“Your Honor, Mr. Falk will happily relinquish his passport, submit to house detention, ankle-monitoring, and whatever other limits the court wishes to impose. But there is no conceivable reason why he should be held without bail. It’s unconscionable.”
“Goldman Sachs also has a private plane that the defendant has access to.” The prosecutor turned so that her pregnant belly pointed at Richard like a weapon.
“Mr. Falk is an employee of a corporation with acorporatejet used forcorporatepurposes. Are we really talking about holding a man in his fifties at Rikers because he works at a large company? A man who has never committed a crime in his entire life and against whom the prosecution has virtually no actual evidence?”
“Just because the defendant doesn’t have a criminal record doesn’t make him innocent,” the prosecutor said. “There’s a first time for everything.”
From the way the judge was now scowling at Richard, on this point he seemed to very much agree.
“Consideringonlythe severity of the charges and the potential flight risk—not this recanted confession and whatever elsehas been a part of this circus so far—the court has no choice but to remand the defendant pending trial,” the judge said finally, before turning to the prosecution. “But you had better clean up your act, counselors, or you’re going to run into serious problems well before trial. The kind of trouble that no gaggle of hungry reporters will dig you out of. Bailiff, call the next case. Let’s get this afternoon moving along.”
“Wait, that’s it?” Elizabeth hissed at Scotty. “He’sstayingin jail?”
“Not here,” Scotty cautioned. “Let’s talk in private.”
Already the guards were coming to get Richard. He turned back as he shuffled toward the door, found Gretchen’s eyes, and mouthed,I love you. Maybe. Gretchen wasn’t sure. She couldn’t see anything clearly anymore.
—
They gathered in one of the small private meeting rooms lining the hallway outside the arraignment courtroom.
“You said he’d be coming home,” Cassandra barked at Scotty before the door even closed.
“I know. I’m sorry,” Scotty said. “I’m as shocked as you.”
Mikey held up an index finger. “For the record, I amnotshocked. If you recall, I did say that bail would ultimately be at the judge’s discretion, and this judge does not like wealthy defendants.” His voice was very firm, but calm. “It’s not really any more complicated than that. We will appeal, of course. With another judge we might do better. We might not.”
Elizabeth crossed her arms petulantly. “Well, that’ssuperreassuring.”
“I’m simply trying to be honest and realistic. The denial of bail is a setback.” Mikey’s voice had softened. “There’s no arguing otherwise. And I’m sorry if you feel you weren’t properly prepared for the possibility. I had certainly hoped for a different outcome. But this hasnobearing whatsoever on the possibility of us ultimately getting the charges dismissed before trialor,worst-case scenario, us proceeding to trial and your father being acquitted.”
The certainty of his tone steadied them all. Just a setback. Thatwas a very different way of looking at this. Gretchen squared her shoulders. It was going to be okay. It was going to be fine.
“Mikey is right,” Gretchen said to her children, almost cheerfully, which she knew was too much but she was incapable of effectively moderating her tone. “We just need to take this one step at a time.”
“You got pom-poms in your purse, too, Mom?” Elizabeth asked, but she sounded more sad than anything. “Pull ’em out and we can each take a turn.”
“Don’t be an asshole, El,” Cassandra muttered, a hand to the back of her neck. “She’s just trying to—”
“Pretend this isn’t happening? Yeah, I think we all know the drill. Pretty sure it’s not going to work this time.”
“Hold on, hold on.” Scotty raised his palms. “Maybe everyone should just take a beat.”
They were all quiet for a moment. But it was still tense.
“What confession are they talking about?” Becks asked finally.
“Your dad doesn’t remember exactly what he said,” Scotty explained.
“He doesn’t rememberconfessing?” Elizabeth asked.
“A confession isn’t always a confession. His statements were misconstrued. It happens all the time to people being questioned,” Scotty offered. “They’re under a lot of stress, exhausted, not thinking clearly.”
“To be absolutely clear, we haven’t seen the transcript yet, so we don’t know exactly what he said—that’s the bottom line,” Mikey Pearce added. “He remembers making several different statements, and that’s not great. Seems likely they’ve latched on to something passive-aggressive like, ‘Fine, I did it,’ said in a moment of frustration. And as I said in court, the good news is that he recanted immediately, and they have no signed waiver. That’s helpful, but most important, according to Richard, he didn’t really confess.”
“You saw how the prosecution dropped it almost immediately,” Scotty said. “They know it’s bullshit.”
“Dropped it for now.” Mikey gave Scotty a pointed look. “Atthe moment, we can’t say for sure what evidence the prosecution will use. It will become clear over time, though, and we will respond as necessary.”
