Chapter 8

The trials for Sean Michaels and Carrie Gilchrist were relatively short. There wasn't much evidence for the United States Attorney to present, but it was all extremely compelling, very damning. The first witnesses were banking experts called to testify on the process of setting up accounts in overseas banks and how it was usually done to hide income otherwise taxable in the United States or send fraudulently obtained funds out of U.S. jurisdiction.

A severely dressed woman from the State Department testified none of the accounts to which the funds were funneled had a dime in them any longer. The governments in the various Caribbean countries had cooperated to the extent of confirming that, though they would not go further. It was typical of those countries, she said.

Special Agent Williams got on the stand to explain he and his partner had noticed a bank-owned laptop computer in defendant Michaels' possession when they took him into custody. They'd taken possession of it and labeled it as evidence. Yes, that was the evidence label and that was his signature on it.

A computer and software expert testified there was a variety of programs loaded on the laptop and one of them was a proprietary program used by the bank to connect to the bank's server from remote locations. He explained how it worked and showed the jury a few shots of some of the initial screens, including the one where the user entered their login name and password.

A representative from the phone company presented the telephone records for the phone registered to Ryan and Carrie Gilchrist and pointed out specific periods when the phone line had been in use for periods ranging from twenty-one to twenty-three minutes. The prosecutor wrote the times and dates on a big whiteboard brought into the courtroom for that purpose. No, he told the jury, there was no evidence the Gilchrists had ever had a wireless network setup.

A representative from the cable company told everyone the modem given to the Gilchrists was only connected to the big Dell computer in the home office. There were no connections set up for modem use on any of the other cable outlets in the house. Besides, their records showed there had been no traffic over that modem except for network initiated pulses during the times on the whiteboard.

Then, the Information Technology manager for the bank testified that Mr. Michaels' login name and password had been used to access a number of high-dollar accounts he was responsible for managing. Wire transfers, some of them set up programmatically to continue after the laptop's operator had signed off, had been started during specific timeframes. Yes, those exact times were the ones annotated on the whiteboard. The funds from the looted accounts had been forwarded to IP addresses identified as belonging to offshore banks.

The defense objected, saying the IT manager could not know that for a fact. Such things were outside his field of expertise. The IT manager was annoyed and said he could look up an IP with the best of them and what he'd just testified to was God's own truth. The judge allowed the testimony.

In any event, the next witness, a specialist dispatched from the Treasury Department reiterated the same information. He said he spent half his time creating lists of bank IPs of interest and the identified addresses most certainly did correspond to the offshore banks in question. The defense did not object. They had no questions for this witness.

When the prosecution finished with their presentation, the defense had little room left in which to maneuver. They tried to make the point no one had seen Sean Michaels actually enter the transfer information into the system. They said it could as easily have been Carrie Gilchrist who did it... or maybe someone else. The Gilchrist home didn't have a security system. Anyone could have been in the house. Who knew?

In the process, the defense conceded Sean and Carrie had been involved in lengthy affair. It was unavoidable. Sean and Carrie had given videotaped statements early on and both had readily admitted it.

There was no point in denying it. The TV show had been played numerous times by now. Excerpts had been shown several times on local commercial TV. The network had privately told the prosecutor when a copy was delivered to him, that it was one of the most watched episodes every time they replayed it.

The defense took every opportunity to slip in questions about whether anyone actually thought people going somewhere to have sex would actually take breaks to work on a computer? Mr. Michaels and Mrs. Gilchrist could have conducted the fraudulent transfers from the office, counsel for the defense said. They didn't need to sneak off to the Gilchrist home for that. What kind of sense did that make?

The prosecution didn't bother to answer the defense's question about why the adulterers had gone to the Gilchrist home to commit their fraud. There was no need. The facts were what they were.

The circumstantial evidence had mounted too high for the defense to answer. It was overwhelming. That none of the funds could be shown to have been forwarded to an account either party was known to have personally established made no difference. Nor was it pertinent that there was no evidence to show the two had actually spent any of the gains from the theft. The assumption was they hadn't had time.

In their rebuttal case, the prosecution brought an FBI criminalist in from Quantico, Virginia, to testify they had found no fingerprints anywhere in the house which couldn't be accounted for. None of the doors or windows had been forced open and there were no footprints below the windows or around the doors to indicate anyone had loitered there, waiting an opportunity to break in. There was absolutely no forensic evidence of any kind, he said, that even might support the defense claims there had been someone else, other than the home's occupants, known visitors, and Mr. Michaels, around the house at any time.

In the end, Michaels was found guilty on all counts. He broke down at the defense table and cried piteously. He was a broken man when the Bexar County sheriff's deputies took custody of him from the bailiffs and marched him off to the jail to await sentencing.

Carrie had been smart in her initial interview with investigators and absolutely denied knowing Michaels' login and password. Though Michaels' lawyer did everything she could to show Carrie actually did have both... several people at the bank were sure they'd seen her enter Michaels' information into the system on occasion... the attorney was never able to shake Carrie's denial. It probably saved Carrie from a charge of conspiracy in Michaels' fraudulent scheme.

Carrie's only real problem was that she got caught in a lie by one of the investigators interviewing her a month after the inquiry had begun. It had been a silly thing to do. Her lie was about a trivial matter and the charge about the false affidavit had been put on the list of other charges at the last moment just to be complete.

The jury was pretty sure Carrie had been in on the fraud but there just wasn't any evidence to show that Carrie even knew it was going on, though they tried hard to find some in the prosecution's case. The false statement was firmly established and they found her guilty on that one count. There was no deliberation on that charge beyond a call by the foreman for a vote on her guilt.

In the sentencing hearing for Michaels, the only mercy the jury offered was a recommendation to the judge that the sentences all run concurrently. The judge agreed and sentenced the man to twenty years with the location of his incarceration to be determined by the prison system. Carrie got one year.

As Michaels walked disconsolately from the defense table toward the side door leading to the holding cell, he came close enough to Ryan for easy conversation. At that moment, one of the bailiffs was preoccupied looking over his shoulder at one of the reporters who had thrust a microphone in his direction. The bailiff's steps slowed and he fell behind. For one short moment, Michaels had only one man escorting him and he was on the opposite side. Ryan leaned over the railing.

"That's what you get for fucking another man's wife," he said softly. Only the convicted felon heard.

Michaels took two more steps before the words penetrated. He stopped, making the chains on his feet jangle musically. Not believing what he'd heard, he turned around to stare at Ryan. His eyes widened and grew wild. Alarmed by the rattling chains, the bailiff lagging behind made a belated attempt to catch up. It was too late.

Michaels lunged at Ryan. Brought up short when the bailiff still with him yanked him back, Michaels began screaming imprecations no one could understand. He was dragging the much bigger bailiff across the hardwood floor.

It eventually took four officers to control him as he struggled to get to Ryan. He was still shrieking at the top of his lungs and fighting his restraints as they carried him out.

"Well, good afternoon, Special Agent Williams. What can I do for you today?"

Answering the knock on the outside door to the office, Ryan had been a little surprised to see the FBI agent, but not overwhelmingly so. His eyes flicked down the hallway in each direction to see if the agent was accompanied by his partner... or a whole crew of Federal agents. Other than the one agent, the hallway was empty.

"Come in, come in," Ryan urged. "You mind if I lock the door again?" It was well past normal business hours and Ryan had secured the door when his secretary left. He didn't like open doors when there was no one in the outer office. He had a problem with people coming up on him unawares.

"Not at all," Williams replied courteously. "Just wanted to clear up a couple of things, if that's all right with you?"

"Sure, whatcha got?" Ryan shot back briskly. "Want some coffee?" he added. The urn on the side table in the secretary's office was still half full.

The FBI agent hesitated. The first time he'd been here, he'd sampled some of the strong brew and it had nearly done him in. He decided to go for it. He was tough; he could handle it.

"Thank you... yes," Williams said. He took the heavy mug filled to the brim with the dark liquid and cradled it in his hands. It looked almost as strong as it had the first time he'd visited here. He tentatively took a sip. It was scalding hot. He tried another swallow.

"What I'm here for, Mr. Gilchrist, is a statement you made to Mr. Michaels. It's been relayed to us through his attorney."

"Oh?" Ryan answered. His brow furrowed in concentration and surprise, he waited for Williams to continue.

"Michaels says you told him at his trial that you wanted him to know you arranged for all of this to happen. He accuses you of having set him up by stealing his laptop and entering the wire transfers to offshore accounts."

Williams stopped and watched Ryan Gilchrist closely for his reaction. There was nothing for a moment. Not for the first time, Williams made a note Gilchrist would make a fine poker player.

Ryan let his eyebrows rise.

"That's it?" he asked.

"Yes, sir, that's the meat of the information," Williams answered. Ryan snorted derisively.

"Bull shit! First of all, I never spoke to him at his trial. I was never anywhere near the asshole. Now, at his sentencing hearing, I did remark, as he passed by, that... uh... what was it... something to the effect that 'this was what you get for fucking my wife' or something like that. That's all I said. He went ballistic right then and they carried him out and... that's the last time I saw him."

"I see. Would you care to explain that statement, Mr. Gilchrist?"

"Statement?" Ryan asked. "What I just said?" He let a confused expression settle over his features.

"No, that what... well, that the sentence was what he got for having sex with your wife."

"Well... I don't know what you want from me. I think what I said was pretty self-explanatory, Agent Williams. I'm not real happy with the jerk and I think the time he's going to spend in a Federal prison is absolutely fantastic. What goes around, comes around... isn't that what they say? Damn straight!

"I thought it was damned ironic he was getting twenty years for crimes he committed while he was having nooners and quickies with my wife and I told him so. Does that explain it any better?"

Ryan let his eyes flash a little with suppressed anger.

"I see," Williams said, shifting the coffee mug from his right to his left hand before taking a sip of the hot liquid. It was a delaying tactic, something to distract Ryan's attention for a moment and give the man time to cool down.

"So if Mr. Michaels alleges you had anything to do with appropriating his computer and actually committing the offenses he's being imprisoned for, you deny that?"

Ryan snorted again.

"Yuh think?" he said contemptuously. "You're darn right I deny it," he said formally.

Williams watched Ryan over the lip of his mug as he took a couple of swallows. Other than irritation, he saw nothing in Gilchrist's body language to indicate Gilchrist was lying.

He toyed for a moment with the idea of asking the man to come down for a polygraph examination. Then he discarded the suggestion. In his present mood, Gilchrist would refuse out of hand... and it wouldn't mean anything except he was pissed off.

"Okay!" Williams said abruptly. He stood up. "I appreciate you taking the time to speak with me, Mr. Gilchrist. If we have anything else, we'll get in contact with you, okay?" He looked around for a place to leave the mug.

Ryan nodded, still visibly annoyed, but trying to suppress it. He took the mug from Williams' hand and put it on the credenza at the side of his desk.

"Oh!" he said. "I'm going to be taking a few weeks off and I won't be here in the office."

"Where will you be, Mr. Gilchrist?" Williams asked automatically.

Ryan's eyes narrowed.

"Why do you care, Special Agent Williams?" he asked aggressively, ready to explode again.

"I was told I should stay in town as long as there was an active investigation going on, but that was months ago. The trials are done, two people are going to prison, and it's all over, right? Are you investigating me, Agent Williams?"

"No, sir," Williams answered forthrightly. "I--"

"Are you telling me I need to stay where you can find me at a moment's notice?"

"No, sir," Williams replied. "There's no need for that. You're quite correct. There is no active investigation being conducted by the joint task force at this time. The Treasury and State Departments are still trying to find the funds down in the Caribbean banks, but they aren't having any luck... and that's all that's happening."

Ryan stared at the FBI agent for a long moment. He sucked in a long breath and held it. His jaw muscles clinched and then relaxed. He let out the air he'd been holding in.

"Okay... sorry. One reason that I'm taking some time off is that I'm losing my temper too often and for really trivial reasons when I look back on them. I really need to recharge the batteries... know what I mean? It's been a pretty rough year, everything considered. Uh... if I was out of line, I apologize, okay?"

"No, no... not at all," Williams hurried to reassure Ryan. "I understand completely." He did, he realized. The man had had to deal with a cheating wife, had been involved in a devastating exposé on that TV show, actually seeing video of his wife screwing that Michaels guy, the trials... yeah, Williams could see where he might be wound a little tight.