Bad Faith

27

As Karp turned to watch, a side door in the courtroom opened and a frightened-looking man timidly entered. He stood for a moment as if debating whether to try to turn and run despite the imposing presence behind him of the large black detective who escorted him from the witness waiting room.

“Please approach the stand to be sworn in,” Judge Temple directed the man, who swallowed hard, adjusted his tie, nodded, and walked toward the low swinging gate between the spectator section and the well of the court. He glanced once at the defendant, who sat looking at him with an eerie smile plastered to his face, and then at Karp before fixing his eyes ahead on the court clerk who waited.

The phrase “stuck between a rock and a hard place” comes to mind, Karp thought as the man swore to tell the truth and took a seat in the witness box alongside the jury rail. He wondered if the red flush on the man’s cheeks was due to fear, shame, or embarrassment-or likely all three. It was certainly not the nip in the October air outside. Dr. Maury Holstein had not spent much time outside at all since his arrest that past April for his participation in the grand larceny/fraud case still pending against him and LaFontaine in Tennessee.

At Marlene’s suggestion, Detective Winkler had called Holstein following the shooting and asked if he could come in to talk to him about “the Reverend John LaFontaine and some irregularities in hospital patient records.” As expected, the doctor panicked and called LaFontaine in New York City to ask what he should do.

LaFontaine was smart enough not to say much. “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” the crafty con man responded. “And don’t call here again.” But scared, and now alone, Holstein had persisted with several more calls.

That was enough to link Holstein to LaFontaine and to get the Memphis judge, who had sufficient probable cause, to issue a wiretap order and authorize a subpoena for hospital telephone and computer records. The hospital records revealed numerous calls from Holstein’s office to cell phones registered to the Holy Covenant Church of Jesus Christ Reformed when LaFontaine was still in Memphis. And while the computer records had been wiped clean of references to Micah Ellis and Natalie Hale, a forensic computer expert had been able to determine that the records had existed and had been deleted from a computer in Holstein’s office.

Given the nature of the fraudulent schemes, Holstein was arrested. He’d immediately cracked under questioning from Winkler and Fulton and then gave a comprehensive, incriminating recorded statement to Guma.

When Guma asked what could have possibly driven him to become part of such an evil plot, the doctor began to cry. He had a gambling problem and was in the hole for fifty thousand dollars to LaFontaine’s thugs, who had approached him with a deal: “I could wind up in the Mississippi with a bullet in my head, or I could go along with the program. My debt would be forgiven, and I’d get paid.”

However, the threat wasn’t the only thing that sealed the deal. He’d been having an affair with a stripper named Sarah at the Gentleman’s Club. “They got some photos of me with her at a motel and said that if I ever told, they’d give them to my wife and put them on Facebook.”

Holstein had turned over the photographs, one of which Karp showed him on the witness stand after establishing that the doctor had been blackmailed into getting involved in a plan to identify seriously ill children being treated at the hospital. “Is this the woman you knew as Sarah?” he asked.

The doctor looked up and then quickly back down. He nodded his head.

“You’re going to have to answer yes or no loud enough for the court reporter and the jurors to hear you,” Karp said.

“Yes, that’s her … and me,” Holstein said.

Karp entered the photograph into evidence and then showed it to the jury before continuing his questioning. “Do you see the man who approached you about this plan sitting in the courtroom?”

“Yes, that’s him,” Holstein said, pointing.

“Let the record reflect that the witness identified the defendant,” Karp said. “And what did he ask you to do?”

“He wanted me to identify children who were being treated for illnesses that if untreated would result in their deaths,” Holstein said.

“Did he say why?”

Holstein shook his head. “Only that he had a plan to make money.”

“What else did he ask you to do?”

“He said I had to erase their patient records.”

“He say why?”

“No, only that I had to do it or my wife would get those photographs and I’d be killed.”

“Did he ask you to do anything else?”

“Yes, he wanted the personal-information packet that the families fill out when the patient is admitted to the hospital.”

“Did he want to know anything else?”

“Yes. He asked me about the diseases the kids were being treated for … how they would respond to treatment … how long they would live without medical intervention.”

Karp walked over to the jury box and looked at the jurors’ shocked faces before turning back to the witness. “Doctor, why didn’t you go to the police with this?”

Holstein looked down at his hands and appeared to be crying, but he finally lifted his head and said, “I was afraid. And embarrassed.”

“So you were willing to let children go untreated, children that you knew would die without medical help, because you were afraid and embarrassed?” Karp said, not bothering to hide the disgust that he felt in his heart.

Covering his face with his hands, Holstein let out a sob. “Yes. I was that bedeviled.”

Karp gave Holstein a few moments to recover and then resumed his questioning. “Doctor, how often did you meet with the defendant?”

Holstein shrugged. “Only a few times. Sometimes he’d call, or I was supposed to call him.”

Karp nodded and turned to the judge. “Your Honor, at this time I’d like to show the witness this file marked People’s Exhibit Twenty-five for identification.”

“Go ahead,” Temple said.

Handing Holstein several sheets of paper, Karp asked, “Doctor, do you recognize the information contained on these papers, People’s Exhibit Twenty-five for identification?”

“Yes, they are telephone records of calls I made to LaFontaine or from him to me.”

“But those are just numbers,” Karp noted. “How do you know they’re to the defendant?”

Holstein shrugged. “That’s who I called. Or sometimes his man Frank.”

Karp took the telephone records back from Holstein and offered them into evidence. “You mentioned someone named Frank. Did you know Frank’s last name?”

“No.”

“Did you ever see Frank and can you describe him?”

“Yes. Big guy, about as big as LaFontaine. He had a beard, kind of rough-looking … dark hair, brown eyes … he had a scar below one eye.”

“You mentioned that in addition to your gambling debt being forgiven, you were paid. How were you paid?”

“In cash.”

“Who gave you the cash?” Karp asked.

“Frank,” Holstein said. “He’d bring it in an envelope. And once Sarah brought it to my home and handed it to me in front of my wife.”

“How did you explain that?”

“I said it was a payment from a patient,” he said. “I don’t think my wife believed me.”

“Doctor, are you still married?” Karp asked.

“My wife has filed for divorce.”

“And are you a free man?”

Holstein shook his head. “No,” he said. “I’m an inmate in a Tennessee prison. I pleaded guilty to larceny and have to serve at least two years. I’ve also lost my medical license.”

“Have you been offered any sort of deal by my office, or a district attorney in Tennessee, in exchange for your truthful testimony here today?”

“No. You wouldn’t agree to anything. And to be honest, I don’t deserve it.”

“On that, doctor, we agree,” Karp said, and turned to the judge. “I have no further questions.”

Rottingham rose and approached the witness stand, where he stood looking at Holstein for a minute as if studying some loathsome creature. He shook his head. “So Mr. Holstein, as I gather you are no longer a doctor,” he said, “do you have any proof that you ever met my client?”

“What do you mean?”

Rottingham shrugged. “Oh, I don’t know … a photograph of the two of you together? Is there someone who saw him with you in your office?”

“No. We met at the Gentleman’s Club.”

“A strip joint,” Rottingham said. “Surely someone would have seen you there.”

“Maybe. I don’t know of anyone.”

“You don’t know of anyone because maybe you never actually met with Reverend LaFontaine.”

“Is that a question?” Holstein replied. “Because if it is, I did meet with him, several times.”

“So you say, but there’s no proof of this.”

Holstein sat silently, just staring at LaFontaine.

“And you say that those phone calls from your telephone were to LaFontaine. But are you aware that the cell phone was registered only in the name of the Holy Covenant Church of Jesus Christ Reformed?”

“That’s his church,” Holstein said, pointing at LaFontaine.

“It was,” Rottingham said. “But was anybody else associated with the church?”

“Well, yes, Frank,” Holstein replied, now looking directly at his interrogator. “And maybe Sarah, I don’t know.”

“That’s right, you don’t,” Rottingham said. “And we don’t know who it was you actually called, do we?”

“I called LaFontaine, but sometimes I talked to Frank.”

“Mr. Holstein, do you have any proof that the cash you received came from LaFontaine?”

“It was part of the deal I made with him.”

Rottingham walked over to the evidence table, where he picked up the photograph of Holstein with Sarah Westerberg. He held it up and showed it to Holstein, who looked down, and then to the jurors. “I only see two people in this rather explicit photograph,” he said. “One is you, and the other is a woman you’ve identified as Sarah, a stripper you were fooling around with behind your wife’s back. Is that correct?”

“Yes.”

“The Reverend LaFontaine is not in this photograph, is he?”

“No.”

Rottingham sneered. “I have no further use for this witness, Your Honor.”

Asked if he wanted to question Holstein further, Karp rose and requested that the recording between the doctor and LaFontaine after Detective Winkler’s initial call be played.

“John, I got a call from a detective, he wants to know about you and the kids’ records. What do I do?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about. And don’t call here again.”

Karp looked up at Holstein. “Doctor, when did you place that call?”

“In April, after the detective called and said he wanted to talk to me.”

“And who did you call?”

“LaFontaine.”

“John LaFontaine. Is that right?”

“Yes.”

“Not Frank.”

“No.”

“Not Sarah.”

“No.”

Karp turned and pointed at the defendant, who for a moment lost his composure and scowled. “That man sitting at the defense table, the defendant, John LaFontaine. Is that right?”

“Yes.”

Recovering, LaFontaine yelled, “I forgive you!”

“I’ll leave that to God,” Holstein replied as the judge banged his gavel. “I can’t even forgive myself.”

The judge pointed at LaFontaine. “There will be no more outbursts,” he said, and turned to Karp. “Do you have any more questions for this witness, Mr. Karp?”

“Just one, Your Honor,” Karp replied. “Dr. Holstein, did the defendant at any time express any sort of remorse for what the two of you conspired to do to these children and their families?”

Holstein shook his head. “No, the only thing he ever said was, ‘The brats are probably going to die anyway, somebody might as well make a buck.’”