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In the morning, I will call Rob Jacobson to the stand.
One Hundred
AT A QUARTER TO NINEI’m in Judge Prentice’s chambers along with Kevin Ahearn, informing them that there has been a last-minute change of plans and that my client is going to be my last witness.
“You’re sure about this, Ms. Smith?” Judge Prentice says.
“My client and I are both sure, Your Honor.”
Prentice turns to Ahearn. “I assume you have no objection,” he says, not even making it sound like a question.
“Objection?”Kevin Ahearn says. “I feel like it’s my birthday.”
“So you’re saying you won’t request additional time to prepare for your cross?” the judge says.
“With all due respect, Your Honor,” Ahearn says, “I’ve been prepared to do this since we arrested the son of a bitch.”
As we walk out of the room, Ahearn says to me, “I’m not trying to talk you out of anything. Butareyou sure you want to do this?”
“Hundred percent,” I lie.
We’re in the courtroom, on our way to our respective tables, when Ahearn leans over and whispers one last thing to me.
“I actually misspoke inside. This doesn’t feel like my birthday, Jane. It feels like I just won the goddamn lottery.”
One Hundred One
ROB JACOBSON HAS ASSUREDme that he will behave himself, and not make things easier for the district attorney from Suffolk County, who is fully expecting to fillet him as soon as he gets the chance.
Jacobson doesn’t even make it until I’ve gotten the chance to ask my first question.
“Before we begin,” he says after being sworn in, “I’d just like to state for the record that I am innocent of these charges.”
“Objection,” Ahearn says, sounding almost amused. “If it would please the court, could Your Honor please remind the defendant that this isn’t an infomercial for his real estate company?”
“Mr. Jacobson, here’s how we like to roll in my court. First you get asked a question. Then you answer it.”
“I apologize, Your Honor,” Jacobson says.
“Proceed, Ms. Smith,” Prentice says.
I get up from behind the table and walk toward my client. Even having just been admonished by the judge, he looks as happy and excited as if it’shisbirthday, as if this is where he wanted to be all along, maybe even expected to be:
Ready for his close-up.
“Good morning, Mr. Jacobson.”
“Good morning, Jane. And also to you, Mr. Ahearn.”
I begin by taking him back to when he was a teenager and discovered the bodies of his father and his father’s mistress.
“Is there any way, even after all this time, for you to properly describe a moment like that?”
“Horrifying. Traumatizing. And obviously life changing. Because I saw with my own eyes, in my own family and in my own house, what gun violence looks like. It’s why my wife, Claire, and I have been making quite substantial, and annual, contributions to Moms Demand Action for years.”
Before Ahearn is out of his seat to object, I introduce into evidence the parts of Jacobson’s tax returns that prove he has been doing exactly that.
“So when it comes to gun violence,” I say to Jacobson when I continue, “you have literally put your money where your mouth is.”
