was it kept a secret from me at the time?  I have no definitive answers but a whole lot of suspicions.

But make no mistake, those actions taken in the first weeks still revurbarate today and caused me irreperable harm. For any chance I ever had to defend myself fully was clouded by those decisons in the early weeks.  If you think Ray's actions cold, calculating and self-serving, all I can say is that they are nothing - less than nothing - compared to what he would do to me later on.  I would come to know my father as a malevolent force, such that I could never imagine.

My state of mind during this period started to deteriorate.  The NYC Department of Investigations was by all accounts from Irwin, Artz and the numerous HDC employees who contacted me, all over HDC.

 Every day would bring another phone call from Irwin with some new revelation.  This began my vigil of 9-5 hysteria.  From 5PM till 9AM I was in basically OK shape.  But come 9AM I was a total wreck.  I didn't want to leave the house in case the phone rang but at the same time I was in dread fear of the next call.  Since all business is done between 9-5 I knew that reaching  the end of day without bad news meant I could relax for the evening until the next morning.  Those months living like that were in many ways worse than prison.  Hard for many of you to believe, I know.

This hysteria also started to affect my judgment.  I couldn't see clearly anymore who was friend and who was foe; I was constantly grasping at straws.  During this period of time Artz, the publicist/friend of Ray's, was getting info from City Hall and Robbins.  It appeared that the person behind all this was Dan Doctoroff.  He had some sort of irrational hatred of the Hardings according to Vinny LaPadula.  He tried, in a meeting Vinny attended, to get Bob Harding kicked off the Lower Manhattan Development Corporation to which Rudy had appointed him.  Bloomberg wouldn't acquiesce and it apparently enraged Doctoroff. 

Jerrilyn Perrine - Richard Robert's handpicked successor as City Housing Commissioner - and I had always gotten along badly during my time at HDC.  As Ray's son and Tony's best friend she knew however that there was only so far she could push me.  We pretended to like each other except on 2 occasions where screaming and cursing ensued.  But at the end of the day I knew she hated my guts.  But knowing this full well I reached out to her for assistance.  She was extremely sympathetic and placed all the blame on HPD's General Counsel, whom she said, was driving this train.  She said this so often that I foolishly believed it.  I mentioned this to Tony who told me that the General Counsel, Matt something (I forget) was a McManus guy.  "Why arent' you telling Ray this?"  Tony asked.  Jim McManus was the leader of the last vestiges of the Tammany Hall Democratic machine in Manhattan.  He and Ray had developed a very good working relationship over the years.  Tony, who always knew where every body was buried in City government and who was whose rabbi, instantly knew that the General Counsel owed McManus his job and McManus would not be happy that he was endeavoring to harm me. I told Ray all this and Ray reached out to McManus.  McManus reported back that he had called Matt in to read him the riot act but that the General Counsel swore that Jerrilyn was making him do this.  He had tried to slow it down or minimize the matter but Jerrilyn was on him constantly to ratchet this up.  He said it was Jerrilyn who had asked Doctoroff for permission to call in DOI.  DOI was her idea.   It seemed clear that the General Counsel was telling the truth. 

My second severe mistake in judgment was to reach out to Chuck Brass, my successor.  It was no secret since the time I joined HDC that Chuck couldn't stand me.  He did not do much to hide it, but he was probably the smartest housing guy in New York City, so I overlooked it.  I knew HDC was lucky to have him.  Chuck viewed me as an idiot, political hack and disdained me as such.  Over time his dislike of me changed in character.  He no longer loathed me for being a putz, rather he loathed me for turning the place around so successfully and earning the respect of the staff.  I was proving myself and Chuck deeply resented that this man who knew nothing about housing or finance was making such a good go at running the place.  It was known by everybody that Chuck desperately wanted to be President of HDC and it was his ultimate ambition.  In the Spring of 2000 Chuck accepted the post of President of the NYC Housing Partnership under Richard Kiley and left HDC.

I threw him a fancy going away party and heaped lavish praise on him.  He had insulted me by not informing me that he was interviewing for the job.  I found out from someone else shortly before he accepted.  He went further and hired at the Partnership someone I had fired at HDC.  But again, I overlooked all this and only wished him well and stayed in contact.  A year later the person I had hired to replace Chuck left HDC and the position was again vacant.  I received a call from Chuck asking me to meet for drinks at the American Cafe in Battery Park City, near his office.  There he informed me that in the wake of Richard Kiley's departure to London Kiley's successor, Kathy Wilde, was planning on firing him.  I hadn't known before then that Kathy Wilde disliked Chuck and certainly not to the extent that she couldn't stand to have him around for even a minute during her tenure.  It had hit Chuck hard and he started to get emotional.  Neither of us wanted to see that.  I quickly changed the subject so that he could compose himself.  He asked to come back to HDC in his old job.  I knew this was hard for him; hard to be fired and hard to ask me for something, especially something as big as this.

I told him I would think about it.  I had made up my mind to promote the General Counsel, David Boccio, to the Development job.  This threw a new wrinkle into that.  I thought about it for a day and decided to bring Chuck back.  During his year away HDC had continued to thrive and our revenue was at record levels but I thought then he would still add a depth of experience that Boccio couldn't bring.

I knew the staff would not like this.  Chuck believed himself beloved by the staff notwithstanding his curmudgeon ways.  I was shocked to learn after he had left the depth of relief at his departure. Senior people, people Chuck considered close friends, were very glad to see him go.  Those people recognized that I was trying to bring HDC into the 21st Century: technologically, programmatically and managerially.  They resented that Chuck made no bones about the fact that he considered my efforts at change to be a total waste of time.  But, as I have said, he was probably the smartest housing guy in NYC and I believed the corporation would still benefit by his expertise.  I could handle Chuck's obstinacy.  When I broke the news to the staff they were crestfallen.  I really hadn't expected the reaction to be as bad as it was. 

Although Chuck had not asked, I decided to bring him back at a higher title.  I knew how humiliating this was for him and I tried to soften the blow for public consumption.  His only request had been to bring back his secretary whom he had taken with him from HDC.  I had hoped the experience would soften Chuck somewhat.  All it did apparently was harden his existing feelings for me.  He hated that he had had to ask me for this.  Rather than be grateful it embittered him even more.  That part I didn't know.

When I found out about the FOIL I called Chuck and asked why he didn't tell me.  He was brusque.  Like a petulant child he kept saying over and over that he didn't have to tell me.  I said in a soft voice that I was aware of that.  He told me he knew that I had made other FOILs disappear and was not going to let it happen again.  I explained that being out of HDC there was nothing I could do and didn't he owe me the common courtesy of a phone call as a heads up?   You see, I had spent my last month there doing nothing but trying to get Chuck the job as HDC president once I had decided to leave.

The main contenders for the job were Shaun Donovan and Deborah VanAmerongen.  I had encountered Donovan a few times when he was at HUD and took an instant dislike to him.  He was an arrogant, snotty kid and I knew that he would not be a good fit for HDC. The serious morale problem at HPD during his tenure there confirmed my view.   Deborah VanAmerongen had headed the NY HUD office.  We at HDC all knew her to be a total incompetent; made worse by the fact that she was very taken with her own abilities.   She was the butt of many a joke at the Corporation.  I was absolutely not going to let her be President of HDC.  So that left Chuck.  I consoled myself with the fact that he knew the place and I believed in his heart cared for HDC as much as I did.  So I moved heaven and earth to see that he would be my successor.  And he was.  I had worked very hard with Vinny - who by this time was Senior Advisor to the Mayor - to push Chuck's name at City Hall with Bloomberg.

But as soon as I left, I started to receive calls, e-mails and letters from HDC employees all complaining about Chuck.  He had apparently become completely obsessed with me.  Contrary to the now popular view that I was unpopular during my tenure, the staff were generally angry with me for leaving.  They were concerned about what would happen to HDC once I left.  They knew they had never had anyone champion the Corporation as I had.  Not to mention how I had markedly improved many of their lives professionally and personally.  I had meeting after meeting before I left assuring people that Chuck was going to be OK.  He would rise to the challenge and curtail his negative character traits now that he was going to have the top job, I had told them.

Now they were telling me that Chuck was invoking my name constantly.  If a memo didn't arrive on his desk in the amount of time he thought proper his response was, "you would never have had this in late if Russell were still here."  If a junior staff member spoke to him in a less than deferential manner his response was, "you would never dare speak that way to Russell ."  Chuck had fundamentally misunderstood what had made me respected by the staff, especially the junior staff.  It wasn't fear but comity.  Over three dozen staff members contacted me after I left to relate stories like these.  These same staff members would tell me later that the troubles that befell me and by extension HDC, they all blamed on Chuck not me.  Chuck had turned over the records that Robbins had FOIL'd.  What made this not only unusual but perhaps unprecedented in FOIL history is that the records didn't exist in the corporation.  I had removed them long before.  The fundamental principle of FOIL is you are not obligated to turn over anything that does not exist.  In my eight years dealing with FOILs I had never heard of a single instance where documents were created in order to comply.  It simply never happened.  But Chuck had all these documents reproduced.  It was then that I realized that Chuck suffered from what we in my family call 'Mario Cuomo Syndrome'. 

In 1982 Ray was instrumental in Mario getting the nomination in the Democratic Party after getting a huge lift in attaining the Liberal Party nomination.  Ray along with Andrew were the brain trust on that campaign.  Ray had deemed it good strategy to open up the Liberal Party nomination and invited many candidates to apply for the Party's endorsement.  He knew he was going to give it to Mario but deemed, correctly, that its value would be heightened if all the others were seen seeking it as well.  Unbeknownst to Ray, Mario resented that Ray hadn't just anointed him with the endorsement but rather, in Mario's view, made him work for it.  That coupled with the many favorable stories after the Cuomo victory crediting Ray with the win, gnawed at Mario to such a degree that he turned on Ray completely.  He threatened Ray's law firm, Shea & Gould, with the loss of all state business unless he was fired.  He attempted successfully, for a time, to wrest leadership control of the Liberal Party away from Ray.  The man who believes himself self-made can only be so if no one exists to prove otherwise.  Ray's mere existence would forever put a lie to Mario's contention that this was all his own doing.  He had to destroy him.  Mario's weird, Bush like relationship with Andrew stems from this as well.

Chuck was trying, in his own way, not only to destroy me but to destroy my legacy as a good HDC president.   He could not come to terms with the fact that I was instrumental in his getting the job as president. 

Two federal judges and numerous former Asst. US Attorneys told me during this time that there would have been nothing improper in the Corporation reviewing any spending with me privately and asking for reimbursements as it saw fit.  As I said, many employees of HDC blamed Chuck rather than me for what happened to HDC.  The millions of dollars that the US Attorney and DOI would force HDC to spend in this investigation could have gone towards housing but was spent pointlessly as a result of Chuck having initiated all this.  This could have all been handled by HDC internally. The problem was, and I could have told Chuck this, he was a smart housing guy but when it came to politics he hadn't a clue.  When you create a whirlwind you have to be the adept wizard to control it otherwise it will destroy everything in its path.  Chuck was never that wizard and it did just that.  And because Chuck thought he was smarter than he actually was the whirlwind would consume him as well.


 

J'ACCUSE - Part II

(Start with J'ACCUSE - PART I)

I received a number of e-mails after I posted J'Accuse Part I asking me to talk more about HDC and my tenure there.  I hesitated originally because I did not think people would be all that interested.  But I am happy to recount those years briefly.  I am very proud of them.

Richard Roberts, the former HPD Commissioner and HDC Chairman perjured himself when he described how I became HDC President.  As he was desperate to save himself from prison I guess it's understandable, but still not an honorable thing.  I was at EDC seriously looking for a job in the private sector come the Spring of 1998. I was talking to headhunters and sending out resumes.  I had no intention of staying in the administration.  Then one day at work in April, Richard Roberts, a friend from City Hall days, calls to ask me to consider taking the job of HDC President.  I knew HDC only a little.  Richard explained that he had removed the president and given her a position at his agency.  She wasn't measuring up.  He further told me that the semi-permanent head of HDC, its Executive Vice President, was blocking all of his attempts at new projects.  HPD, you see, had the muscle but HDC had the cash.  And Richard needed money to fund his legacy projects in Harlem.  Because of the Exec VP's  pull with certain orthodox Jewish leaders close to City Hall, unless Richard found a heavyweight for the job of president it would go to the Exec VP.  I told him I wasn't interested and said so on about two more occasions. Richard lobbied me hard.  We wound up finally agreeing on this during a 1AM phone call at home.  Richard's version to a grand jury was that Ray Harding pressured him and Deputy Mayor Randy Mastro to get me this job.  That story is completely false.  But it made Richard a victim in that I am supposed to have been foisted upon him against his will. 

I found HDC to be completely moribund.  I had never seen anything quite so mismanaged.  No organizational system, no long-term or short-term goals, dreadful morale and a total lack of leadership.  When I came aboard, the President, Exec VP and General Counsel had all just left.  To my way of thinking that was a blessing.  HDC's problem, as I soon discovered, was that it had atrophied.  It had incredibly talented staff: knowledgeable, hardworking, loyal & dedicated. But that was also part of the problem.  In an era where people move jobs every few years the pattern at HDC was that no one ever left.  I called them 'lifers.'  It didn't encourage new thinking and broader visions. The answer to every process question I asked was answered with, "we've always done it that way."

This was 1998 and almost no one had a computer on their desk.  No email, no voice mail, absolutely no internet access and the place was a deathtrap.  On one of the upper floors, which was stacked floor to ceiling with paper, had there been a fire, everyone would have died.  Most astonishingly, no one but the president had a direct telephone line.  All calls had to go through a central switchboard.  1998!!!!! 

The corporation was badly understaffed although it wasn't producing much housing at that point so it didn't matter much.  I did what I always do when I take over a group of people; I tried to get to know them.  That was nearly impossible at HDC.  When I walked around the office chatting with staff, one after the other would say the same thing, "I've been here 10 years and no President has ever spoken to me before."  I initiated brown bag lunch days by dept. so I could meet them and they could see me.  I asked - begged - them to speak their minds and tell me what was good and bad about the place.  I soon learned that the model HDC president before me was someone who never left their office, didn't speak to staff, and let the former Exec VP run the place.  Staff were freaked by the president and didn't know what to do when I spoke to them.  Many absolutely refused to call me by my first name. It was creepy. HDC had had glory years but they were clearly just a memory when I showed up.

I quickly set an ambitious agenda.  The former Exec VP had become happy with the corporation making money in any manner that guaranteed the highest return.  At that time it meant government investments, not housing.  The misconception throughout my entire case, fostered by my prosecutor and perpetuated by my judge, was that HDC is a City agency.  It was not.  It was a 501(c)3 not-for-profit corporation.  In fact it was a multi-billion dollar corporation.  It had no official ties to New York City and it did more business with Goldman Sachs and Bear Stearns than it did with the City's Department of Housing and Preservation. 

In one instance, shortly after arriving I asked the NYC Law Dept if it was alright if we used the City seal on some materials.  I received an opinion back that we absolutely could not, we were not a City agency.  HDC made its money three ways: through the fees that it charged developers, through in-house investment of its reserves and through various fees and contracts in which we charged third-parties.  The corporation took no city tax dollars other than those we charged HPD for investing some of their funds. We didn't like doing this so we charged them a high rate.   We did nothing for free.  We also had a contract with HUD that I will talk about later.  It was popular during my case to talk of fleecing the city or taxpayers money.  No city, state or federal tax monies were misspent by me.  We made increasing profits every year I was there and that money came primarily from our investments and fees.

My motto was, "the H stands for for housing."  As I said, the previous regime had been happy getting 8% return from our investments in government bonds and treasury notes, as they were higher than mortgage rates.  I stopped that.  We were going to invest in housing and a lot of it, whether or not it paid the higher return.  It was our mission.  I immediately expanded the middle-income housing program and devoted a lot more cash to its subsidies.  I expanded the low-income program and saw the creation of 4 new programs.  I began the process of modernizing the corporation.  I negotiated a long term lease in good Class-B space for below market rent.  I set about an entire reorganization of HDC.  Overseen by my chief of staff the whole place was reorganized so that there were now clear lines of authority and that 12 people didn't have the title 'Assistant Treasurer' when half had nothing to do with finance.  I created a Workouts unit to help our financially distressed properties.  I signed a ground-breaking contract with the Oracle Corp. to create a state of the art system for our entire financial side (we used a Wang operating system so antiquated that Wang refused to service it and no replacement parts existed). The Oracle VP told me that he had never seen a contract like ours approved by their General Counsel's office.  I insisted that any overruns in time or money be borne by them.  We wanted this delivered shortly after we moved and if it was not I was not going to pay the daily rate of $2,000 per person to keep their programmers and consultants around.  This had never been approved by them before. They made a lot of their money from overruns.  I insisted on this provision knowing the value they placed on producing this software so as to go after the rest of the state housing finance industry.  That provision turned out to be a savings of over $1 million dollars to HDC.

I expanded the staff and increased salaries and benefits.  All the while working with the CFO to find ways to increase revenue.  We had one record year after the next in terms of our bottom line.  Also, and this was very important to me, HDC oversaw for HUD 70 Section 8 projects with over 7,000 units of housing.  As soon as I started the job I told my staff I wanted to visit and inspect every project.  We set aside Wednesday mornings and accompanied by one of our on-staff engineers I would tour 2-3 projects. I learned about boilers, roof ponding, elevator motors and fire safety issues.  I would knock on a few doors and sit down with residents to discuss their concerns.  

It seemed the natural and responsible thing to do. I was absolutely astonished to learn that no HDC president before me had done this.  How could you possibly get a sense of the condition of the properties we were ultimately responsible for if you didn't go and take a look?  By reading reports?  It was just another bizarre aspect regarding HDC that I was determined to change.  In my 3 1/2 years as president we tripled the number of projects and doubled the number of units financed over the prior five years.  It is not popular, but also no exaggeration, to say that 1,000s of people in this city have a roof over their heads today  because at a particular moment in time, I was President of HDC.  It is also beyond dispute that  had I not invested the time and money in turning the corporation around, HDC could not have been the financing engine it has become post 9/11.  It was simply imploding in on itself when I arrived.  The corporation I inherited could never have functioned to produce the housing it has in the last 7 years.  It's just a fact.

But back to my case.  Where were we?  Yes, I had received the threatening letter from Fred co-written by Village Voice reporter Tom Robbins.  After I sent back a threatening response I crossed my fingers and hoped for the best.  Now it gets weirder.  A few days later I receive on my HDC Blackberry an e-mail from an anonymous person telling me that on a political website, I had never heard of, someone had posted a request relating to me.  When I went to the office I discovered that on this website was a request from Fred, by name, seeking the name of a good political reporter and claiming he had damaging info on me.  This was all a cover.  Robbins had gotten my HDC e-mail address and Fred had sent me the tip to look at the website.  Fred had been with Robbins for some time by this point.  Who knows why he did it or sent me that anonymous e-mail telling me about it.  But it gets more bizarre.  I would next receive a series of anonymous e-mails from someone who claimed to be a staffer at the Village Voice who wanted to be of help to me.  This person - it was of course Fred - would send me frequent reports about what Robbins was doing and his meetings with his "informant in the mid-west."  The information was always correct as it naturally would be coming from Fred.  I don't believe Robbins was aware Fred was doing this.  I think Fred had just become completely unhinged at this point and had a serious love/hate thing going on with me (the prosecution eventually had all these e-mails I am referencing). My last days at HDC were less than the pleasant goodbyes I had hoped for.  In the back of my mind were these e-mails.   In the main I tried to pretend that this wasn't something big. To make the point that I didn't consider this to be anything serious, I continued charging items through vouchers or credit card and being reimbursed by HDC.  Mainly items relating to moving my possessions and storing them.  These items of course could be subject to outside scrutiny after I left.  I always made the point later that had I thought I was doing something illegal I certainly would never have left the extraordinary paper trail that I did.

Having now left HDC I learned through the helpful 'Voice staffer' e-mails that my expense records had been FOIL'd by Robbins at HDC.  I learned this around February 7th, I left HDC February 1st.  In the last seven years since I left HDC I have had one carefree, pleasant week.  Since Feb. 7th it has all been downhill. The e-mails informed me that HDC was turning over all my expenses to Robbins . 

**Point of full disclosure - during my tenure I had caused to go missing some credit card records that Robbins had FOIL'd.  In addition - and he never knew this - some records relating to our move.  I did this not because I ever believed anything was illegal but rather to avoid embarrassment in the papers about my spending.  Yes, when traveling I stayed at nice hotels and ate at nice restaurants.  While at EDC The New York Observer had FOIL'd me and rather than having my travels and expenses revealed I paid them back the entire amount, $3,000.  With the exception of a train trip to Baltimore, all those expenses were 100% legit relating to the large marketing research EDC was doing.  We had paid Wirthlin Woldwide $1,000,000 to do the research and we were testing ideas, commercials and slogans across the country with key company decision makers in order to figure out what worked best in attracting new business and those businesses that were looking towards expansion.  The money spent paid off handsomely as our marketing was now dead-on and the results at EDC's Business Retention and New Business units attested.  I thought $3,000 a small price to pay in order not to have to go through the ordeal that had transpired the year before when Robbins staked me out in the EDC lobby for a week in order to get a picture for a 3/4 page story in the Daily News about a $3,000 annual bonus I had received.  My picture took up most of the page.  Bonuses at EDC  that year ranged from $1500-$10,000.  But naturally I was singled out.  Having paid the $3,000 to EDC the story in the Observer was avoided and was totally worth it.**

For a few weeks I worried about this whole thing privately but finally told my father.  He immediately suggested I hire a friend of his, Irwin Rochman, a noted criminal defense attorney.  This has never been revealed before but when Tony Carbonetti was being investigated criminally for his role in the HANAC scandal Irwin Rochman represented him.  That part is public record.  Not known is that my father paid Irwin's $50,000 fee on behalf of Tony.  I believe it was with this in mind that when at my house one night a few weeks into my matter, Tony said he was leaving and as he did so placed a very nice check on my coffee table.  It wasn't $50,000 but an extremely nice gesture.  I wasn't in need of money at the time but I thought then that this was his way of paying back Ray in some measure.  He never spoke of that again, which I thought a very classy thing.

As HDC turned over the documents to Robbins I also got word that the New York City Dept of Investigation had become involved.  {See my thoughts elsewhere on my views of DOI and my history with them.}  I spoke to Irwin a few times while he was in London handling a case and then we met at his office.  He asked for and received a $50,000 retainer.  I didn't know it then but he was violating recent rules passed down by the State Bar.  He never offered me a retainer agreement.  It was absolutely required that any new client sign a retainer agreement the second money changed hands.  I never signed one with him for the 8 weeks he was my attorney.  Irwin told me repeatedly that he would handle my case however long it took and even through trial for $50,000.  I told him that was ridiculous.  I certainly didn't expect this matter to reach trial or even a plea but if it did $50,000 couldn't cover a small fraction of that cost.  But strangely he kept insisting all he would take is $50,000.  Finally I let it pass as I thought it such a silly thing to say and it was, I supposed, some attempt at a goodwill gesture because of his friendship with my father. 

I believed at that time that Irwin would be the right lawyer.  He had saved Tony from possible indictment and gotten Ray out of a bad scrape over back taxes.  I soon grew very disenchanted with him.  He treated me like Ray's kid and never like a client, although I was the one paying him.  He kept me waiting in his lobby while he met with my father or Tony alone.  He reported all developments in the case to Ray before he did to me.  Ray always knew more than I did and between he and Irwin decided what I should and shouldn't know.  Ray also hired an old friend to do public relations, George Artz.  I didn't realize it then but George was there to do Ray's PR not mine.  I met with Artz for an hour in Irwin's office to tell him the background.  Ray reported back to me that George didn't like me.  He didn't feel that I was concerned enough about how this was hurting my father because I had relayed the story of this case too dispassionately.  This was ironic since anyone who had heard the recitation of this case from me always heard the intense emotion spew forth from my retelling.  

Artz had a good relationship with Robbins.  I think they bonded further in their dislike of me.  Great thing to have in someone whose supposedly handling your PR.  Robbins said he had chats between me and Fred.  He said they covered a wide range of sexual topics, including children and also illegal activity by me at HDC.  I was worried because Fred and I had indeed had chats about kids, but illegal activity at HDC?  What the fuck was that about?  It was then that it started to dawn on me that whatever Fred had given Robbins - I had no idea at that time that Robbins was actively helping Fred write the chats - was fabricated.  What person, sane or otherwise, kept printed copies of chats from five years earlier?  Fred and I were on good terms then, why would he keep them?  I posed this question to Tony.  He's the one who showed me how it was done. 

Now if you take nothing else away from this whole story please pay attention to this next part.  This has ramifications for anyone who uses any instant message program, young or old.  Tony was at my house one night.  I was perplexed at how Fred could have done this.  He apparently had my real screename attached to all these chats where I am saying things I never said.  Tony asked if I had a laptop.  Sure, I said.  We set up in my den a connection so that we were chatting on his AOL account on the laptop and mine on my desktop.  We chatted for a few minutes and he told me to save the chat on my computer .  He then sat at my computer and opened the saved chat in Microsoft Word.  There was the chat just as it had appeared on AOL.  Except now you could erase all the text following the screename.  Anyone who has ever chatted knows that each time a person types a message it is preceded by their screename so that the participants know who is saying what.  On AOL you cannot edit what is said, only scroll back and read it.  Once saved in Word you retain all the screename breaks but the text following it can be edited at will.  An innocent chat about the weather in seconds could be converted into a terrorist plot to blow up the Statue of Liberty. You print it and to an unsuspecting eye it looks genuine.  

I'll get into this at much greater length later, but imagine that Tony Carbonetti, self admittedly no rocket scientist in computer matters, figured this out but senior U.S. Customs Agents, and the U.S. Attorneys Office for the Southern District couldn't piece this together.  Or more accurately didn't want to.  I'll get into that later too.

POSTSCRIPT:

If you're wondering how I know that Fred and Tom Robbins collaborated on fabricating the chats, Fred told me.  I will write in more detail how and when I came to learn that precisely in the weeks ahead.

NOTE:

Apologies for this being less than I had promised.  I hadn't planned last week to write about my tenure at HDC so it cut into the amount devoted to the case I wanted to put up this week.  I will make up for everything next week with J'ACCUSE - Part III.

J'ACCUSE - Part 1

I've thought a lot about how to do this.  I still haven't come up with a fine, linear way to present it.  My case is very convoluted and complex.  Not the legal aspect, that's rather simple, but the story leading up to it and the twists and turns that ensued.  I'll present it as best I can and hope you can follow along.  Some may seem dry at first.  But like learning a new language, you need to know basic vocabulary and grammar before it all starts to make sense.  I have to explain the players and the background for the latter part to seem as incredible as I promise it will.

We have to start somewhere and so we begin at the beginning.  With Fred - that is Fred Sawyers.  I had been chatting on AOL since about 1995-96.  At some point in 1997 I met a great guy who lived in New Hampshire.  He was about 24, good looking based on his pictures and lots of fun to talk to.  I no longer remember his name.  I would not know it until much later but this was Fred Sawyers (a lonely, sad sack, down and out wretch in Indianapolis).  He used a different name and didn't live in NH but it was Fred.  We chatted for a few weeks and became friends.  He introduced me to his older brother who was also on-line (also Fred).  His brother was a state trooper, he said.  From chatting with them they both seemed like very caring, loving guys.  They told me separately that the younger brother would bottom for his brother and some of his brother's police friends.  I had never encountered incest except in jokes about Appalachia.  This was the first time I had spoken to someone who engaged in it. 

We must have chatted for probably 2 months when the older brother told me that the younger one had been badly beaten.  The story was very convoluted and had something to do with someone he had arrested previously seeking revenge.  The younger brother was in a Worcester, MA hospital.   I told him I wanted to drive up.  I went to school in Worcester and knew that hospital well.  He convinced me not to come.  I called the hospital and asked for a room number, I wanted to send flowers.  They said they had no record of the name I was calling about.  The older brother told me they had to put his brother under an assumed name because the perp hadn't been caught and might come back for him.  The next day the older brother told me that his younger brother had died of his injuries.  At first, I felt awful.  I really liked this guy and although we hadn't met I had real feelings for him, if that is possible on-line.  Then slowly - I know I'm an idiot - this all didn't seem to piece together.  Little clues that the brothers were the same person started to materialize.  Then I felt really pissed off that someone would do something like this, although he continued to deny it.  I blocked their screenames and that was that.

Fred wasn't done with me though.  I was too good to be true, having been this gullible for so long.  He then created another persona and contacted me to chat. He was now a married man in Virginia (he would end up being about a dozen other people).  It was this man in Virginia who told me he had a lover on the side named Fred.  He said I should chat with him sometime and that he was moving shortly to the mid-west. 

{NOTE: Any use of the word 'met' in connection with these Internet discussions means encountered on-line not met in person.}

Up until the moment I met this man in Virginia, I had never thought about sex with children, never discussed it, or knew anyone who did.   I was never abused as a child and didn't know anyone who had been.  It was Fred, posing as this married man who told me that he was having sex with his son and that he included Fred, his lover.

Frankly, I was a deeply repressed homosexual and the topic of sex, any sex - especially taboo sex - was very titillating to me.  I wasn't hard up for sex.  I started late in life but I had by that point slept with many men.  But I was very, very deep in the closet and never discussed sex or my sexuality with anyone I actually knew. Over the next 3-4 years I started chatting regularly with Fred.  I would come to learn much later that he played a few different parts - different screenames - to help foster my voyeuristic curiosity into the lives of people who engage in child sex and incest.

Fred was the most pathetic person I had ever met.  He would tell me I was his only friend.  He said he had been badly abused, physically and sexually, as a child by his stepfather.  He had a meager existence.  A low-paying job as a clerk, a shithole apartment, and no social life.  I don't know why now or then, but I felt very sorry for him.  I can't explain it to myself so I can't explain it to you.  I sent him some money on a few occasions because he told me he was near eviction.  I also sent him some gifts - one of which was a VCR paid for with company funds.  But in all that time and even now, I have never met Fred.  Seems utterly crazy to take such an interest, show so much attention, to someone you've never met.  I know. Crazy.

In early 2000 I had decided I had had enough of Fred.  The lurid chats and his constant need for my attention on-line were getting to me .  I sent him an e-mail telling him I was canceling my AOL account.  I told him it was due to a lack of time to spend on-line and had nothing to do with him.  I wished him well.  A few days later a box arrived at my home with some meager possessions and a suicide note.  Fred explained that he was killing himself because without me as his friend he had nothing to live for.  Anyone of you would have tossed the box and put it out of your mind as the workings of a deeply disturbed person.  And rightly so. For whatever reason I freaked.  I believed everything Fred had told me up till this point and I firmly believed I was the cause of his death.  I thought my actions harsh and selfish.  I felt horrible.  {I retain to this day a certain gullibility.  I can't see a reason why on a personal level people would lie so elaborately so I tend to believe them.  In business, it's another story.  But in day to day interaction with people I've never understood the point of doing it, so I don't expect it.}

I immediately reactivated my AOL account and sent him an e-mail.  His account was still active.  A few days later I received a response telling me that he had tried to kill himself and was now in a hospital.  I felt truly awful.  He made me promise not to disappear from his life again and I reluctantly agreed.  Prior and subsequent to that episode Fred and I talked a lot about sex.  All kinds of sex including with children.  As time went on we talked about sex less and less to the point that it wasn't mentioned in the final days that we spoke.  I spoke of my life and he spoke of his.  As time went on we spoke infrequently.  At no time ever did we trade pictures.  Fred sent me dozens of pictures of himself but never anything illegal.  At no time did I ever send him a real picture of me.  With the exception of one guy in NYC, I had never sent a real picture of myself to anyone on-line during all those years.  I was consumed with the notion of being outed.  I had told Fred I worked as a VP for a company, and later when I went to HDC, I got a job running a real estate company.  At no time did I ever mention Rudy Giuliani or HDC.  In my mind it would have been personal and professional suicide to chat as freely as I was and reveal what I did and whom I knew. I will be borne out on this statement later.

Cut to spring 2001.  During the prior year and half Fred had tried to kill himself again, was confined to a mental institution, found a new, still pathetic job, developed leukemia and started a fledgling on-line business, or so he told me.  At this point I had pretty much had enough.  I had started to doubt some of his  claims (I know you would have disbelieved him from the start), but even so, I was just simply tired of being this guy's sole link to the world. The one thing that hadn't changed according to him was that he still had no friends (with one exception I'll get to later). He told me his cancer support group had chipped in and purchased a ticket for him to visit NYC, the place he wanted to see most in the world.  He wanted to stay with me.  I blew up and told him I had enough.  He was manipulating me and I was done.  That was the last time we chatted.  He sent me dozens of pleading e-mails over the next 8 months begging me to talk to him again.  I resolved not to answer a single one.  And I didn't.  Now, had I canceled my AOL account that spring or even just changed my screename I would never have been investigated, indicted or gone to prison.  The great error happened at that moment.  But I was lazy and had that screename invested in all my accounts, banking on-line, billpay and many other things.  It would have been a major hassle to change it.  My guess is Fred would have given up once he came across a removed e-mail address.  But time has a way of festering peoples hostilities.  And if one is deeply disturbed the consequences even more unpredictable.

I had decided that although I could have stayed on as President of HDC in the Bloomberg Administration, I would leave HDC.  The day before my interview with the transition committee on Dec. 18th I had an epiphany.  It suddenly dawned on me that I wasn't a civil servant and I had come into government to work for and serve Rudy Giuliani.  I didn't particularly admire Mike Bloomberg or the team he was assembling.  Sitting at my desk I said to Luke Cusack, "Why am I staying?"  My goal was to turn HDC around from the moribund state I had found it in and put it back on a path to financing significant amounts of housing.  I had done that.  So I called the head of the committee, Alan Weiner, and told him I was withdrawing.  Passage of time leads people to think I left HDC because of the investigation.  There was no investigation in mid-December of 2001.

I announced I would leave on Feb. 1st.  Most people aren't aware that Rudy and Tony Carbonetti had gotten an agreement from Bloomberg to keep certain Giuliani Administration appointees.  There was a mad scramble in those final days to get on, what we all called, the "Must Hire List."  My name was in the top five of that list so there's no question i would have been retained.  Bloomberg was not doing anything back then to piss off Rudy.  

A few weeks before I left HDC I received an e-mail from Fred.  It said, in very angry terms, that he was going to tell everyone I was gay (true), that we had discussed sex with children (true) and that we had traded child pornography (not true).  He blamed me for ruining his life and that he wasn't going to allow himself to be discarded like this.  He was going to make me pay.  At first I didn't get what this was about.  Why the angry e-mail out the the blue and why make up the trading of pictures?  Why now?

The full answer didn't come till much later.  He sent this at the behest of Tom Robbins, Village Voice reporter.  At first I ignored it.  But I was, as ever, completely terrified of anyone finding out I was gay.  I thought the best thing to do was threaten Fred with prosecution.  I wrote him back and said I had spoken to a lawyer (which I hadn't) and that this was harassment and blackmail for my attention.  Blackmail doesn't have to be for money.  Robbins had put him up to this and helped him write it in order to confirm that Fred knew me.  Unbeknownst to me at that moment Fred had sought out a reporter to tell his story to.  He found the one reporter who hated me and my family more than any other, Tom Robbins.

I'll conclude Part 1 here.  The next part will detail the chats that appeared in the Village Voice, how Fred and Tom Robbins worked as a team to create those chats to appear as though they were from me, how those fabricated chats were used by the Government as evidence (until it was revealed that they were concocted), how the prosecutor protects Fred to this very day and how the betrayal by my father begins in earnest with the hiring of my first attorney.

Stick around I promise this only gets more intriguing.