Law & Order (1990) s10e16 Episode Script
Trade This
NARRATOR: In the criminal justice system the people are represented by two separate yet equally important groups, the police who investigate crime and the district attorneys who prosecute the offenders.
These are their stories.
I'm telling you, this is a sweet deal.
Right.
Well Well, last week's deal was very sweet too, but this one we're only offering to a few very special clients, Mrs.
Skolnick.
(GUNSHOT) (WOMAN SCREAMING) Can you hang on a sec? MAN: Look out! He's got a gun! What? The price-earnings ratio, okay.
It's a bit high.
(GUNSHOTS) (PEOPLE SCREAMING) (PEOPLE SHOUTING) SPENCER: Oh, my God, Sean! Sean! What the hell's going Somebody call an ambulance! Call 911! HARDWICK: Shooter came in through the front.
Put a.
38 in the receptionist.
How's she doing? Last word, in surgery.
Then what? Headed this way.
Went straight to this office.
Sean Alvarez.
Twenty-four.
There were closer offices.
Guy was the target.
Then where'd he go? Out that fire exit.
ED: Huh, good plan for a lunatic.
Crazy don't mean stupid.
My ex-wife's living proof.
What about Alvarez? Took two shots to the chest.
Still had the strength to go for help.
BRISCOE: And who's Mutt and Jeff there? Slick guy's Bruce Valentine.
Kid's supervisor.
Other one's Braddock.
As in Braddock and Todd.
Thanks.
BRISCOE: Detectives Briscoe and Green.
Carl Braddock.
This is crazy.
Just crazy.
What can you tell us about him? Well, he was one of my brokers.
How long had he been here? Year and a half.
Any problems? No, actually he was leaving next month.
Why was that? Greener pastures, I guess.
It's tough to hold on to these kids these days.
We're gonna need a list of everyone that was on the floor at the time.
Of course.
BRISCOE: And we'll need a list of his clients.
For what purpose? For the purpose of finding out who shot him.
Well, I can't let you go on a fishing expedition through our clients' financial records without a warrant.
Come back with something more specific and I'd be happy to cooperate.
Count on it.
BRADDOCK: Would you excuse us now? Kid was leaving in a month.
Yeah.
Not soon enough.
Who did this? We were hoping you could help us with that.
Can you think of any reason why someone might have done this to him? Our son was just starting out in life.
What reason could there be? What about his job? Any problems there? Sean used to pick stocks from the newspaper.
This job at the brokerage was a dream come true for him.
We heard he was leaving in a month.
He never mentioned anything.
So you know nothing about that? No.
MR.
ALVAREZ: Maybe you should talk to lanna.
Lanna? Lanna Mercer.
She's Sean's fiancée.
They're getting married.
I mean I'm sorry.
I'm sorry.
I'm sorry.
I just talked to Carmichael.
She says no judge will sign a subpoena for the customer list based on what we have so far.
How are they? Couldn't tell us much.
I wonder why he never told them he was leaving the firm.
Maybe it was a surprise.
Wouldn't you want to tell your parents if you had good news about your job? His parents would never believe him.
Oh! Well, talk to the fiancée.
Maybe she knows.
Everything was going fine.
ED: He didn't seem nervous about work? No.
I mean, I think Sean really liked it.
Then why was he leaving? I think he just felt like he'd already learned what he needed to know.
Sean said that he had some ideas about the Internet and that he just wanted to take some time to figure out his next step.
He could afford to do that? He had said he'd done pretty well working for Mr.
Valentine.
This is a difficult question to ask, Ms.
Mercer, but is there any chance there was another boyfriend in the picture? Maybe a jealous ex? Sean and I were gonna be married this summer.
There was no one else.
You understand we have to ask.
Look, maybe you should talk to this one guy there.
Randy Kush.
He and Sean would grab a drink after work sometimes.
Look, my bosses wouldn't be too happy with me talking to you guys like this.
I mean, it's not exactly the kind of PR they're looking for.
Oh, don't worry, you'll be back at your Rolodex in no time.
Sean worked retail.
I'm in munis.
I'm not sure what I'm gonna be able to tell you.
His fiancée said you guys used to grab drinks together.
Discuss futures.
Yeah.
We just thought it was never too early to establish alliances, you know? Alliances? Sounds like a pretty ruthless place.
Well, there's certain rules when it comes to making money, right? Well, what rules did Sean break? Guy was an animal.
Just went after it.
Sean wanted to be a market maker.
Someone like Valentine, you know? With a network of customers who can create their own market for a stock.
He just kept bringing Valentine coffee until he gave Sean a shot.
A shot at what? IPO's.
That's where the real money's at.
What was Sean working on? Tell ya, I don't know.
We check your mom and dad's records, we're gonna find some of these stocks, right, Randy? ED: It's called insider trading.
Okay.
Okay.
Last thing Sean told me about was a stock called Healthroad2000.
com.
Some medical Internet thing.
He said Valentine was working a pump and dump.
Pump and dump? Buy it.
Hype it.
Dump it.
Thanks.
Okay.
Healthroad2000.
com.
Company's a year old.
With a P and E ratio of 1000-to-one.
Clearly, no profits.
Stock still went from $4 to $48 a share in the first nine days of trading.
We lose money on every sale, but we make it up in volume.
Not necessarily.
The stock tanked.
They stopped trading at 35 cents a share.
That's gotta make for a pretty disgruntled customer.
Call Carmichael.
This should be enough for us to get a subpoena for their client list.
Detectives? Didn't waste any time with the Mop & Glo, huh? Yeah.
Well, some of the brokers found the sight of blood a little unsettling.
Figured around here they'd be used to it.
May I see the subpoena? This is all confidential information.
Yeah, well, you have your insider trading, we have ours.
In the great scheme of things, $30,000 really isn't a lot of money, Detective.
Yeah, I know.
That's what I'm gonna have to live on when I retire.
I guess you guys don't get stock options.
So, you weren't angry with Sean Alvarez? Why should I be angry? Sean gave me a tip just the month before.
A very lucrative tip.
No, as far as I could tell, the kid was a real go-getter.
Sean called.
Introduced himself.
Said he got my number through his father's country club.
You a member? Was.
Unfortunately, I've suffered some setbacks recently.
Like Healthroad2000? I was told it was a sure thing.
You really need somebody to tell you that investing in an Internet company might be risky? What I needed was someone to tell me when to get out.
Sean didn't.
Maybe Sean didn't know.
Money always makes money, Detective.
That's why 1% of the world controls 99% of its wealth.
ED: You're saying Sean had inside information? The stock market should never be a guessing game.
So why were you left out in the dark? Maybe I just didn't play on the right team.
What do you mean by that? From what I've heard since, Sean lived a certain lifestyle.
What kind of lifestyle are we talking about? Just say it wasn't co-ed.
(LAUGHS) I thought he had a fiancée.
It wouldn't be the first time.
Man's keeping secrets.
Yeah, he's also dropping money on dinners like I do on a new car.
If he was leaving his job, he sure wasn't curtailing his entertainment.
LUDs from his phones? Hmm.
Nothing out of the ordinary.
What about this one from his cell phone, Exotic lmage? Looks like he made a bunch of calls there.
All about a month ago.
Answering machine.
Photo studio on Gansevoort.
Meatpacking District.
Home of the straight and narrow.
I'm sorry, but Mr.
Jankovic is in Bangkok.
A bar mitzvah, no doubt.
When will he be back? A week.
Maybe two.
Maybe you can help us out.
Does the name Sean Alvarez ring a bell? Not really.
Should it? ED: He called a couple times.
About a month ago.
Well, if he came in, it's easy enough to check.
Thanks.
I guess that's what they call a head shot.
All right.
I have a receipt here for an Alvarez.
It's for a purchase of a set of negatives.
ED: Negatives? Well, it looks like it's from an old photo shoot, but I couldn't tell you what specifically.
Do you recognize this man? No.
BRISCOE: Maybe there's an address on the receipt? It's a copy of a credit card slip.
I'm telling you, I don't know anything about any Exotic lmage photography studio.
Well, your Chase Visa account shows a $1,700 charge.
The clerk there says it was for a set of negatives.
Negatives? Negatives of what? Please.
Sean's aunt and uncle are waiting for us.
They've come in from out of town.
Can't we do this another time? Do you know anything about this? If those photos are evidence, concealing them could be an obstruction ofjustice.
Nancy.
Please, if you know anything.
He didn't want you to know.
Why didn't you ever say anything to me? He was worried about what you'd think.
It was in college, Martin.
Someone had came around the school offering students money to pose for a calendar.
The Boys of Brown.
It was a foolish thing to do.
Sean knew that.
So why tell you? We were talking about him leaving his job.
At first, he tried to tell me it was because he'd found a better one.
But I could see in his face something was wrong.
Finally, he told me.
He had gotten this e-mail at work, with one of those pictures attached to it.
Apparently, it had been posted on a gay men's website.
Gay? Sean didn't realize that when he'd signed the release, the photographer could do whatever he wanted with the pictures.
He wasn't gay, Martin.
Did Sean ever tell you who sent the e-mail? No, but I do know they tried to find out.
Who tried? His bosses.
Braddock and Todd knew about the e-mail? Yes.
Sean said his manager even teased him about it.
Hey, someone sick enough to send hate mail might be sick enough to take it a step further.
Or maybe we're asking the wrong person about a jealous boyfriend.
Well, that seems like a pretty big coincidence to have this secret past revealed.
Then a month later, leave a job you love? Unless you were forced out.
And we all know what that means.
A lawsuit.
Okay.
Sean Alvarez filed a federal lawsuit against Braddock and Todd about six weeks ago.
What was the basis for the lawsuit? Sexual harassment.
He alleged a hostile work environment.
Someone was hitting on him? Not necessarily.
All he has to do is establish his work environment is upsetting.
BRISCOE: I could do that.
Upsetting sexually, Lennie.
What about identifying the person who sent the e-mail? Wasn't part of the claim.
He only sued his employer.
Said he was being teased.
A little teasing.
Seems pretty thin.
Not to his employer.
They settled.
BRADDOCK: We signed a non-disclosure agreement.
I'm not at liberty to discuss the terms of the settlement.
I'm sorry.
Unless you start giving us some answers, you're not gonna be at liberty at all.
Why didn't you mention the lawsuit before? If you're suggesting money as a motive here, Detective, it wasn't.
The settlement was covered by insurance.
Look, the truth is we were all embarrassed by the e-mail.
Did you ever find out who sent it? I think Bruce Valentine tried.
Now if you'll excuse me.
I already had a tech check his system.
Yeah, well, whoever sent it had his e-mail address.
Maybe Sean gave it to him himself.
So we need to check everyone on his outgoing e-mail.
Who else knew about this? This is a business based on rumors.
It's pretty hard to keep something like that quiet.
Especially when your boss gives you crap about it.
Yeah, well, like it or not, Wall Street's still an old boys club.
Just not those kind of boys, huh? Trading stocks involves a certain degree of trust.
When I asked, Sean told me it was just a college prank.
You saw the picture.
Did it look like a prank to you? Actually, Mrs.
Simms, we're looking for your husband.
Mitchel isn't here.
Do you know where we can find him? What's this about? Does your husband know a man named Sean Alvarez? Uh, I've never heard the name before.
What's going on? We got your husband's name from Mr.
Alvarez's computer.
It was on his list of e-mail addresses.
BRISCOE: Mr.
Alvarez was a broker with a firm called Braddock and Todd.
Braddock and Todd? But my husband dealt with a man named Valentine, not Alvarez.
Bruce Valentine? Yes.
But why are you looking for Mitchel? Mr.
Alvarez was killed two days ago.
Oh, my God.
ED: It's important that we find your husband.
(SIGHS) Mitch didn't come home last night.
He's a gambler.
He hasn't had a real job in over a year.
I think that's why he traded stocks.
It was easier than going to the track.
ED: How about a bookie or a favorite OTB parlor? I don't know.
We don't want anybody to get hurt here, Mrs.
Simms.
I swear I don't know where he is.
But please, please don't hurt him.
Wife says at most he'd have a couple of hundred bucks.
What about an ATM card? No funds available.
Thank you.
DMV has a '95 Ford Escort registered to Mitchel Simms under the same address.
Add the plates to the hot sheet.
Simms used a credit card to buy gas on the service road to the Van Wyck, day before yesterday.
That's on the way to Kennedy.
Call Port Authority police.
Have them check all parking lots for Simms' car.
And let's notify the airlines.
Lot attendant says the car came in about 6:30, day before yesterday.
Talk about long-term parking.
ED:38's in his lap.
Same caliber as Alvarez.
Nobody touches anything until CSU gets here.
When they do, tell them to bag his hands for GSR, voucher the gun.
(PLANE FLYING OVERHEAD) Maybe he was afraid of flying.
It doesn't make any sense.
Why would Mitchel kill himself? ED: The GSR came back from the lab.
Your husband's right hand tested positive for gunpowder.
And the receptionist at the brokerage just identified him as the man who shot her.
But why? Why would Mitchel shoot these people? Do you know anything about an e-mail your husband may have sent Sean Alvarez? An e-mail he sent? CARMICHAEL: Of a threatening nature.
If there was anybody Mitchel would've threatened, it would have been Bruce Valentine.
Why do you say that? Maybe six months ago, Mitchel ran into Valentine.
They went to high school together.
He talked to Mitchel about investing.
Said he would give him some stock tips.
Did he? In the beginning.
Then he stopped returning Mitchel's calls.
Then one day he calls Mitchel.
Tells him about some health stock.
I forget the name.
It went through the roof.
I begged my husband to sell.
But he wouldn't.
ED: Why not? He said Bruce Valentine would tell him when to get out.
He never did.
Mrs.
Simms was under the impression you were handling her husband's account.
Yes, but I turned it over to Sean.
But you were the one who told Mr.
Simms about the Healthroad2000 stock? I think so, yes.
So why would he be mad at Sean Alvarez and not you? (SIGHING) Look, maybe he just picked an easy target.
I don't know.
I'm just glad that I wasn't around at the time, you know? His wife says he was broke? Yeah, Mitch had some tough luck.
Well, what was he buying stock with? We set up a margin account.
Margin? Mmm-hmm.
What did he use for collateral? He took out a second mortgage.
When was that? When he opened the account.
Yep.
Mitchel Simms.
Took out a loan of 42.
5, underlying mortgage on the condo was for 130.
Place was assessed at a little over two bills.
But he never made a payment? Not a one.
So why didn't you foreclose? Matter a fact, we filed papers last month.
Only he came in about a week ago with a cashier's check for the whole nut.
A cashier's check? Drawn on what bank? The check was drawn on Braddock and Todd's house account.
Same ones who called in his margin.
It's not exactly sound business practice to give money to a man who just lost his shirt in the market.
Not unless you felt responsible for how he lost it.
You think they were trying to make good? That or trying to make something bad go away.
It was a loan.
A loan to a customer who already owed you a substantial amount of money.
Explain that to us.
Well, Bruce Valentine recommended I make the loan.
We did.
Throwing good money after bad? Well, Bruce is my top performer, okay? For $45,000, I wasn't prepared to question him.
No, especially not if you had concerns about how the money got lost in the first place, right? Simms had a margin account.
Who approved that? CARMICHAEL: Another favor, Mr.
Braddock? The truth is Bruce allowed the man to trade when he shouldn't have.
What do you mean? He let his friendship cloud his judgment.
Simms had a gambling problem.
Bruce knew about it, but let Simms trade on margin anyway.
So you paid $45,000 to make up for Valentine's lack ofjudgment, is that it? Look, these kind of things can reflect badly on the entire firm.
When Simms lost the money on Healthroad2000, he threatened us.
The last thing I needed was a bunch of federal regulators rehashing old trades I'd already lost money on.
A benevolent broker.
Where were these people in '87? According to Braddock, it wasn't benevolence.
It was expedience.
I'm not buying it.
How many people in the market lose money and then try to blame their brokers? A payoff on a claim of that kind just opens the floodgates.
Braddock had to know that.
So, the $45,000 was for something else.
But what? Murder? These people seem to be making a lot of payoffs.
To Alvarez, to Simms.
This lawsuit, Ms.
Carmichael, what do we know about it? Nothing.
There's a non-disclosure agreement.
Talk to the insurance carrier.
See if we can find out what they were really trying to keep quiet.
CARMICHAEL: $2 million? What were the facts? Just what's there in the complaint.
What about depositions? No depositions were taken.
No discovery? Isn't that unusual given the amount of the settlement? Not where one side's afraid of what might come out of discovery.
One side meaning Braddock and Todd? I took a look at the photograph, then I called the kid's supervisor.
He tells me we have serious problems.
So I called my supervisor.
And? Apparently, Mr.
Braddock already spoke to him.
Said the allegations were true and that he wanted the lawsuit put to bed quietly.
So you settled? We took a look at the policy's limits and cut a check to the brokerage for Alvarez that afternoon.
I had a signed release by morning.
$2 million, and Braddock doesn't even put up a fight.
Why should he with the insurance company footing the bill? It was like a virtual lawsuit.
There's no saber rattling, no discovery.
Alvarez doesn't even live long enough to cash the check.
But that couldn't be the motive for killing him because the insurance money would just go to his estate.
So is this really a murder for hire or just some garden-variety let's kill my broker? The e-mail that started this whole thing? Are we even sure that Simms is the one who sent it? The e-mail was deleted.
You're certain? Looks like they ran a Y2K compliance program a few weeks ago.
Seems to have taken out all the e-mails on the hard drive.
Intentionally? If it wasn't, it certainly was careless.
So there's no way to know who sent it? I can't tell you who, but I can tell you when.
The hard drive's transaction log posts it in October.
So I checked that against the company's main server, that log indicates it entered the system in December.
So the e-mail was back dated? That they couldn't hide.
How would that be done? With the administrator's code.
With that you can forward an e-mail to any terminal and put whatever transaction date you wanted on it.
Who would have the code? Only senior management.
Why would a company want to plant an e-mail that was gonna cost them Because the money was to come from their insurance.
They knew they wouldn't be out of pocket a penny.
Perfect hush money.
But to hush up who? Alvarez, Simms and Valentine were all involved with a stock called Healthroad2000.
com.
Takes us right back to the beginning.
Looks like Braddock and Todd did a bunch of IPO's.
Healthroad2000 was just one of them.
These offshore holding companies, Healthroad's board of directors also controlled them.
Same holding companies with this other start-up.
This one, too.
All these IPO's, same board of directors, same holding companies.
Same pump and dumps.
We did a good job, they came back.
No wonder.
We pulled the SEC's insider trading statements on each of these companies.
All of them filed to sell their shares as soon as they could.
That's perfectly legal.
Unless they knew something the rest of us didn't.
Each of these companies saw the value of their shares skyrocket, then the price just dives.
The market's a risky place.
People want certainty, they should put their money in CD's.
What the people want, Mr.
Braddock, is a level playing field.
Our guess is Sean Alvarez discovered you weren't providing one.
That's why you planted the e-mail, isn't it? To create a bogus lawsuit in order to pay off Sean Alvarez.
That's insurance fraud for starters.
And who knows how many violations of federal security laws on the stock scheme.
The federal sentencing guidelines for these crimes have been described as draconian, Mr.
Braddock.
I'm not a criminal lawyer, Carl, but I wouldn't answer anything else.
JACK: He's right.
Save your explanation for the jury.
Only sometimes a murder charge has a chilling effect on a defendant's decision to take the stand.
Murder? That's what the $45,000 you paid Mitchel Simms was for, wasn't it? To kill Sean Alvarez? I didn't kill anyone.
It's your name on the check.
(SIGHS) You know, in the old days, you made someone 10%, you were doing your job.
Not anymore.
Today, everyone wants to double their money.
Not in a year.
In weeks.
Hours.
JACK: Business was tough.
That's your excuse, Mr.
Braddock? I told Bruce there was no reason to kill them.
But he was just talking crazy.
But ever since we started dealing with those people What people are we talking about? Haven't you figured it out? The men who controlled those companies, these board of directors.
They're the mob, for God's sake.
JACK: Carl Braddock says you were the front man for an organized crime group trading stocks through his brokerage.
He says it was you who paid Mitchel Simms to kill Sean Alvarez.
That's murder for hire, Mr.
Valentine.
You get a needle for that in this state.
And it won't be for a flu shot.
Well, now, let's all just slow down here for a minute, shall we? I assume Mr.
Braddock didn't provide his information for free.
We turned our prosecution of Mr.
Braddock over to the federal authorities.
They'll consider his cooperation.
We want the same arrangement.
JACK: I'll hear what he has to say.
(SIGHS) I was approached about a year ago.
JACK: Approached by who? Joseph Dantoni, Jr.
Of the Dantoni crime family? Joey Jr.
And I went to high school together.
With Mitchel Simms? Yeah, I've handled some investments for Joey's father.
Very conservative.
But Joey wasn't blind.
He saw how easily the market could be manipulated.
How did that work? I set up some offshore shells to run the stocks through and then I'd post favorable information about them in chat rooms when we were ready to go public with the company.
JACK: And Sean Alvarez? Obviously he did his homework.
Found out what I was doing.
He threatened to go to the SEC, so we came up with the idea of a phony lawsuit to pay him off.
So you planted an e-mail to create a false claim of harassment? There was no other way to get Sean the money.
The insurance company paid off right away.
So what went wrong? Joey didn't trust Sean to keep his mouth shut.
You're saying Joseph Dantoni, Jr.
Had Sean Alvarez killed? About a week after Joey found out about Sean, he called me.
Told me what he was gonna do.
See, Simms was into them for a lot of money.
And Joey just figured Mitch would look like some disgruntled customer gone crazy.
Your client remains in jail until I check out his story.
He'll need protection.
Yes, I'm sure he will.
Let's pick up Dantoni.
I want this in the grand jury right away.
(KNOCKING ON DOOR) Joseph Dantoni.
What's this about? On your feet, Mr.
Dantoni.
Okay.
Okay.
Just let me take care of the check.
Save it for bail.
ED: You have the right to remain silent.
Anything you say can and will be used against you in a court of law.
What's this? I thought I had the Hinkson case this morning.
Judge, this was added to the calendar at defense counsel's request.
Joseph Dantoni, Jr.
Murder in the first degree.
Your Honor, Mr.
McCoy is before the grand jury on this matter as we speak.
JUDGE: What's the rush, Mr.
Patton? Your Honor, may we approach? Judge, I tried Mr.
McCoy this morning.
I wasn't able to reach him.
I was hoping to have a conversation with him before any murder indictment was voted in this case.
A conversation? You're saying your client wants to cooperate? Not him.
His father.
I appreciate your seeing me, Mr.
McCoy.
This isn't a courtesy.
You have information regarding this homicide? Yeah, we do.
You understand there's no offer of immunity.
For either you or your son.
Mr.
Dantoni merely seeks the same protection your office provides any other crime victim.
Crime victim? This is a strange situation for all of us.
I'm used to handling my own problems my own way.
But this is different.
My son did not commit any murder.
That's the extent of your information? My son's a moron.
But he's not a murderer.
So he's only half a chip off the old block? Look, Joey might have been aggressive in terms of pursuing profits in the market.
Certain rules might have been broken.
But he never murdered nobody or hired nobody to murder nobody.
How do you know this? I asked him.
I asked him once I realized he'd lost over $4 million of my money.
I took a look at these holding companies my genius son set up.
Turns out all the assets were controlled by Valentine, not Joey.
Only now, none of them got any assets.
Mr.
Dantoni's prepared to testify that his brokerage account, as well as the accounts of eight other of his associates, all with what you would call organized crime connections, were looted by the brokerage of Braddock and Todd.
In proper parlance, Bruce Valentine cooked the books.
This Valentine told my son Joey that these stock schemes were making money.
Meantime, the guy's stealing from Peter to pay Paul.
What about Mitchel Simms? Valentine whacked him.
Convenient for you.
Hey, I'm gonna hit Simms, I ain't gonna make it look like a suicide.
Defeats the purpose.
You don't believe me? Check your records on the.
38.
What will we find? Well, let's just say it wasn't fresh off the shelf.
Valentine asked my son Joey for a gun a couple of months ago.
Said he was afraid to be carrying so much cash around.
Turns out it was my cash.
I'm surprised that Dantoni isn't asking us to take a blood oath.
Fact is our forensic accountant backs up his claim.
The pilfered brokerage accounts were established You're telling me the money's legit? I'm telling you there's no way to prove that it isn't.
There's also no way a lawyer like Richard Patton gets involved if the money wasn't clean.
What about the.
38? Ballistics traced it back to an underworld slaying three years ago.
Fine.
Mob gun, mob murder.
CARMICHAEL: Except that we wouldn't have known about the slaying if it weren't for Dantoni.
Joey Jr.
Will testify he gave the gun to Valentine six months before in front of witnesses, two of whom had no record.
None of us are happy about this, Adam.
But if Valentine hired Simms to kill Alvarez and then killed Simms himself, he deserves the death penalty.
So we end up performing our first hit for the mob.
(SCOFFS) We've never drawn a distinction between crime victims before.
Crime victims.
And what do they want for all these little tidbits of information? Consideration for Joey Jr.
On the stock scheme.
Crime victims my elbow.
Bruce came to me and said he had a group of investors interested in setting up companies and then taking them public through the brokerage.
When did you learn these companies were actually fronts for organized crime? It was pretty clear at our first meeting.
JACK: How did the plan work? Bruce set up these companies, then used money from the brokerage accounts to show assets to the investment banks.
Then he took them public through my firm.
And what happened? Bruce created markets for the stock through various chat rooms on the Internet and through our association with other retailers.
And the stock prices went up? They skyrocketed.
So how did Mr.
Valentine end up losing the money? Mr.
Dantoni and the others were insiders.
Legally, they couldn't sell their shares right away.
While they were waiting, the market had a correction.
Bruce just wasn't able to sustain the price long enough.
He started using the companies own cash to buy more stock.
Eventually, he lost everything.
How did he manage to hide this from you and the others? By using false financial statements and a variety of other accounts to cover the losses.
But Sean Alvarez found out? I don't know what Sean knew, just that Bruce said we had to pay him off.
And did you? Yes.
Bruce planted an e-mail in order to create an harassment claim against us.
Then we used the insurance money to pay Sean.
Nothing further.
You didn't object to this alleged stock scheme, did you? No.
To using mob money to further your own aims? No, I didn't.
Even to committing insurance fraud? I thought I had no choice.
I'm sure you didn't.
In fact, you thought there was a chance you might be killed.
Yes.
Killed by the same people the district attorney's office has paraded in front of this jury as crime victims? Objection.
Sustained.
Now, my client had no authority to orchestrate an insurance payoff, did he? No.
In fact, the agreement to keep silent was between your brokerage and Mr.
Alvarez.
Mr.
Valentine's name wasn't even mentioned, was it? No, it It wasn't.
By the way, you lied about all this to the police, didn't you? Yes.
Because you thought they would think that it was you who hired Mr.
Simms, wasn't it? Seems to me, Mr.
Braddock, you had as much reason to see these people dead as any of the People's witnesses in this case.
Objection.
Nothing further.
I let my son run my business interest while I was in Florida.
Famous last words, right? JACK: What happened? He started trading with this Valentine character.
He and Joey were friends from high school.
They cooked up some scheme where they'd set up a company with Joey's My money.
Then hype the stock and get out with a profit.
You were kept informed of this? Are you kidding me? I'm the generation that made it.
My son's the one who spends it.
We've heard testimony from several witnesses and your son that a great deal of money was lost by them.
How much money was lost by you? Little over 4 million.
Mr.
Valentine's lawyer suggests your son was responsible for the murders of Mitchel Simms and Sean Alvarez.
Not true.
How do you know that? Because my son didn't have the authority.
The authority? I'll rely on my constitutional right against self-incrimination and just leave it at that.
Nothing further.
Your son didn't have the authority? That's right.
Meaning you do? Meaning if something's gonna be done in my name, I have the final say-so.
Yeah.
Is this some type of organization that we're unaware of, Mr.
Dantoni? Oh, I think you know what I'm talking about, Counselor.
Yes, I think I do.
I just want to make sure that the jury does.
This is a chart of all the crimes some of the People's witnesses have been charged with or convicted of.
Objection.
Overruled.
Now, let's see, amongst other things, murder, racketeering, bribery, (SIGHS) Assault, arson, jury tampering.
Did I miss anything, Mr.
Dantoni? Yeah.
That I was acquitted of the bribery charge.
I'm sorry.
You're right.
But then that's what led up to the jury tampering indictment, isn't it? In fact, every witness against Mr.
Valentine has been convicted of one felony or another, haven't they? Objection.
That I'll sustain.
We paid our debt to society, Counselor.
It's time for your client to pony up.
You say you lost $4 million? Yeah.
Where'd you get that money from, Mr.
Dantoni? My accountant can better answer that question.
It was from illegal activities, wasn't it? Absolutely not.
Come on, Mr.
Dantoni.
You were so honest with us before about your authority.
Why be shy now? Objection.
STOKELY: Doesn't really matter if he answers.
Like he said, "We all know what we're talking about here.
" The first time I had a witness take the Fifth Amendment and didn't try to make him pay for it.
Never say never.
We already have a defendant to convict.
Valentine's taking the stand tomorrow.
He'll try and blame the mob for the murders.
Time to make your bones, consigliere.
(SIGHS) We have Dantoni losing 4 million, right? And the other eight accounts, Dantoni's associates, how much all told? Give or take another So that's 13 million invested with Valentine.
Something wrong? I just added up all the capital funneled through this thing and I get 15 million.
We're 2 million short.
This guy just doesn't know how to stop.
Yes, I took money.
And, yes, I paid Sean and Mitchel to keep quiet.
But I never murdered anyone.
You never hired Mitchel Simms to kill Sean Alvarez? Why would I? Sean would've gotten in almost as much trouble as I would if he would've talked.
No.
The Dantonis.
They're the ones who kill.
And now they're trying to blame me.
No further questions.
Standing over the lifeless body of Sean Alvarez, you lied to two New York City detectives when you told them that you knew nothing about his murder, didn't you? I was scared.
Scared of the mob? That's right.
But not too scared to do business with them? When did this fear of the mob you say caused you to lie first begin to afflict you, Mr.
Valentine? I can't really say.
Seems to me it must have been when you realized that those stock scams of yours weren't going to work.
I told you, I can't say.
Well, isn't that when you asked Joey Jr.
For a gun? I didn't ask Joey for a gun.
Two witnesses, with absolutely nothing to fear, say that you did.
They're lying.
Or maybe it was when you committed insurance fraud? Was that when it started? Sean was blackmailing me.
But Mitchel Simms wasn't blackmailing you about the mob, was he? And you paid him off too, didn't you? Yes.
So if it wasn't fear of the mob that made you do it, what was it, Mr.
Valentine? I don't know what you're talking about.
I'm talking about opportunity.
That's the name of the game in your business, isn't it? Recognizing opportunity and taking advantage of it? I suppose.
How much of the mob's money did you say you lost, Mr.
Valentine? $13 million.
Yet we found that was funneled through those accounts.
So where did that extra $2 million come from? I don't know.
It came from the insurance settlement, didn't it? You never gave the money to Sean Alvarez.
You stole it and used it for your stock scheme.
That's why you had to kill Sean Alvarez, isn't it? No.
There is no record of $2 million ever being paid from Braddock and Todd to Sean Alvarez.
Another opportunity presented itself and you took it.
Isn't that right, Mr.
Valentine? No.
I think you arranged to meet Mitchel Simms.
I think you used his desperation to force him to kill Sean Alvarez.
Objection.
And later, you lured him to the airport and killed him with the gun given to you by Joey Dantoni, knowing that you could blame the mob.
That's not true! (STAMMERING) I didn't.
Stock fraud, insurance fraud, payoffs, finally murder.
All crimes of opportunity.
But you're all out of chances now.
Aren't you, Mr.
Valentine? Members of the jury, I am advised by the clerk that you have reached a verdict? We have, Your Honor.
JUDGE: Please read it.
In the matter of The People v.
Valentine, on the count of murder in the first degree, we find the defendant guilty.
(PEOPLE MURMURING) Members of the jury, you are excused until Monday morning, whereupon the death penalty phase of this trial shall begin.
(GAVEL BANGS) So? The jury gave Valentine the death penalty.
They were out for less than an hour.
Nothing redeemable about Wall Street.
What about Center Street? Oh.
Now you have scruples? We avenged Sean Alvarez.
I still have to call the family.
Which one?
These are their stories.
I'm telling you, this is a sweet deal.
Right.
Well Well, last week's deal was very sweet too, but this one we're only offering to a few very special clients, Mrs.
Skolnick.
(GUNSHOT) (WOMAN SCREAMING) Can you hang on a sec? MAN: Look out! He's got a gun! What? The price-earnings ratio, okay.
It's a bit high.
(GUNSHOTS) (PEOPLE SCREAMING) (PEOPLE SHOUTING) SPENCER: Oh, my God, Sean! Sean! What the hell's going Somebody call an ambulance! Call 911! HARDWICK: Shooter came in through the front.
Put a.
38 in the receptionist.
How's she doing? Last word, in surgery.
Then what? Headed this way.
Went straight to this office.
Sean Alvarez.
Twenty-four.
There were closer offices.
Guy was the target.
Then where'd he go? Out that fire exit.
ED: Huh, good plan for a lunatic.
Crazy don't mean stupid.
My ex-wife's living proof.
What about Alvarez? Took two shots to the chest.
Still had the strength to go for help.
BRISCOE: And who's Mutt and Jeff there? Slick guy's Bruce Valentine.
Kid's supervisor.
Other one's Braddock.
As in Braddock and Todd.
Thanks.
BRISCOE: Detectives Briscoe and Green.
Carl Braddock.
This is crazy.
Just crazy.
What can you tell us about him? Well, he was one of my brokers.
How long had he been here? Year and a half.
Any problems? No, actually he was leaving next month.
Why was that? Greener pastures, I guess.
It's tough to hold on to these kids these days.
We're gonna need a list of everyone that was on the floor at the time.
Of course.
BRISCOE: And we'll need a list of his clients.
For what purpose? For the purpose of finding out who shot him.
Well, I can't let you go on a fishing expedition through our clients' financial records without a warrant.
Come back with something more specific and I'd be happy to cooperate.
Count on it.
BRADDOCK: Would you excuse us now? Kid was leaving in a month.
Yeah.
Not soon enough.
Who did this? We were hoping you could help us with that.
Can you think of any reason why someone might have done this to him? Our son was just starting out in life.
What reason could there be? What about his job? Any problems there? Sean used to pick stocks from the newspaper.
This job at the brokerage was a dream come true for him.
We heard he was leaving in a month.
He never mentioned anything.
So you know nothing about that? No.
MR.
ALVAREZ: Maybe you should talk to lanna.
Lanna? Lanna Mercer.
She's Sean's fiancée.
They're getting married.
I mean I'm sorry.
I'm sorry.
I'm sorry.
I just talked to Carmichael.
She says no judge will sign a subpoena for the customer list based on what we have so far.
How are they? Couldn't tell us much.
I wonder why he never told them he was leaving the firm.
Maybe it was a surprise.
Wouldn't you want to tell your parents if you had good news about your job? His parents would never believe him.
Oh! Well, talk to the fiancée.
Maybe she knows.
Everything was going fine.
ED: He didn't seem nervous about work? No.
I mean, I think Sean really liked it.
Then why was he leaving? I think he just felt like he'd already learned what he needed to know.
Sean said that he had some ideas about the Internet and that he just wanted to take some time to figure out his next step.
He could afford to do that? He had said he'd done pretty well working for Mr.
Valentine.
This is a difficult question to ask, Ms.
Mercer, but is there any chance there was another boyfriend in the picture? Maybe a jealous ex? Sean and I were gonna be married this summer.
There was no one else.
You understand we have to ask.
Look, maybe you should talk to this one guy there.
Randy Kush.
He and Sean would grab a drink after work sometimes.
Look, my bosses wouldn't be too happy with me talking to you guys like this.
I mean, it's not exactly the kind of PR they're looking for.
Oh, don't worry, you'll be back at your Rolodex in no time.
Sean worked retail.
I'm in munis.
I'm not sure what I'm gonna be able to tell you.
His fiancée said you guys used to grab drinks together.
Discuss futures.
Yeah.
We just thought it was never too early to establish alliances, you know? Alliances? Sounds like a pretty ruthless place.
Well, there's certain rules when it comes to making money, right? Well, what rules did Sean break? Guy was an animal.
Just went after it.
Sean wanted to be a market maker.
Someone like Valentine, you know? With a network of customers who can create their own market for a stock.
He just kept bringing Valentine coffee until he gave Sean a shot.
A shot at what? IPO's.
That's where the real money's at.
What was Sean working on? Tell ya, I don't know.
We check your mom and dad's records, we're gonna find some of these stocks, right, Randy? ED: It's called insider trading.
Okay.
Okay.
Last thing Sean told me about was a stock called Healthroad2000.
com.
Some medical Internet thing.
He said Valentine was working a pump and dump.
Pump and dump? Buy it.
Hype it.
Dump it.
Thanks.
Okay.
Healthroad2000.
com.
Company's a year old.
With a P and E ratio of 1000-to-one.
Clearly, no profits.
Stock still went from $4 to $48 a share in the first nine days of trading.
We lose money on every sale, but we make it up in volume.
Not necessarily.
The stock tanked.
They stopped trading at 35 cents a share.
That's gotta make for a pretty disgruntled customer.
Call Carmichael.
This should be enough for us to get a subpoena for their client list.
Detectives? Didn't waste any time with the Mop & Glo, huh? Yeah.
Well, some of the brokers found the sight of blood a little unsettling.
Figured around here they'd be used to it.
May I see the subpoena? This is all confidential information.
Yeah, well, you have your insider trading, we have ours.
In the great scheme of things, $30,000 really isn't a lot of money, Detective.
Yeah, I know.
That's what I'm gonna have to live on when I retire.
I guess you guys don't get stock options.
So, you weren't angry with Sean Alvarez? Why should I be angry? Sean gave me a tip just the month before.
A very lucrative tip.
No, as far as I could tell, the kid was a real go-getter.
Sean called.
Introduced himself.
Said he got my number through his father's country club.
You a member? Was.
Unfortunately, I've suffered some setbacks recently.
Like Healthroad2000? I was told it was a sure thing.
You really need somebody to tell you that investing in an Internet company might be risky? What I needed was someone to tell me when to get out.
Sean didn't.
Maybe Sean didn't know.
Money always makes money, Detective.
That's why 1% of the world controls 99% of its wealth.
ED: You're saying Sean had inside information? The stock market should never be a guessing game.
So why were you left out in the dark? Maybe I just didn't play on the right team.
What do you mean by that? From what I've heard since, Sean lived a certain lifestyle.
What kind of lifestyle are we talking about? Just say it wasn't co-ed.
(LAUGHS) I thought he had a fiancée.
It wouldn't be the first time.
Man's keeping secrets.
Yeah, he's also dropping money on dinners like I do on a new car.
If he was leaving his job, he sure wasn't curtailing his entertainment.
LUDs from his phones? Hmm.
Nothing out of the ordinary.
What about this one from his cell phone, Exotic lmage? Looks like he made a bunch of calls there.
All about a month ago.
Answering machine.
Photo studio on Gansevoort.
Meatpacking District.
Home of the straight and narrow.
I'm sorry, but Mr.
Jankovic is in Bangkok.
A bar mitzvah, no doubt.
When will he be back? A week.
Maybe two.
Maybe you can help us out.
Does the name Sean Alvarez ring a bell? Not really.
Should it? ED: He called a couple times.
About a month ago.
Well, if he came in, it's easy enough to check.
Thanks.
I guess that's what they call a head shot.
All right.
I have a receipt here for an Alvarez.
It's for a purchase of a set of negatives.
ED: Negatives? Well, it looks like it's from an old photo shoot, but I couldn't tell you what specifically.
Do you recognize this man? No.
BRISCOE: Maybe there's an address on the receipt? It's a copy of a credit card slip.
I'm telling you, I don't know anything about any Exotic lmage photography studio.
Well, your Chase Visa account shows a $1,700 charge.
The clerk there says it was for a set of negatives.
Negatives? Negatives of what? Please.
Sean's aunt and uncle are waiting for us.
They've come in from out of town.
Can't we do this another time? Do you know anything about this? If those photos are evidence, concealing them could be an obstruction ofjustice.
Nancy.
Please, if you know anything.
He didn't want you to know.
Why didn't you ever say anything to me? He was worried about what you'd think.
It was in college, Martin.
Someone had came around the school offering students money to pose for a calendar.
The Boys of Brown.
It was a foolish thing to do.
Sean knew that.
So why tell you? We were talking about him leaving his job.
At first, he tried to tell me it was because he'd found a better one.
But I could see in his face something was wrong.
Finally, he told me.
He had gotten this e-mail at work, with one of those pictures attached to it.
Apparently, it had been posted on a gay men's website.
Gay? Sean didn't realize that when he'd signed the release, the photographer could do whatever he wanted with the pictures.
He wasn't gay, Martin.
Did Sean ever tell you who sent the e-mail? No, but I do know they tried to find out.
Who tried? His bosses.
Braddock and Todd knew about the e-mail? Yes.
Sean said his manager even teased him about it.
Hey, someone sick enough to send hate mail might be sick enough to take it a step further.
Or maybe we're asking the wrong person about a jealous boyfriend.
Well, that seems like a pretty big coincidence to have this secret past revealed.
Then a month later, leave a job you love? Unless you were forced out.
And we all know what that means.
A lawsuit.
Okay.
Sean Alvarez filed a federal lawsuit against Braddock and Todd about six weeks ago.
What was the basis for the lawsuit? Sexual harassment.
He alleged a hostile work environment.
Someone was hitting on him? Not necessarily.
All he has to do is establish his work environment is upsetting.
BRISCOE: I could do that.
Upsetting sexually, Lennie.
What about identifying the person who sent the e-mail? Wasn't part of the claim.
He only sued his employer.
Said he was being teased.
A little teasing.
Seems pretty thin.
Not to his employer.
They settled.
BRADDOCK: We signed a non-disclosure agreement.
I'm not at liberty to discuss the terms of the settlement.
I'm sorry.
Unless you start giving us some answers, you're not gonna be at liberty at all.
Why didn't you mention the lawsuit before? If you're suggesting money as a motive here, Detective, it wasn't.
The settlement was covered by insurance.
Look, the truth is we were all embarrassed by the e-mail.
Did you ever find out who sent it? I think Bruce Valentine tried.
Now if you'll excuse me.
I already had a tech check his system.
Yeah, well, whoever sent it had his e-mail address.
Maybe Sean gave it to him himself.
So we need to check everyone on his outgoing e-mail.
Who else knew about this? This is a business based on rumors.
It's pretty hard to keep something like that quiet.
Especially when your boss gives you crap about it.
Yeah, well, like it or not, Wall Street's still an old boys club.
Just not those kind of boys, huh? Trading stocks involves a certain degree of trust.
When I asked, Sean told me it was just a college prank.
You saw the picture.
Did it look like a prank to you? Actually, Mrs.
Simms, we're looking for your husband.
Mitchel isn't here.
Do you know where we can find him? What's this about? Does your husband know a man named Sean Alvarez? Uh, I've never heard the name before.
What's going on? We got your husband's name from Mr.
Alvarez's computer.
It was on his list of e-mail addresses.
BRISCOE: Mr.
Alvarez was a broker with a firm called Braddock and Todd.
Braddock and Todd? But my husband dealt with a man named Valentine, not Alvarez.
Bruce Valentine? Yes.
But why are you looking for Mitchel? Mr.
Alvarez was killed two days ago.
Oh, my God.
ED: It's important that we find your husband.
(SIGHS) Mitch didn't come home last night.
He's a gambler.
He hasn't had a real job in over a year.
I think that's why he traded stocks.
It was easier than going to the track.
ED: How about a bookie or a favorite OTB parlor? I don't know.
We don't want anybody to get hurt here, Mrs.
Simms.
I swear I don't know where he is.
But please, please don't hurt him.
Wife says at most he'd have a couple of hundred bucks.
What about an ATM card? No funds available.
Thank you.
DMV has a '95 Ford Escort registered to Mitchel Simms under the same address.
Add the plates to the hot sheet.
Simms used a credit card to buy gas on the service road to the Van Wyck, day before yesterday.
That's on the way to Kennedy.
Call Port Authority police.
Have them check all parking lots for Simms' car.
And let's notify the airlines.
Lot attendant says the car came in about 6:30, day before yesterday.
Talk about long-term parking.
ED:38's in his lap.
Same caliber as Alvarez.
Nobody touches anything until CSU gets here.
When they do, tell them to bag his hands for GSR, voucher the gun.
(PLANE FLYING OVERHEAD) Maybe he was afraid of flying.
It doesn't make any sense.
Why would Mitchel kill himself? ED: The GSR came back from the lab.
Your husband's right hand tested positive for gunpowder.
And the receptionist at the brokerage just identified him as the man who shot her.
But why? Why would Mitchel shoot these people? Do you know anything about an e-mail your husband may have sent Sean Alvarez? An e-mail he sent? CARMICHAEL: Of a threatening nature.
If there was anybody Mitchel would've threatened, it would have been Bruce Valentine.
Why do you say that? Maybe six months ago, Mitchel ran into Valentine.
They went to high school together.
He talked to Mitchel about investing.
Said he would give him some stock tips.
Did he? In the beginning.
Then he stopped returning Mitchel's calls.
Then one day he calls Mitchel.
Tells him about some health stock.
I forget the name.
It went through the roof.
I begged my husband to sell.
But he wouldn't.
ED: Why not? He said Bruce Valentine would tell him when to get out.
He never did.
Mrs.
Simms was under the impression you were handling her husband's account.
Yes, but I turned it over to Sean.
But you were the one who told Mr.
Simms about the Healthroad2000 stock? I think so, yes.
So why would he be mad at Sean Alvarez and not you? (SIGHING) Look, maybe he just picked an easy target.
I don't know.
I'm just glad that I wasn't around at the time, you know? His wife says he was broke? Yeah, Mitch had some tough luck.
Well, what was he buying stock with? We set up a margin account.
Margin? Mmm-hmm.
What did he use for collateral? He took out a second mortgage.
When was that? When he opened the account.
Yep.
Mitchel Simms.
Took out a loan of 42.
5, underlying mortgage on the condo was for 130.
Place was assessed at a little over two bills.
But he never made a payment? Not a one.
So why didn't you foreclose? Matter a fact, we filed papers last month.
Only he came in about a week ago with a cashier's check for the whole nut.
A cashier's check? Drawn on what bank? The check was drawn on Braddock and Todd's house account.
Same ones who called in his margin.
It's not exactly sound business practice to give money to a man who just lost his shirt in the market.
Not unless you felt responsible for how he lost it.
You think they were trying to make good? That or trying to make something bad go away.
It was a loan.
A loan to a customer who already owed you a substantial amount of money.
Explain that to us.
Well, Bruce Valentine recommended I make the loan.
We did.
Throwing good money after bad? Well, Bruce is my top performer, okay? For $45,000, I wasn't prepared to question him.
No, especially not if you had concerns about how the money got lost in the first place, right? Simms had a margin account.
Who approved that? CARMICHAEL: Another favor, Mr.
Braddock? The truth is Bruce allowed the man to trade when he shouldn't have.
What do you mean? He let his friendship cloud his judgment.
Simms had a gambling problem.
Bruce knew about it, but let Simms trade on margin anyway.
So you paid $45,000 to make up for Valentine's lack ofjudgment, is that it? Look, these kind of things can reflect badly on the entire firm.
When Simms lost the money on Healthroad2000, he threatened us.
The last thing I needed was a bunch of federal regulators rehashing old trades I'd already lost money on.
A benevolent broker.
Where were these people in '87? According to Braddock, it wasn't benevolence.
It was expedience.
I'm not buying it.
How many people in the market lose money and then try to blame their brokers? A payoff on a claim of that kind just opens the floodgates.
Braddock had to know that.
So, the $45,000 was for something else.
But what? Murder? These people seem to be making a lot of payoffs.
To Alvarez, to Simms.
This lawsuit, Ms.
Carmichael, what do we know about it? Nothing.
There's a non-disclosure agreement.
Talk to the insurance carrier.
See if we can find out what they were really trying to keep quiet.
CARMICHAEL: $2 million? What were the facts? Just what's there in the complaint.
What about depositions? No depositions were taken.
No discovery? Isn't that unusual given the amount of the settlement? Not where one side's afraid of what might come out of discovery.
One side meaning Braddock and Todd? I took a look at the photograph, then I called the kid's supervisor.
He tells me we have serious problems.
So I called my supervisor.
And? Apparently, Mr.
Braddock already spoke to him.
Said the allegations were true and that he wanted the lawsuit put to bed quietly.
So you settled? We took a look at the policy's limits and cut a check to the brokerage for Alvarez that afternoon.
I had a signed release by morning.
$2 million, and Braddock doesn't even put up a fight.
Why should he with the insurance company footing the bill? It was like a virtual lawsuit.
There's no saber rattling, no discovery.
Alvarez doesn't even live long enough to cash the check.
But that couldn't be the motive for killing him because the insurance money would just go to his estate.
So is this really a murder for hire or just some garden-variety let's kill my broker? The e-mail that started this whole thing? Are we even sure that Simms is the one who sent it? The e-mail was deleted.
You're certain? Looks like they ran a Y2K compliance program a few weeks ago.
Seems to have taken out all the e-mails on the hard drive.
Intentionally? If it wasn't, it certainly was careless.
So there's no way to know who sent it? I can't tell you who, but I can tell you when.
The hard drive's transaction log posts it in October.
So I checked that against the company's main server, that log indicates it entered the system in December.
So the e-mail was back dated? That they couldn't hide.
How would that be done? With the administrator's code.
With that you can forward an e-mail to any terminal and put whatever transaction date you wanted on it.
Who would have the code? Only senior management.
Why would a company want to plant an e-mail that was gonna cost them Because the money was to come from their insurance.
They knew they wouldn't be out of pocket a penny.
Perfect hush money.
But to hush up who? Alvarez, Simms and Valentine were all involved with a stock called Healthroad2000.
com.
Takes us right back to the beginning.
Looks like Braddock and Todd did a bunch of IPO's.
Healthroad2000 was just one of them.
These offshore holding companies, Healthroad's board of directors also controlled them.
Same holding companies with this other start-up.
This one, too.
All these IPO's, same board of directors, same holding companies.
Same pump and dumps.
We did a good job, they came back.
No wonder.
We pulled the SEC's insider trading statements on each of these companies.
All of them filed to sell their shares as soon as they could.
That's perfectly legal.
Unless they knew something the rest of us didn't.
Each of these companies saw the value of their shares skyrocket, then the price just dives.
The market's a risky place.
People want certainty, they should put their money in CD's.
What the people want, Mr.
Braddock, is a level playing field.
Our guess is Sean Alvarez discovered you weren't providing one.
That's why you planted the e-mail, isn't it? To create a bogus lawsuit in order to pay off Sean Alvarez.
That's insurance fraud for starters.
And who knows how many violations of federal security laws on the stock scheme.
The federal sentencing guidelines for these crimes have been described as draconian, Mr.
Braddock.
I'm not a criminal lawyer, Carl, but I wouldn't answer anything else.
JACK: He's right.
Save your explanation for the jury.
Only sometimes a murder charge has a chilling effect on a defendant's decision to take the stand.
Murder? That's what the $45,000 you paid Mitchel Simms was for, wasn't it? To kill Sean Alvarez? I didn't kill anyone.
It's your name on the check.
(SIGHS) You know, in the old days, you made someone 10%, you were doing your job.
Not anymore.
Today, everyone wants to double their money.
Not in a year.
In weeks.
Hours.
JACK: Business was tough.
That's your excuse, Mr.
Braddock? I told Bruce there was no reason to kill them.
But he was just talking crazy.
But ever since we started dealing with those people What people are we talking about? Haven't you figured it out? The men who controlled those companies, these board of directors.
They're the mob, for God's sake.
JACK: Carl Braddock says you were the front man for an organized crime group trading stocks through his brokerage.
He says it was you who paid Mitchel Simms to kill Sean Alvarez.
That's murder for hire, Mr.
Valentine.
You get a needle for that in this state.
And it won't be for a flu shot.
Well, now, let's all just slow down here for a minute, shall we? I assume Mr.
Braddock didn't provide his information for free.
We turned our prosecution of Mr.
Braddock over to the federal authorities.
They'll consider his cooperation.
We want the same arrangement.
JACK: I'll hear what he has to say.
(SIGHS) I was approached about a year ago.
JACK: Approached by who? Joseph Dantoni, Jr.
Of the Dantoni crime family? Joey Jr.
And I went to high school together.
With Mitchel Simms? Yeah, I've handled some investments for Joey's father.
Very conservative.
But Joey wasn't blind.
He saw how easily the market could be manipulated.
How did that work? I set up some offshore shells to run the stocks through and then I'd post favorable information about them in chat rooms when we were ready to go public with the company.
JACK: And Sean Alvarez? Obviously he did his homework.
Found out what I was doing.
He threatened to go to the SEC, so we came up with the idea of a phony lawsuit to pay him off.
So you planted an e-mail to create a false claim of harassment? There was no other way to get Sean the money.
The insurance company paid off right away.
So what went wrong? Joey didn't trust Sean to keep his mouth shut.
You're saying Joseph Dantoni, Jr.
Had Sean Alvarez killed? About a week after Joey found out about Sean, he called me.
Told me what he was gonna do.
See, Simms was into them for a lot of money.
And Joey just figured Mitch would look like some disgruntled customer gone crazy.
Your client remains in jail until I check out his story.
He'll need protection.
Yes, I'm sure he will.
Let's pick up Dantoni.
I want this in the grand jury right away.
(KNOCKING ON DOOR) Joseph Dantoni.
What's this about? On your feet, Mr.
Dantoni.
Okay.
Okay.
Just let me take care of the check.
Save it for bail.
ED: You have the right to remain silent.
Anything you say can and will be used against you in a court of law.
What's this? I thought I had the Hinkson case this morning.
Judge, this was added to the calendar at defense counsel's request.
Joseph Dantoni, Jr.
Murder in the first degree.
Your Honor, Mr.
McCoy is before the grand jury on this matter as we speak.
JUDGE: What's the rush, Mr.
Patton? Your Honor, may we approach? Judge, I tried Mr.
McCoy this morning.
I wasn't able to reach him.
I was hoping to have a conversation with him before any murder indictment was voted in this case.
A conversation? You're saying your client wants to cooperate? Not him.
His father.
I appreciate your seeing me, Mr.
McCoy.
This isn't a courtesy.
You have information regarding this homicide? Yeah, we do.
You understand there's no offer of immunity.
For either you or your son.
Mr.
Dantoni merely seeks the same protection your office provides any other crime victim.
Crime victim? This is a strange situation for all of us.
I'm used to handling my own problems my own way.
But this is different.
My son did not commit any murder.
That's the extent of your information? My son's a moron.
But he's not a murderer.
So he's only half a chip off the old block? Look, Joey might have been aggressive in terms of pursuing profits in the market.
Certain rules might have been broken.
But he never murdered nobody or hired nobody to murder nobody.
How do you know this? I asked him.
I asked him once I realized he'd lost over $4 million of my money.
I took a look at these holding companies my genius son set up.
Turns out all the assets were controlled by Valentine, not Joey.
Only now, none of them got any assets.
Mr.
Dantoni's prepared to testify that his brokerage account, as well as the accounts of eight other of his associates, all with what you would call organized crime connections, were looted by the brokerage of Braddock and Todd.
In proper parlance, Bruce Valentine cooked the books.
This Valentine told my son Joey that these stock schemes were making money.
Meantime, the guy's stealing from Peter to pay Paul.
What about Mitchel Simms? Valentine whacked him.
Convenient for you.
Hey, I'm gonna hit Simms, I ain't gonna make it look like a suicide.
Defeats the purpose.
You don't believe me? Check your records on the.
38.
What will we find? Well, let's just say it wasn't fresh off the shelf.
Valentine asked my son Joey for a gun a couple of months ago.
Said he was afraid to be carrying so much cash around.
Turns out it was my cash.
I'm surprised that Dantoni isn't asking us to take a blood oath.
Fact is our forensic accountant backs up his claim.
The pilfered brokerage accounts were established You're telling me the money's legit? I'm telling you there's no way to prove that it isn't.
There's also no way a lawyer like Richard Patton gets involved if the money wasn't clean.
What about the.
38? Ballistics traced it back to an underworld slaying three years ago.
Fine.
Mob gun, mob murder.
CARMICHAEL: Except that we wouldn't have known about the slaying if it weren't for Dantoni.
Joey Jr.
Will testify he gave the gun to Valentine six months before in front of witnesses, two of whom had no record.
None of us are happy about this, Adam.
But if Valentine hired Simms to kill Alvarez and then killed Simms himself, he deserves the death penalty.
So we end up performing our first hit for the mob.
(SCOFFS) We've never drawn a distinction between crime victims before.
Crime victims.
And what do they want for all these little tidbits of information? Consideration for Joey Jr.
On the stock scheme.
Crime victims my elbow.
Bruce came to me and said he had a group of investors interested in setting up companies and then taking them public through the brokerage.
When did you learn these companies were actually fronts for organized crime? It was pretty clear at our first meeting.
JACK: How did the plan work? Bruce set up these companies, then used money from the brokerage accounts to show assets to the investment banks.
Then he took them public through my firm.
And what happened? Bruce created markets for the stock through various chat rooms on the Internet and through our association with other retailers.
And the stock prices went up? They skyrocketed.
So how did Mr.
Valentine end up losing the money? Mr.
Dantoni and the others were insiders.
Legally, they couldn't sell their shares right away.
While they were waiting, the market had a correction.
Bruce just wasn't able to sustain the price long enough.
He started using the companies own cash to buy more stock.
Eventually, he lost everything.
How did he manage to hide this from you and the others? By using false financial statements and a variety of other accounts to cover the losses.
But Sean Alvarez found out? I don't know what Sean knew, just that Bruce said we had to pay him off.
And did you? Yes.
Bruce planted an e-mail in order to create an harassment claim against us.
Then we used the insurance money to pay Sean.
Nothing further.
You didn't object to this alleged stock scheme, did you? No.
To using mob money to further your own aims? No, I didn't.
Even to committing insurance fraud? I thought I had no choice.
I'm sure you didn't.
In fact, you thought there was a chance you might be killed.
Yes.
Killed by the same people the district attorney's office has paraded in front of this jury as crime victims? Objection.
Sustained.
Now, my client had no authority to orchestrate an insurance payoff, did he? No.
In fact, the agreement to keep silent was between your brokerage and Mr.
Alvarez.
Mr.
Valentine's name wasn't even mentioned, was it? No, it It wasn't.
By the way, you lied about all this to the police, didn't you? Yes.
Because you thought they would think that it was you who hired Mr.
Simms, wasn't it? Seems to me, Mr.
Braddock, you had as much reason to see these people dead as any of the People's witnesses in this case.
Objection.
Nothing further.
I let my son run my business interest while I was in Florida.
Famous last words, right? JACK: What happened? He started trading with this Valentine character.
He and Joey were friends from high school.
They cooked up some scheme where they'd set up a company with Joey's My money.
Then hype the stock and get out with a profit.
You were kept informed of this? Are you kidding me? I'm the generation that made it.
My son's the one who spends it.
We've heard testimony from several witnesses and your son that a great deal of money was lost by them.
How much money was lost by you? Little over 4 million.
Mr.
Valentine's lawyer suggests your son was responsible for the murders of Mitchel Simms and Sean Alvarez.
Not true.
How do you know that? Because my son didn't have the authority.
The authority? I'll rely on my constitutional right against self-incrimination and just leave it at that.
Nothing further.
Your son didn't have the authority? That's right.
Meaning you do? Meaning if something's gonna be done in my name, I have the final say-so.
Yeah.
Is this some type of organization that we're unaware of, Mr.
Dantoni? Oh, I think you know what I'm talking about, Counselor.
Yes, I think I do.
I just want to make sure that the jury does.
This is a chart of all the crimes some of the People's witnesses have been charged with or convicted of.
Objection.
Overruled.
Now, let's see, amongst other things, murder, racketeering, bribery, (SIGHS) Assault, arson, jury tampering.
Did I miss anything, Mr.
Dantoni? Yeah.
That I was acquitted of the bribery charge.
I'm sorry.
You're right.
But then that's what led up to the jury tampering indictment, isn't it? In fact, every witness against Mr.
Valentine has been convicted of one felony or another, haven't they? Objection.
That I'll sustain.
We paid our debt to society, Counselor.
It's time for your client to pony up.
You say you lost $4 million? Yeah.
Where'd you get that money from, Mr.
Dantoni? My accountant can better answer that question.
It was from illegal activities, wasn't it? Absolutely not.
Come on, Mr.
Dantoni.
You were so honest with us before about your authority.
Why be shy now? Objection.
STOKELY: Doesn't really matter if he answers.
Like he said, "We all know what we're talking about here.
" The first time I had a witness take the Fifth Amendment and didn't try to make him pay for it.
Never say never.
We already have a defendant to convict.
Valentine's taking the stand tomorrow.
He'll try and blame the mob for the murders.
Time to make your bones, consigliere.
(SIGHS) We have Dantoni losing 4 million, right? And the other eight accounts, Dantoni's associates, how much all told? Give or take another So that's 13 million invested with Valentine.
Something wrong? I just added up all the capital funneled through this thing and I get 15 million.
We're 2 million short.
This guy just doesn't know how to stop.
Yes, I took money.
And, yes, I paid Sean and Mitchel to keep quiet.
But I never murdered anyone.
You never hired Mitchel Simms to kill Sean Alvarez? Why would I? Sean would've gotten in almost as much trouble as I would if he would've talked.
No.
The Dantonis.
They're the ones who kill.
And now they're trying to blame me.
No further questions.
Standing over the lifeless body of Sean Alvarez, you lied to two New York City detectives when you told them that you knew nothing about his murder, didn't you? I was scared.
Scared of the mob? That's right.
But not too scared to do business with them? When did this fear of the mob you say caused you to lie first begin to afflict you, Mr.
Valentine? I can't really say.
Seems to me it must have been when you realized that those stock scams of yours weren't going to work.
I told you, I can't say.
Well, isn't that when you asked Joey Jr.
For a gun? I didn't ask Joey for a gun.
Two witnesses, with absolutely nothing to fear, say that you did.
They're lying.
Or maybe it was when you committed insurance fraud? Was that when it started? Sean was blackmailing me.
But Mitchel Simms wasn't blackmailing you about the mob, was he? And you paid him off too, didn't you? Yes.
So if it wasn't fear of the mob that made you do it, what was it, Mr.
Valentine? I don't know what you're talking about.
I'm talking about opportunity.
That's the name of the game in your business, isn't it? Recognizing opportunity and taking advantage of it? I suppose.
How much of the mob's money did you say you lost, Mr.
Valentine? $13 million.
Yet we found that was funneled through those accounts.
So where did that extra $2 million come from? I don't know.
It came from the insurance settlement, didn't it? You never gave the money to Sean Alvarez.
You stole it and used it for your stock scheme.
That's why you had to kill Sean Alvarez, isn't it? No.
There is no record of $2 million ever being paid from Braddock and Todd to Sean Alvarez.
Another opportunity presented itself and you took it.
Isn't that right, Mr.
Valentine? No.
I think you arranged to meet Mitchel Simms.
I think you used his desperation to force him to kill Sean Alvarez.
Objection.
And later, you lured him to the airport and killed him with the gun given to you by Joey Dantoni, knowing that you could blame the mob.
That's not true! (STAMMERING) I didn't.
Stock fraud, insurance fraud, payoffs, finally murder.
All crimes of opportunity.
But you're all out of chances now.
Aren't you, Mr.
Valentine? Members of the jury, I am advised by the clerk that you have reached a verdict? We have, Your Honor.
JUDGE: Please read it.
In the matter of The People v.
Valentine, on the count of murder in the first degree, we find the defendant guilty.
(PEOPLE MURMURING) Members of the jury, you are excused until Monday morning, whereupon the death penalty phase of this trial shall begin.
(GAVEL BANGS) So? The jury gave Valentine the death penalty.
They were out for less than an hour.
Nothing redeemable about Wall Street.
What about Center Street? Oh.
Now you have scruples? We avenged Sean Alvarez.
I still have to call the family.
Which one?