Her Last Day in Court:
“Ron, I can’t take much more of his sleazy behavior! I really
don’t think you are going to win this case for me anyway. I’ve
lost everything; at least I can have the pleasure of making sure
the jury knows their judge is another sexual power tripper,
going in to his chambers to satisfy himself with the bailiff
while he screws me over under the law! I don’t…”
“Gloria, we still have Coach Nestorovic and the jury could be
‘hung’. They already see what the judge is doing. Please let me
‘do my thing’!”
“Sure! Easy for you to say! You get paid while risking nothing.
You didn’t have a thing to lose. I had to sell my house to pay
your bill. This whole system is screwed. I informed the police,
as soon as I knew what was going on!”
“Your husband’s testimony made them think you had a pretty good
idea a long time before that! It can easily be settled if you
turn state’s evidence on the Mafia bosses you worked for!”
“Well, how will that protect my kids now that he has filed for
a divorce and custody? He’ll be awarded custody with me in jail,
for certain. He’s made it clear he has no intention of entering
witness protection. Even Witness Protection might not work, you
know! They have people inside the system that might find out
where we are anyway. You know that I’ll do anything to protect
them!” Gloria was distraught and pacing the floor in the little
room of the Long Beach courthouse set aside for lawyer/client
consultations. She kicked a chair knocking it over. “Damn! HIM!”
“If you blow up on the judge you can forget any chance of being
found innocent. He can make you spend thirty days in County jail
before your sentence for fraud begins. I don’t want to see this
happen, Gloria. Despite what you think about me; I’ve done
everything I can do and we do have a chance.”
“Fat One maybe! I see how he looked at me when I was on the
stand! It made my skin crawl!”
“He has already told you the next time you confront him he will
find you in contempt of court. We can use his behavior in an
appeal.”
“I don’t have the money for that! The situation doesn’t warrant
an appeal anyway. They had enough proof to hang me out to dry
when the State engineer lied about the soil samples and
engineering data. I’m sunk! I’m not going to sell my antique
doll collection just to pay you some more money!” Gloria sat
down and took her shoe off to massage her toe that hurt, from
when she kicked the chair, and looked out the window to see
another beautiful California day, with sunlight and soft breezes
rippling through the palm fronds.
“This is a big case and there were many people ripped-off in
the land development swindle. You know they have to have a
conviction for the media! I can only tell you that I think you
have a good chance to get custody of your kids if you are in the
witness protection program. The Mafia isn’t as strong here as
they are in places like New York. I don’t think they’ll kill
your kids!”
“I can’t take that chance. They are everything to me! I’ve only
had a few months with Susie…” Her eyes showed the signs of tears
but he could see she didn’t want to cry.
“You are one stubborn Red-Head, that’s for sure! Its part of
why you didn’t want to see that all the money they were paying
you was part of knowing it would make it difficult for you to
turn them in. You are prone to ‘stick to your guns’ and keep
your mind closed to what is happening.”
“Well! What do you know? Some philosophic insight! Hell, how
would I know about soil samples and the like? I’m an M.B.A. not
a geologist! Sure I might have seen it a little earlier, but I
needed to get ‘the goods’ on them. The city was backing them
‘big time’. No one would have listened to some young WOMAN! This
is just a railroad job. They know I’m not guilty, of anything!”
The police came and knocked on their door and summoned them to
return to the proceedings. Gloria went back into the room with
her lawyer Ron Vance. She surveyed the crowded courtroom for
what she knew was likely her last time. After her tennis coach
gave some character witness support it would be lunch, then the
summations would take an hour. She felt a sense of being
cornered, but that had been the case throughout her 25 years on
earth. It was December 19th 1968 and just two days earlier she
had turned twenty-five. Her husband wasn’t in the room as he
sometimes had been.
She remembered the day before when she had seen him sitting
with some young tart that she was sure he was sleeping with.
God, men can be wicked! She smiled sheepishly at Coach
Nestorovic and remembered back to a more innocent time when he
had been her mentor as she worked her way through university.
Her tennis and golf scholarship had paid for much of her
education. A poor girl from a Riverside trailer park whose
father had died before she came to Long Beach sure hadn’t any
money for school clothes or the high life. Then she had the
misfortune of falling in love with a lying lothario! She wasn’t
depressed yet; that was something she rarely ever let herself
do.
Ron put his hand on Gloria’s as the judge resumed the
proceedings. He had to admit she was right about this supposedly
‘Honorable’ judge. It was a travesty how he had stopped the
proceedings everyday to get his rocks off with the handsome
police matron assigned to take Gloria back to her cell each
evening after the session had begun. He truly felt a little sick
to his stomach but he didn’t want to let her know how badly he
felt. Lawyers need to be positive and give their clients
confidence. That is what his great teachers and heroes of the
profession had always told him. He also knew it was important to
getting the bills paid.