The Courtroom

By Ian MacDonald

A young forensic accountant discovers something far more sinister than a few accounting irregularities during a routine audit. The atrocities she discovers span several continents and are truly horrendous. White slavery, murder and illegal arms dealing are uncovered.The auditor herself becomes worried and with good cause. Even more devastating plots were soon to be uncovered. During the first trial the Judge and both attorneys hear news that astounds them and leaves them speechless. Apparently everything is not exactly as it appeared to be when it came to dispensing justice.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Ian MacDonald
• Release date: Oct 21, 2012
• ISBN: 9781301336432

Ian MacDonald

The author was born and educated in England and served in the British armed forces and briefly as an officer in the British Prison Service. He subsequently became a financial adviser and retired as an executive in a financial planning firm. He took up writing as a hobby upon retirement and he now lives in Ontario with his wife. His writing has a military or law enforcement theme to it as his interests lie in that field.

Book preview

The Courtroom

By

Ian Macdonald

Copyright 2012, Smashwords Edition

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Smashwords Edition License Notes

Thank you for downloading this eBook. You are welcome to share it with your friends. This book may be reproduced, copied and distributed for non commercial purposes, provided the book remains in its complete original form. If you enjoyed this book please return to Smashwords.com to discover other works by this author. Thank you for your support.

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What starts out as a simple routine audit of an Investment Firm’s books uncovers some unrelated and absolutely unbelievable criminal atrocities. It shocked the auditor to her very core and then she discovered even more as Murder and White Sex Slavery now became part of the scene. It simply can’t get any worse she thought – but it did, and even more was discovered. However, things are not always as they seem and the Judge, the prosecutor and the defense attorney get a major surprise that leaves them speechless in the middle of the trial. These incredible events should maintain the reader’s interest throughout as this drama unfolds.

Acknowledgements

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The author wishes to acknowledge the assistance, contributions and ongoing encouragement provided by his good friends Ray Armstrong and Kathy Meiers. Their help and comments have been invaluable as is their friendship.

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Cover design: Rita Toews

The Courtroom

Ian McDonald

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Chapter One

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Sarah Graham strode into the courtroom in her judicial robe as those in attendance rose to their feet. Please be seated announced the bailiff, the court is now in session the Hon. Sarah Graham presiding. As she looked out from the bench Sarah could see that all parties were in fact present and the defendant did now have an attorney present. The previous time they had attempted to begin this trial he had fired his counsel and as a result forced a delay in the proceedings until a replacement could be found. The defendant had entered a plea of not guilty in this case which involved sexual assault and murder. The evidence was quite substantial and compelling, but he had retained a highly skilled defense attorney this time, one with a stellar record of getting criminals off despite the evidence being against them. The jury had all be sworn, the witnesses were all present and the show was about to get on the road.

The prosecutor rose first and outlined the case against the defendant and while not going into too much detail at this time, he explained to the jury that he would be bringing far more graphic details to light as the trial wore on.

This was a most heinous act, premeditated and planned to the last detail and its sole purpose was to Rape and Humiliate the victim. Well in that he was certainly successful – however like so many villains of his type he made one or two mistakes hence his appearance here before you today. I will show you how he planned this, what lengths he went to to ensure his success and exactly what he did to the victim. There is not a shadow of doubt in my mind that this man is guilty and when I have concluded my case I know you will share that opinion and convict him on all counts.

With that David Watson sat down and chatted quietly with his assistant. Now Grant Walker, the defense attorney, rose to his feet.

Well, ladies and gentlemen the prosecution seems to think it is all cut and dried and we can all go home, pronounce my client guilty and save the honest taxpayers a great deal of money. However, there is just one small problem with that - it’s called the presumption of innocence. The prosecution actually has to prove that my client did this. The so called evidence that Mr. Watson referred to is all circumstantial and it contains more holes in it than your kitchen colander. Yes, there is no doubt that Miss Hogarth was murdered; many people in this room sadly attended her funeral. However, whether my client was responsible is a totally different matter and one I intend to demonstrate to you all during the trial. Like my Colleague Mr. Watson; I am equally confident that you will find that my client did not in fact commit this crime.

Grant Walker then sat down and Judge Graham told Mr. Watson to call his first witness – the trial had now begun and what a trial it would turn out to be. Nobody could have foreseen what was about to be revealed in this case.

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Jenny Hogarth had been a young accountant who worked for a national accounting firm and she had a stellar reputation in forensic accounting. She had been an attractive and popular woman in addition to her professional competence and she led a full and active life. She was a fitness nut and she kept herself in good shape by playing tennis and attending her gym regularly. Jenny dated here and there but she had no steady boyfriend to speak of, although there were many that would have liked to be her boyfriend. Her career kept her quite busy and for now that was her main interest – that and being made partner as soon as possible. She enjoyed her job and the mental stimulation it provided. Number crunching hardly sounds like paradise does it – in fact most of us consider accountancy to be dull and boring. Well for the most part it is – but forensic accounting is anything but. This is like detective work – trying to find money that the villains don’t want found and go to great lengths to hide. The methods and techniques are the most creative schemes the human mind can come up with and they are very slippery and hard to find – which of course is their intent. Jenny Hogarth’s job was to find what they don’t want found and she was very good at her job. People are always trying to outwit the taxman and the taxman knows it. Padding one’s tax return is not quite the thing that Jenny would be assigned to. She would be more likely to be assigned to corporations doing overseas business and perhaps forgetting to report the odd million here and there or mistakenly transferring funds to the CEO’s offshore bank account in error. Organized crime would also be under her purview - the mob ran several enterprises of questionable repute and as they were cash businesses the odds of money failing to be reported rose proportionately. It was these types of activities that Jenny would probe into and unfortunately that made her unpopular with quite a few unsavory people and others who were less than upstanding citizens.

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The accused was a man named Silas Garth and he had more than a passing acquaintance with the local police. In fact he had been their guest on so many occasions there had been talk of charging him rent on his cell and billing him for the free meals he received. His rap sheet was quite extensive, but there was nothing on there comparable to his current charges. The evidence was compelling enough to hold him, but this seemed to be way outside his league or former spheres of criminal activity. One or two detectives were not too sure they had the right man here, but in the absence of a more credible suspect he would do. If nothing else he would cut down their restaurant bill for feeding him on a regular basis. Silas was a con artist and petty thief - and on occasion into identity theft and impersonation. While his rap sheet did not contain violent acts he was certainly physically capable of them and his demeanor and body builder like physique tended to endorse that opinion. Silas was well known to the local community and a frequent visitor to the more shady establishments that littered the port district of downtown Markton. All the bars and strip joints were familiar with Silas Garth as he often moonlighted as a bouncer when money became scarce – and that was not an infrequent event. He had a regular girlfriend named Candy who was a pole dancer at the Pink Lizard Gentleman’s Club. She preferred to be called an Exotic Entertainment Artiste, but most people saw through that title. Whether her name was the shortened version of Candace or a stage name suggesting sweetness remains to be seen. Her demeanor off stage tended to rule out the latter suggestion and her vocabulary would turn a sailor pale with her particularly vicious and graphically descriptive invective once she was upset. It didn’t take much to upset her either. Silas took it all in stride and Candy rarely made him the object of her anger – possibly because she saw a side of him that nobody else did. He had been in prison for a few years and therefore knew one or two unsavory characters both inside and out in addition to learning all kinds of new scams and tricks of his various trades. Silas had been around and everyone knew it – but these current charges just didn’t fit his profile. Rape had not been in his playbook and with a dish like Candy readily available and certainly willing to do his bidding it just didn’t add up. David Watson however thought otherwise.

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David Watson had graduated from Osgoode Hall Law School in Toronto and sat his bar examination there. However, soon after, he moved to the U.S. and secured a position with the FBI. He then requalified with the Virginia, Maryland and New Jersey bars collectively. He served his time in the trenches and distinguished himself as a hard nosed and Get the Job done prosecutor and quickly escalated in the esteem of his colleagues and his superiors. Several leading law firms had approached him with lucrative propositions for him to join their firms as defense counsel, one even going so far as to offer him a partnership. David however was not so much about the earning of his personal fortune as he was passionate about the administration of justice to those who richly deserved to be punished. Oh don’t take that the wrong way – David was not blasé about his salary, he was quite well paid – but the private sector did pay substantially more. The thought of defending and securing the release of guilty men simply didn’t appeal to him. Too many crooks were beating the system and literally getting away with murder already by having smart lawyers – David simply wanted to level the playing field and he too was a smart lawyer, a very smart lawyer. However, when he met Sally and settled down to raise a family the constant travelling became an issue and he decided to seek an alternative to the FBI. When the town of Markton heard that he was considering a move they quickly made him an offer. It was the type of offer one cannot refuse apparently and David was now Markton’s new D.A. It was only an interim position initially until the elections, but it was a foregone conclusion that he would be endorsed – nobody wished to run against him. Being in relatively close proximity to Washington DC and to Baltimore he was not short of criminal activities to prosecute and this not only sharpened his claws so to speak he also gained even more valuable experience. This particular case of Rape and Murder was a little different to most he had experienced previously, but to David that simply made it even more challenging. What piqued his interest in this case was the apparent lack of motive. There was a motive of course, this was not a random act and it had been meticulously planned and executed by the accused, but why? On paper the victim and accused did not know each other, had nothing in common and their paths had never crossed – or so it appeared. This was a fact that Grant Walker would vigorously bring to the jury’s attention, along with many others needless to say.

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Grant Walker was a skilled attorney with a stellar record and he was on speed dial with many government departments and individual politicians. He had been involved in numerous celebrity trials and high profile government scandals and in all cases he either won outright or had the cases thrown out of court. Grant was a Harvard Law School grad (Magna Cum Laude) and he had a razor sharp mind. He had battled with David just once before and won on a technicality, but he had a profound respect for David’s talents just as David did for his. They enjoyed a cordial relationship and there was no animosity between them – but they could hardly be classified as good friends. Grant had articled with a law firm in Baltimore and had risen up the ranks quickly. However, when a wealthy college friend wished to establish his own firm and offered Grant an equal partnership he took it and never looked back. His firm, Yates, Walker & associates, was now one of the most prominent in Markton with a who’s who as a client list. All of whom would be closely watching this trial to determine the sharpness of Grants claws and his potential ability to rescue them from the jaws of death in the future should the need arise. A distinct possibility when one lived in this area and engaged in public life. The local press was relentless and had a voracious appetite for any indiscretion, however trivial it might be. Having a good attorney was a necessity and a second stringer simply would not do. Grant was well aware of the scrutiny he would be under but he was not unduly bothered by it.

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Sarah Graham was one of the younger judges on the circuit and she did not get there due to her attractiveness. She too had served her time in the trenches as an assistant district attorney and then as a defense attorney in a large local firm. She was a rising star and the appeals court had been taking a very close look at her and her statistics. The judicial council was very impressed with her decisions and rulings and that had placed Sarah on their short list. She was a very attractive woman, there is no getting away from that, but she had an encyclopedic knowledge of the law and was highly regarded and deeply respected by the lawyers who appeared before her. Nobody tried to pull a fast one in her court room – well not twice anyway. Court room antics were not tolerated by Judge Graham and she had sanctioned those who had used them, often with hefty fines. The two attorneys in this case would not try any of those tricks as they were well known to her and she in turn respected both of them. Sarah had attended Vassar College and graduated from Princeton law school (Summa Cum Laude). She was not the typical bookworm in college as one might suspect and she attended keg parties along with everyone else. Things often got out of hand and the boys would get drunk and often sexually aggressive. Sarah did not live in residence and she was accosted one night on her way home. She fought off her attacker, but it changed her thereafter. She always takes particular note of her surroundings now and her situational awareness is very sharp. At the current time she was not dating anyone having recently broken up with her latest beau. This now would give her the time to concentrate on this unusually complicated trial. She had read the transcript and knew that it was mostly circumstantial evidence but for some reason she had this uneasy feeling about her. She couldn’t put her finger on what was troubling her but something seemed off. David will have his hands full with this one she thought, he has to have more than is in this file, Grant will walk all over him if he doesn’t she thought. With that thought Sarah pulled the bed covers over her and rolled over and promptly fell asleep.

Chapter Two

The saga began eighteen months ago for Jenny Hogarth when she was called into the senior partner’s office. The firm of Bishop, Knight & Rook had just been commissioned to investigate the books of a local investment dealer at the behest of the Securities and Exchange Commission. They had received a tip off that something was amiss and they decided to look into it. It soon became apparent to them that there was merit to this allegation and that further enquiries would certainly be in order. Their team of investigators examined the company’s books and ledgers and found them to be quite simple and straight forward – too much so for a company doing the volume of business they were doing. They could find nothing amiss, but they felt something was not quite right and they decided to call in the experts in forensic accounting and that meant Bishop, Knight & Rook. They employed some of the sharpest accounting minds in the country and had an array of computer geeks that would shame most professional hackers. When John Bishop called Jenny into his office she thought she was in trouble – but nothing was further from the truth.

Jenny, I have asked you in here today as I have a job for you. The SEC has asked our firm to investigate Coyne Investments and I want you on this case.

What seems to be the problem? asked Jenny.

The SEC is not exactly certain what the issue is, but they strongly feel that something is just not kosher over there.

He then went on to explain what they had told him and why they were suspicious. Realizing that the firm had taken serious measures to avoid detection, the SEC told the firm that due to the volume of their current case load they would be asking Bishop, Knight & Rook to conduct this routine audit and that they would be contacting them as to when.

Robert Welch the CEO of Coyne Investments thought little of this routine audit. It was an inconvenience and to some degree an annoyance, but other than that is was not a major concern. Other executives however, were not quite so laid back about this so called routine audit. The audit itself may well have been routine, but why now and why were Bishop, Knight & Rook conducting it? After all they were not simply accountants; they were the nations leading forensic accountants, the real heavy hitters and not ones to use on basic audits. This now had several people nervous, just how much did these people know and how did they come to learn about it in the first place? This nervousness was exactly the response that the SEC wished to stir up. While they had found nothing amiss, creating a little anxiety in the right places quite often brought fruit to bear and made people distrust each other. This fact could then be exploited and all manner of plots and schemes could be laid bare as many of the rats now decided to abandon the sinking ship. This ploy had worked before and simply by using Bishop, Knight & Rook the SEC figured it just might rattle enough cages to work once more. Jenny was instructed to go over there and act like nothing was amiss and to do what any ordinary auditor would do. This way no suspicions would be aroused and with a little luck someone just might let their guard down enough for Jenny to latch onto something.

A few days later Jenny arrived at Coyne and was ushered into the Presidents office to meet Robert Welch.

Good morning Miss Hogarth, I’m Bob Welch, just call me Bob

Please call me Jenny then, Bob. As you know the SEC have asked my firm to do a routine audit of your books. We do this periodically - just to keep people honest she said with a disarming giggle. Jenny had found that this had a calming effect on her potential victims and they became less hostile and considered her an ordinary human being doing a difficult job and with no particular axe to grind and certainly not against them.

Well you have carte blanche here, Jenny, we have nothing to hide – you have total access to anything you wish to see.

Thanks Bob, that will make my job that much easier she said with a smile. It was not winsome or flirtatious but the recipient generally though of her in a more favorable light after seeing this side of her. Auditors are seldom welcomed into firms with unbridled enthusiasm. The very nature of their job, trying to find fault or uncover problems or malfeasance, caused people to be nervous and suspicious. Jenny’s attitude and demeanor tended to relax people and as a result they became less hostile. This in turn made it a little easier to pry out facts that otherwise may have been withheld.

As this cordial meeting was taking place, across the hall two other executives were getting increasingly hot under the collar. Simon Johnson the chief financial officer and Fred Sumner the vice president of operations were discussing their potential predicament should certain facts come to light. They had every right to be concerned too. Until now they had managed to keep their shenanigans under the radar and stockpiled a significant amount of cash outside of the corporation’s ledgers. Their associates would not be too happy either at the prospect of this being discovered and these Italian entrepreneurs were not known for their composure under pressure. In fact, on occasion, parties with whom they did not see eye to eye, appeared to leave town suddenly on hastily arranged vacations and they failed to inform their families about their plans. In fact their families are still waiting to hear from them. The more suspicious minded may think that foul play could be involved – but few would dare to voice that possibility publicly and that included Johnson and Sumner. They were reviewing their travel arrangements with renewed vigor now just to be ready at a moments notice should it become necessary. Countries with non extradition treaties in place was their choice and if it had a beach so much the better. Escape strategies had long been in place - but nobody ever imagined they would be needed. The appearance of Jenny Hogarth had changed all that and complacency was now a luxury Johnson and Sumner could no longer afford. Miss Hogarth must not be allowed to uncover these secrets; far too much was at stake here.

How do we stop her? asked Sumner.

Well we can’t get rid of her said Johnson, that would arouse even more suspicions and probably increase the number of investigators.

How about blackmailing her then? said Sumner.

Well we don’t have anything on her do we?

Not yet, but that could be arranged don’t you think?

What do you have in mind?

Right now nothing, but I’m sure we’ll be able to figure something out between us, we certainly have the incentive, Simon.

Amen to that Simon replied.

Jenny hadn’t even emerged from the CEO’s office yet and already the wheels were being set in motion to hobble her immediately should she discover something.

The CEO himself had every confidence that Jenny would find everything to be in order. He himself had seen the books and it appeared to him that Simon was on top of things and doing a first rate job of keeping all his ducks in a row. Everything looked squeaky clean to Bob Welch, but then he wasn’t a forensic accountant. They could fool him with those books, but Jenny was a different matter and if she was as smart as they had heard she was, their fears were indeed justified.

When Jenny left the CEO’s office she went directly to the accounting department where an office had been set up for her use. The company’s ledgers and bank statements were all there ready for her. A cursory glance told her that she was not going to find anything here. They were meticulously kept records and all of the I’s were dotted and the T’s were crossed. Jenny had rarely seen such a pristine set of books. However, in there somewhere was a clue. A clue as to what, remained to be seen, but there just had to be something in there. Someone had gone to a great deal of trouble in preparing these ledgers and the complexity of the transactions was self evident. However, those complexities appeared to be quite simple when broken into their component parts and entered into the ledgers as individual items. Jenny looked at this, ruminated on it for a few minutes and moved on. It all looked kosher and it was easy to follow the trail of money. The SEC had made the same determination. Jenny too appeared to be moving on, at least the CFO thought so as he had been observing her from the adjoining office. Jenny had been aware of this but had not looked at him at all or even in his direction and Simon had concluded Jenny had moved on to other matters. On paper he was quite right in that assumption – but that did not mean that Jenny would not return to those ledgers. They had to remain in her office until her audit was completed. Jenny had found nothing at all wrong with those books – but why was Simon hovering? Was there something in there or was he just casually interested to see how Jenny worked? Once she had put those ledgers down and picked up others Simon moved on. Was that coincidence or was it because, like the SEC, she had missed the item of concern and the CFO assumed that everything would now proceed smoothly? Jenny then made a point of placing the suspect ledger on the bottom of the pile so that to casual observers it would appear that she was not working on it. However, all those ledgers looked similar; it was just the edges that defined what they contained. Leaving the suspect ledger on the bottom for a few days in plain sight left everyone to believe that it was given a clean bill of health. On the third day, Jenny now placed that book on the desk opened, so the spine could not be seen and the desk set of pens and pencils was now placed in such a position that they hid the spine of that ledger on the bottom. It all looked the same from the front and nobody would suspect that that ledger on the bottom was not the one that was there originally. Jenny would now conduct an in depth analysis of that ledger and its entries just to make sure she had missed nothing. The CFO may have nothing to hide at all and he was just being curious – but Jenny had a feeling there was more to it. She was now going to explore things in minute detail to see if the numbers really did add up. Jenny knew something wasn’t right or at least she suspected as much, but she had no idea as to what it might be. In the weeks ahead she was going to be astonished by what she would unearth as her investigation progressed. Never in her wildest dreams could she have ever imagined anything like this.

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The Pink Lizard was seldom short of patrons on any night of the week, but on weekends the place was humming like a hornets nest, that in itself being a pretty accurate description of the place and its clientele. It was mob owned and operated and one would not expect to see the social elite of Markton showing up to have a fine dining experience. Food was in fact served, but then that would depend on ones definition of food I guess. Topless waitresses would take your order for food and drink and perform other duties on your table top too if required, for an appropriate fee of course. The higher the fee, the less apparel would be worn. It goes with saying that a lot of money changed hands in that place; money that seldom saw the books of that establishment, which on paper was just scraping by of course. The owners pleading that they had barely enough at the end of the week to make a donation to the collection plate in church on Sundays. The police kept a pretty good eye on the place and its regulars and they had informers in and around that establishment, informers that would take extended vacations periodically, so it was a rather risky business to be in. However, blackmail being what it is, one or two people considered it in their best interests to assist the police with their enquiries from time to time. If a crime was committed in Markton the Pink Lizards management would know about it and likely receive a percentage of the profits too in most cases. There were more than a few very unsavory characters in this place and what they were into would make most people cringe, even some of their fellow patrons and entrepreneurs. Organized crime generates considerable amounts of money from its various enterprises and this needed to be channeled into legitimate businesses and laundered accordingly. However not all businesses