Law & Order (1990) s14e18 Episode Script

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.
Laurie, I need more cash.
Hey, where's my free egg roll? No egg roll.
It says over $25, you're supposed to get a free egg roll.
No egg roll.
I told them not to put it in.
Fried dumplings and orange chicken You don't need any more grease.
Here you go.
Keep the change.
But I like the egg rolls.
Stop being a baby.
Come on.
Oh, my God.
Leah Glaser, 78.
She took a nasty tumble.
Well, what makes it not an accident? Security chain's ripped off the doorjamb.
Well, that would do it.
Looks like a push-in, but the TV's still here and so is her purse.
And we're checking on her next of kin.
Brody, what do you got? Lacerated forehead, massive head trauma.
You can tell from the fling.
She fell back, hit her head, fractured her skull.
So, she opens the door with the chain on, somebody kicks it in, and boom.
Yeah, right between the eyes.
Time of death? An hour before the body was found.
Hey, make sure that C.
S.
U.
Gets any lifts to Latent.
After she fractured her skull, she was still alive.
How do you know that? Petechial hemorrhages.
Smothered her.
With his hand, so hard her dentures lacerated her gums.
Vicious son of a bitch.
Hey, Ed.
She paid for these groceries at 3:33 p.
m.
There's a quart of milk in here and a pint of half-melted ice cream.
Well, obviously she didn't have time to put them away.
So, the guy figured her for an easy mark, followed her home from the store.
You know, that's a lot of groceries for an old lady to carry home by herself.
Maybe she had them delivered.
Well, whoever it was, I wonder what he took.
The only thing that mattered.
Mrs.
Glaser's daughter is flying in from Israel to I.
D.
The body.
We're hoping that maybe she could shed some light.
Good news, bad news.
Latent's pulled a full set of prints off the doorjamb.
He must have grabbed it with both hands when he kicked the door in.
Prints didn't set off any bells with B.
C.
I.
? That's the bad news.
They're not in the system.
The M.
E.
On the scene said that she'd been dead about an hour, give or take.
According to the store, her groceries were delivered around 4:00 p.
m.
The delivery guy's a West African immigrant.
No record.
And the body was discovered? 6:00, by another delivery man, Chinese take-out.
Nice thing about New York You never have to leave your apartment.
So she was killed around 5:00? Yeah, we figure maybe the guy scoped her out at the store, then followed her groceries home.
Or maybe the guy who delivered the groceries saw something that he liked and decided to go back for it.
We'll talk to him first.
Well, I'll call Robbery and see if there have been any other push-ins in the neighborhood.
Every Wednesday.
Yesterday too? No, not yesterday.
You didn't deliver her groceries yesterday? She meet her friend, Miss Lu, at the store.
Miss Lu? Chinese young lady.
She take the groceries.
They walk home together.
How do you know Miss Lu? Same building, down the hall.
I deliver her groceries too sometimes.
I got to know Leah when she broke her hip last summer.
She was laid up at St.
Andrew's for a month.
I went to see her every day.
We'd talk about sewing.
She used to be a seamstress.
She offered to make me a cup of tea.
Maybe if I'd stayed No, it wasn't your fault.
Did you notice anybody in the store that might have followed the two of you home? I don't think so, no.
How about as you came in the building? Anybody catch your eye? I rode up with her, helped her get her groceries inside, and went home.
What time was that? Around 4:00.
You know, on the way home, we stopped at the A.
T.
M.
Across the street so Leah could get some cash.
We found her, all she had was a few bucks in her purse.
She didn't have a purse.
I remember she took her bank card out of her pocket.
How much did she withdraw? A hundred dollars, maybe.
Elderly woman with a wad of cash? Let's call the lieutenant.
Let's get a list of those push-in robbery victims.
Thank you, sweetheart.
Yeah, well, it happened just inside here.
I had a bag full of groceries cat food and stuff like that.
I put the bag down, take out my key, put it in the lock here, open the door, and bam! There I am, kissing the floor! Then the bastard had a gun to the back of my head, told me if I turned around, he'd shoot me.
Now, you told the police that the guy that robbed you was Latino? Yeah, yeah.
He was Spanish.
Can you give us anything else? Uh, height, weight, color, age? Yeah, 40, maybe.
Uh, light-skinned.
I was too scared to look him square in the face, you know? Do you take photographs, Mr.
Wallace? Stargaze, up on the roof.
It was a beauty of a telescope.
Punk went right for it.
Ten or 15 years ago, I would have taken him out, you know? No fun getting old, huh? Beats the alternative.
Of course, when I'm lugging these old bones over to St.
Andrew's, I'm not too sure I'm beating it by much.
- St.
Andrew's? - Yeah.
That's where I get my dialysis.
Same hospital where Leah Glaser had her hip surgery.
Of the 12 names on this list, five were our patients.
And their home addresses are in your records, right? Strictly confidential.
And access to computers and patient records is tightly controlled.
Yeah, but you've got all kinds of folks coming in and out of patients' rooms, right? Nurses, orderlies, visitors.
Somebody takes a look in a purse, peeks into a wallet You're talking about two stroke victims, a kidney patient, a cardiac patient, and a woman who had hip surgery.
That's four separate floors, two different wings.
And only the broken hip spent any real time here.
Well, what about the other ones? Hospital policy: As soon as they're ambulatory, we send them home.
- Man, that's cold.
- "Managed care.
" Emphasis on "managed.
" We have excellent follow-up therapy.
Every patient gets a qualified caregiver and a thorough home therapy regimen.
You got a list of these qualified caregivers? We contract all that to a private agency.
All of our employees are screened and fingerprinted.
Okay, we're gonna need their records and the names of whoever took care of these five patients.
Leah Glaser.
Broken hip.
Sweet old lady.
Pauline Morris.
Pauline's a doll.
Been with us seven years.
Never had any complaints.
Patients love her.
Okay.
How about the other four? Well, that's a coincidence.
Pauline was the caregiver for all five.
Some coincidence.
What's this about? Your work with the elderly.
Yes? You know a Leah Glaser? One of my patients.
You like astronomy, Ms.
Morris? That's my son's.
The mount's still attached.
Where's the tripod? We got it secondhand.
Yeah, I think the term these days is "pre-owned.
" I'm sorry This is a pretty good scam.
You help out the elderly, and then you help yourself to their things.
What? The telescope.
We're betting it belonged to a Stan Wallace.
You think I stole that from him? In the last six months, you've had nine patients.
Five of them have been robbed at gunpoint.
How's it work? You identify the mark and then when you're gone, somebody comes in and terrorizes these old folks? I swear, I don't know what you're talking about.
How did Mr.
Wallace's telescope end up in your apartment? That's not Mr.
Wallace's! It was a gift for my son's graduation from my fiance.
- He bought it at a flea market.
- Oh, yeah? What's your fiance's name? Joe Vasquez.
And he works in the health care business too? He drives for an ambulette service.
Yeah, what, picks them up at home, takes them to the doctor, like that? Yes.
You don't thinkJoe Actually, we do.
Where can we find Joe now? Working.
He told me this was his grandmother's.
Yeah, it was somebody's grandmother's.
You casing new prospects, Joe? Say again? She ain't got no doorman.
Nice old lady needs a hand.
Just like your other jobs.
Don't know what you're talking about.
I have one job.
You're looking at it.
Okay? Well, we'd love to take your word for it, Joe, but one of your references checked out permanently.
What are you doing, man? You an astronomy buff, Joe? What? That telescope you gave your fiancee? We know where you got it, and it wasn't at a flea market.
You've heard of the seven rings of Saturn? These are the two rings of Rikers.
I ain't robbed nobody, okay? We got an eyewitness who picked you out of a six-pack, Joe.
One of your victims.
Eyewitness to what? I ain't done nothing.
We got people searching your place as we speak.
And what do you think they're gonna find, huh? All right, look.
Maybe I buy and sell some stuff sometimes, you know, off the books, okay? Oh, so you're just a fence, right? Not an armed robber who preys on old people.
Look, I take stuff on consignment, you know? I ain't no armed robber.
What are we gonna find in your place, Joe? Something belonging to a dead woman? Dead woman? No way.
Uh-uh.
No way, man.
You fractured an old lady's skull and smothered her during a robbery.
- We call that felony murder.
- I told you.
I don't know nothing about no dead lady! You don't know this woman? Never seen her.
Don't know her.
Uh-uh.
Take another look.
Come on, man.
Don't you think I'd remember? Do you remember where you were Wednesday afternoon? Wednesday? Wednesday Yeah.
Um Yeah, I dropped a guy off at the clinic for an overnight.
On the way back to the garage, I got stuck on the F.
D.
R.
, jammed in traffic for an hour and a half.
No way in, no way out.
And no way for anybody to vouch for you.
Talk to Dougie.
He's my dispatcher, okay? We spent the whole time jawin' on the radio.
I told him the next time the damn president's in town, I'm taking the day off.
You guys want to know about Vasquez, right? He's on 7:00 to 3:00, weekdays.
He said you two were burning up the radio this last Wednesday.
The president came in to talk to the U.
N.
That day.
Major meltdown.
Vasquez was in the middle of it, goin' out of his mind.
That's what he told you, but you don't know that for a fact.
Hey, I believed him, because he kept calling me to bitch about it.
So whatever you think he did, he would have had to do it with one hand on his radio, because he never shut the hell up.
Did Vasquez ever drive an old lady named Leah Glaser? Name rings a bell.
Uh Uh, not Vasquez.
Johnny Kagan.
Monday.
Drove her downtown, Federal Plaza.
Why are you interested in these guys? Vasquez and Kagan What do you know about them? Friends of my cousin.
Uh, came in a couple of years ago looking to turn over a new lease on life.
Came here from where? California.
The two of them just finished a nickel jolt out in Lompoc.
"Nickel jolt.
" You sound like an old yardbird yourself.
Everybody deserves a second chance, Detective.
- What were they in for? - Why don't you pull their sheets? Why don't you tell us before we pull yours? I don't know.
Armed robbery, maybe.
Joe did something he shouldn't have, that's his business.
Yeah, we figure you and Vasquez are in business together, tag-teaming senior citizens.
I'm straight these days, Detective.
Keep my nose to the grindstone.
Your dispatcher said that you picked up a client named Leah Glaser Monday.
If that's what he says.
Yeah, well, she's dead.
Somebody killed her.
Now do we have your attention? Man, I didn't have nothing to do with that.
Where did you take her? Dropped her off downtown at Federal Plaza.
How'd she get home? Said she'd take a cab.
Federal Plaza? You see what building she went in? No.
No idea.
And she didn't tell me where she was going, okay? Can I get back to work now? Yeah, go ahead.
Get lost.
Man, she could have gone anywhere courts, government offices.
You ready to work off that lunch? We didn't have lunch.
Exactly.
I'm gonna call Lieu, tell her we're gonna be a while.
My mother was a survivor.
I don't mean in the casual way people say "I'm a survivor" after they get a divorce.
I mean literally.
She was in a camp? In Poland.
That she should come through all that and then die in some stupid holdup Mrs.
Meisner, have you been able to go through your mother's things? Was there anything missing? A locket.
A silver locket.
It had a picture of her mother and father my grandparents.
She never She never took it off.
It's the only thing she had from her life before the war.
God knows how she managed to hang onto it.
I'm sorry.
She wasn't wearing any other jewelry when she was found.
I wanted to pass that along to my daughter.
Something to remember her nana by.
If we find it Now, your mother had an appointment downtown near the courthouses a couple of days before she died.
Do you know why she might have been down there? Any legal business she might have had? A will, maybe.
I don't know.
Maybe she was getting her passport renewed, planning to visit you in Israel? The last time I spoke to her, she mentioned she was going to Immigration again.
Is that downtown? Immigration You know why? This was about her Shoah testimony, I think.
"Shoah testimony"? The Shoah Project.
It's a videotaped oral history of the Holocaust to record the truth before all the witnesses are dead and the whole world forgets what happened.
Leah Glaser She was here last Monday.
What was she doing here? It doesn't say.
It's gotta be in there somewhere.
I'm looking.
Some D.
O.
J.
Bigwig pulled her file.
Department ofJustice? Someone in Criminal Division.
When they pull a file, it usually has something to do with Homeland Security.
Her name was Leah Glaser.
She was 78 years old.
Does that sound like a security risk to you? Don't ask me.
Ask Criminal.
Sixth floor.
Our records show she met with Dennis Mendenhall.
Okay, we're gonna need to talk to him.
Dennis doesn't work out of this office.
He's with O.
S.
I.
D.
O.
J.
, O.
S.
I Government alphabet soup.
Office of Special Investigations.
Was Leah Glaser being investigated? Sorry.
I'm not authorized to talk about that.
Look, we're not asking because we're nosy.
Ms.
Glaser was murdered.
Oh, my God.
- I wonder - You wonder what? She was a witness in a deportation proceeding.
If it was a deportation proceeding, why wouldn't Immigration handle it? Because O.
S.
I.
Handles all cases relating to war crimes.
- But she wasn't being investigated? - No, she wasn't.
She was testifying against a camp guard, an S.
S.
Officer.
A Nazi.
Stefan Anders, German national, immigrated here in 1948.
And you think he's a Nazi? I've spent the last seven years denaturalizing him, stripping him of his citizenship.
Next step, deportation.
So why are you giving up now? Lt.
Van Buren, have you ever had trouble finding credible eyewitnesses to your cases? Of course we do.
Try finding one to something that happened 60 years ago.
Anders was a guard in a place called Bobrek, a, uh, satellite camp of Auschwitz, which manufactured airplane and submarine parts.
Leah Glaser was a slave laborer there.
Anders was the S.
S.
Officer in charge.
Leah Glaser identified him from this photo his Waffen S.
S.
File.
After the Soviet Union opened their archives in the early '90s, they turned it over to us.
You can hardly see his face.
This was what, 60 years ago? How could she be so sure? One morning he shot six other prisoners right in front of her.
She couldn't forget him.
You looked at her Shoah testimony.
Her description of this one guard, this one particular incident, sounded like Anders, so we contacted her, and she picked him out of a photo array.
And you're convinced that this Anders is the same Anders who's alive and well and living on East 91 st Street? And has been for the last 50 years.
Yeah, we are, and so was Leah Glaser.
But without her testimony? Unless we can find more evidence, he's gonna die on that nice, soft bed on East 91 st Street.
If he killed her to stop her from testifying, that's murder one.
You know, Lieutenant, there's one place we've never been able to search for evidence against him his home.
See, that's where Criminal has it all over Civil.
Man's a murder suspect.
What exactly do you think you're gonna find? Memorabilia from your father's goose-stepping days.
That is so offensive.
He wasn't a Nazi.
Not every German was a Nazi.
Yeah, they were just following orders.
I was a soldier, a veteran, like you.
Not like me, pal.
This is a witch hunt, an O.
S.
I.
Fishing expedition.
Yeah, they're persecuting an innocent old man just for the hell of it.
Search all you want.
I'm not hiding anything.
Dad, I'm calling a lawyer.
He's gonna need one.
Lennie, look what I found.
I don't know anything about this locket.
Yeah, right.
It just magically appeared in your stuff, next to your passport and your social security card.
Someone sent it to me.
See, you do know something about it.
Who sent it? I don't know.
Now, why would somebody send you Leah Glaser's locket? I don't know.
And I don't know this Glaser person.
Leah Glaser.
She was gonna get you deported back to the old country, The fatherland.
You mean the so-called witness? I never met her.
- You took that locket from her neck! - I told you - After you killed her! - And your big mistake was holding onto the locket.
Mrs.
Glaser's daughter's going to identify it as her mother's.
We're gonna find your prints all over it.
I never met her.
And then we're gonna match those prints with your prints from the crime scene.
- It's impossible.
I was never there.
- You're lying.
I'm not.
! Quit browbeating my client.
Stefan, not another word.
This interrogation is over.
Stefan Anders was never a murderer not then, not now.
He never met Mrs.
Glaser.
He was unaware of the locket's provenance.
It was sent to him by an unknown party.
How does he explain this, which the police found in his papers? His 1948 visa application to enter the United States.
- So what? - Compare that visa photo with this.
- What's this? - It's from Mr.
Anders's Waffen S.
S.
File.
The photograph you used to enter this country in 1948 is the same as the one in your S.
S.
Personnel file.
- That can't be.
- The Russians turned it over to O.
S.
I.
A few years ago.
All right.
I was a soldier on the Eastern Front.
Ayoung officer.
After Stalingrad, the S.
S.
Sent me to Bobrek.
The war was lost.
All that was left was the final solution.
You think I had a choice? You think I wanted to be guarding prisoners in some miserable camp? The O.
S.
I.
Says that you were the officer in charge.
Ridiculous.
I escorted the prisoners from the barracks to the factory every day, and then back again in the evening.
That's all.
I never harmed a prisoner.
Not one.
Not ever.
Not according to Leah Glaser.
It wasn't me who killed those prisoners.
She has me confused with another guard.
We weren't worried.
Her word against his.
That was before we found his visa photograph.
Well, yes.
Now, that evidence is enough to get him deported.
He lied about his background to get into this country.
He admits it.
But if you hadn't searched his home and found that photograph, he would have beaten deportation.
- What has happened is a disaster for me.
- What I'm saying is, he had no reason to kill her.
The appeals process on deportation alone would have lasted years.
- You thought you'd outlive her.
- One of us was bound to die before this was settled.
- You made sure it was her.
- All right, look.
Since you insist on going through with this.
He's seeking to bar us from characterizing Mr.
Anders as a Nazi at trial.
Talk about chutzpah.
Your Honor, labeling Stefan Anders as a Nazi will prevent him from ever receiving a fair trial.
The mere mention of the word is enough to condemn him in the eyes of any jury.
He has a point, Mr.
McCoy.
It couldn't be a more loaded word.
Mr.
Anders's motive arises out of his personal history as an S.
S.
Officer and a member of the Nazi party.
His past is part and parcel of the People's case.
Mr.
Jensen? Then you must give my client the opportunity to explain his past in its historical context.
Are you going to offer evidence that he wasn't a Nazi or an S.
S.
Officer? I'm going to offer evidence that the commonly accepted version of the Second World War is wrong.
That there was no Holocaust, there were no death camps, and there certainly was no final solution.
Your Honor, please.
Did hundreds of thousands ofJews die? Yes.
And not onlyJews, but Gypsies, Poles, Russians yes.
But those deaths weren't murders.
They weren't genocide.
They were the inevitable result of disease, of starvation, of war.
Every respectable historian in the world would disagree.
There are distinguished academics who think otherwise.
Holocaust deniers, cranks, anti-Semites disguising their real agenda.
Meretricious nonsense does not become expert testimony just because it comes wrapped in a Ph.
D.
! Why don't we let a jury decide what's fringe nonsense and what's not? Why don't we let a judge decide first? We would happily accept an evidentiary hearing, Your Honor.
Nothing would please us more.
Your Honor can't entertain this disreputable, evil theory.
If someone insists the earth is flat and the sun circles around it, despite all evidence to the contrary, are we supposed to engage the argument on their terms? - This is a conversation with a lunatic! - Hold your horses, Mr.
McCoy.
I agree.
No rational, unbiased person could look at the historical evidence and doubt the fact of the Holocaust.
It cannot be disputed, nor will it be in my court.
The whole question's irrelevant.
Anders is being deported whether the Holocaust happened or not.
It doesn't make any difference.
I mean, he still had motive to murder the old lady.
Arguing about whether the Holocaust actually happened It's not something I'd ever thought I'd have to do in court or out.
Now, Jensen knew it never stood the ghost of a chance.
What are you saying? It was a ploy? Judge Karan kicks out his motion, gives him more grounds for appeal.
It's what it's about with these old guys.
I mean, stall and delay, whatever it takes to run out the clock.
How does a retired mechanic retain a pricey mouthpiece likeJensen? I was wondering the same thing myself.
I don't suppose he was doing it pro bono.
Worth looking at.
The crime lab matched Anders's D.
N.
A.
To a sample taken from Leah Glaser's door.
He left his sweat on the doorknob and peephole.
Now you got him.
What about the fingerprints? A print on the locket matches a print found on the doorjamb, but It isn't Anders's.
It looks like somebody else kicked down that door.
Do you think this exonerates Anders? Not at all.
Leah Glaser's death had to be connected to her testimony against Anders.
We can assume there was an accomplice, and so will a jury.
Well, Anders now admits that he did go see her after the preliminary hearing.
He said that she wouldn't let him in, so he talked to her through the door for a few minutes and then left.
What about the son? Came in voluntarily and gave his fingerprints.
They're not his.
Time to cast a wider net.
We checked Anders's phone and financial records.
You know, there is actually a Web site supporting Anders's deportation fight.
Maybe they're contributing to his defense.
Somebody's got to be paying forJensen.
What about this preliminary hearing? Check the sign-in sheet.
See if anyone else turned up to cheer on their hero.
We found one interesting hit from that sign-in sheet Kyle Mellors.
Who's Kyle Mellors? He's a record producer.
And this is from his company Web site.
Heritage Records? Sounds benign, right? But then you begin clicking around that Web site.
It's hardcore W.
P.
W.
P.
? "White power.
" Check out the links on that site.
Nazi memorabilia.
An "ethnic cleansing" video game.
A picture of Hitler in an Uncle Sam top hat and suit, with his arm out, pointing.
And here's some praise for the 9/11 hijackers.
"Wish we had the guts to do what they did.
" "Holocaust Barbecue Sauce six million served.
" They deny the Holocaust and celebrate it simultaneously.
A neat trick.
Did you listen to the records? I just read the catalogue descriptions.
It's all about "mud people" and white supremacy and killing Jews and blacks.
So Mellors is a neo-Nazi who went to the hearing to support Anders.
There's a link on the Heritage Records Web site which has been raising money to fight Anders's deportation.
"Stefan Anders, innocent man targeted by Zionist opportunists"? You get into Heritage Records' financials, and I'll bet you'll find they've been shoveling money into Anders's defense fund.
I'll get a subpoena.
Have Briscoe and Green drop in on Mellors for a chat.
Briscoe and Green.
That ought to push his buttons.
- We're in the middle of a session.
- Ours is just starting.
Whoa, the fuzz.
"The fuzz.
" I haven't heard that since the '60s.
Everything old is new again.
Kyle Mellors? How can I help you gentlemen? Oh, hey, man, we need to ask you a few questions about Stefan Anders.
Don't know the man.
You raised money for him.
Well, I give money to the ASPCA too, but it doesn't mean I'm on speaking terms with every mutt in the kennel.
- So you don't know this "mutt," Anders? - Nope.
Never met him.
- But you like the things he stands for? - My customers like the things he stands for.
Look, Detectives, I'm a record producer.
You know, controversy sells records.
And Stefan Anders is controversial? You bet.
And now he's been arrested for murder, my Web site hits are through the roof.
You know, we're gonna ride this guy all the way to the end.
Hope he gets the death penalty.
We can retire.
"No Surrender"? That's their debut album.
You produce this garbage? - Well, that one's a little extreme.
- How about this one? That's our biggest seller, "New Glory.
" Will you sign it for us? - Who should I make it out to? - "New York's finest.
" Heritage Records is one of the biggest neo-Nazi record labels.
I read your books.
Kyle Mellors doesn't exactly seem to fit the profile.
You know, I thought neo-Nazis shaved their heads.
Work boots, tattoos.
That's the old profile.
They're learning how to mainstream.
They finally realized the more they blend in, the more effective they'll be.
C.
D.
's, Web sites, video games The movement's discovered a variety of ways to disseminate the message.
This generates millions of dollars in revenue annually.
Where does the money go? To fund various causes and activities.
Their ultimate goal is the creation of a white Christian nation cleansed of minorities.
That's insane.
Yeah, they want to destroy our government, our Constitution, the very system of justice that protects them.
They're terrorists.
Absolutely.
Oklahoma City has been eclipsed by the events of 9/11.
But these American terrorists are still out there, and we can't necessarily tell who they are.
Mellors seems to have had a normal suburban childhood.
His dad's a doctor.
Mom works in an office.
But here's something interesting: He's been to Germany every summer the last four years.
Back to the source.
A right-wing nationalist music festival.
He promotes his bands, smuggles his C.
D.
's into Germany.
He sells them on the black market.
They're illegal there.
Gets to rub elbows with neo-Nazis from all over the world.
That must give him a charge.
He may also feel diminished by the hardcore kids in comparison.
A middle-class boy like Mellors probably has no experience with actual violence.
So up to this point, it's all been vicarious.
So, maybe he wants a taste of the real thing.
Excuse me.
Southerlyn.
Pick him up.
Back again? Yeah.
Remember the C.
D.
You laid on us? Oh, you like it? Oh, we loved it.
Especially the part where your fingerprints match some prints we found at the crime scene.
You're under arrest for the murder of Leah Glaser.
Call Graham Wilson.
You have the right to remain silent, which I highly recommend.
You have the right to an attorney.
You're going down, Mr.
Mellors, and your hero's going with you.
What if it was an accident? If someone went there to talk to her, not to kill her, and events transpired in a certain tragic, unforeseen way, wouldn't that be manslaughter? We know that Leah Glaser didn't die accidentally.
After her killer knocked her down and cracked her skull, he smothered her.
I won't entertain anything less than murder one for Mr.
Anders.
Your client, on the other hand, can still plead to murder two as a hate crime.
As a hate crime? What the hell does that mean? Adds five years to your sentence.
Twenty to life, Mr.
Mellors.
That's as good as it gets.
Tell us what transpired between you and Mr.
Anders, and you may not spend the rest of your life in prison.
I keep telling you Mr.
Anders had nothing to do with this.
How would you know if you weren't there? Just as I thought.
We're trying you both for murder in the first degree.
Together.
Mellors can bob and weave as much as he wants.
I have no doubt of his guilt.
You're still on the fence about Anders? I want to be sure I'm trying Anders for the crimes he committed in this century, not the ones he committed in the past.
Some of the strongest cases we've tried have been based on circumstantial evidence.
Despite his protestations to the contrary, Anders stood to substantially gain from her death.
His D.
N.
A.
Was at the crime scene, and he had the locket that she wore around her neck every day of her life in his possession.
I mean, except for a videotape of the crime, I can't think of what more you could want.
Mellors keeps claiming that Anders wasn't involved.
Well, let him take the stand and tell that to the jury.
I don't think he'll be taking the stand.
We'd bury him with all this neo-Nazi stuff.
No, I don't suppose he would.
Which means that Anders just about has to.
We analyzed a set ofbilateral thumbprints and two full sets of fingerprints found on the frame surrounding Mrs.
Glaser's door.
- Did you identify these fingerprints? - Yes.
They belong to the defendant, Kyle Mellors.
Did you find any other fingerprints belonging to Mr.
Mellors? Yes.
On Mrs.
Glaser's locket, we found a thumb and forefinger.
What about the codefendant, Stefan Anders? His prints were also found on Mrs.
Glaser's locket.
What about at the crime scene? No prints.
However, the Latent unit did find two sweat smudges one on the doorknob and one on the door about five feet, eight inches from the floor.
- Were you able to make a positive I.
D.
? - They belong to the defendant, Stefan Anders.
And your conclusion about how these smudges came to be on Mrs.
Glaser's door? The height of the defendant indicates he gripped the doorknob and leaned his forehead against the door.
No questions of this witness, Your Honor.
Did you find traces of my client anywhere inside Mrs.
Glaser's apartment? None.
So, your analysis puts my client at her door, but not inside her apartment? Yes.
Now, scientifically, you can't determine whether the D.
N.
A.
Sample and the various prints were left at the same time, can you? No.
So, for all you know, my client, Stefan Anders, was there one day outside the apartment door and Mr.
Mellors on another day entirely outside and inside the apartment? That's certainly possible, yes.
No further questions.
As the co-owner of Heritage Records with Mr.
Mellors, what is your mission statement? To make money.
No ideology? Capitalism.
Capitalism is our ideology.
Are you a Nazi, neo-Nazi, fascist? I've been called all those things, but what I am is an independent entrepreneur.
Is Mr.
Mellors a neo-Nazi? Objection! If Mr.
Mellors wants to speak to his political beliefs, let him take the stand.
- Sustained.
- Some of your bands espouse rather radical views.
That's their right under the First Amendment.
Do you share their views? I believe in what sells.
Look, it's just music.
It's loud, it's extreme, it's rebellious, it's in-your-face, and it drives their parents crazy.
That's why the kids like it.
That's what it's all about.
It's just music? "Kill all the niggers, "kill all theJews, fire up the ovens, there's no time to lose.
" - Do you recognize these lyrics? - I can't say that I do.
They're from an album you produced with Kyle Mellors.
The group is called American Reichstag.
Do you think every black record exec who produces a gangster rap track thinks we should kill cops or, uh, beat those ho's and bitches? - It's about selling records.
- Critics call it "hate rock.
" Your own Web site calls it "hate core.
" People who buy it also call it "heritage music.
" It's music.
Don't we still have freedom of speech in this country? The First Amendment isn't absolute.
If your speech incites and results in violence, it's not protected.
Isn't that what you're doing? Inciting people to kill? No.
We're inciting people to buy records.
"Kill all the blacks.
Kill all theJews.
" If one of your songs results in someone's death, aren't you culpable? I don't see it that way.
Right.
You're just putting money in the pockets of people who advocate the extermination of other human beings.
I went to her apartment.
Not the day of the murder another day.
I thought if she looked in my eyes, she would see I am not the man she thought I was.
Did you see her? She wouldn't open the door, so I spoke to her for a few minutes from the hall, and she asked me to leave and I left.
And Leah Glaser was still alive.
Of course.
You were a guard at Bobrek.
I was a soldier.
I went where I was ordered to go.
Did you ever kill anyone? In combat? Probably.
But at the camp? No.
Definitely no.
Did you know the deceased, Leah Glaser? No.
Did you remember her at all from the camp? It was 60 years ago.
There were hundreds of prisoners.
I don't remember them.
She remembered you.
She saw me every day every morning, every evening.
She saw my photograph; she recognized me.
She remembered me from the camp, okay, but she was confused.
She has me confused with someone else, another guard.
I didn't kill anyone in the camp, and I didn't kill her.
I had no reason to.
Her death is the worst thing that could have happened to me.
Whatever happens here, now I will be deported.
Because someone killed her.
Someone.
Not me.
Your witness.
You weren't the guard Leah Glaser remembered from the camp? - The one she saw kill six prisoners? - No.
I have no further questions for this witness at this time, Your Honor.
I reserve the right to continue my cross-examination.
- Mr.
Jensen? - In that case, Your Honor, the defendant, Anders, rests.
Mr.
Wilson? Yes, Your Honor.
The defendant, Mellors, rests.
The witness may step down.
Your Honor, I would like to call a rebuttal witness.
Leah Glaser.
Your Honor, I would like to renew my application to exclude this videotaped testimony as highly prejudicial.
Her Shoah testimony directly refutes what Mr.
Anders just testified to under oath.
Your Honor, it's hearsay, it's prejudicial.
There's obviously no opportunity to cross-examine.
Mr.
Jensen had ample opportunity to cross-examine Leah Glaser when he deposed her on this very subject.
Counsel can read the relevant portions of that proceeding into the record.
Your Honor, this is not fair! The emotional impact of seeing the deceased's videotaped testimony will far outweigh a dry reading of a deposition.
I'll review your memos once more.
Court will stand at recess until 2:00.
The guards would walk us to and from the factory each day.
Some of them, if we did not walk quickly, they would beat us.
The one in charge, he was different.
"Bitte, bitte," he would always say.
"Please.
" He was polite.
Always polite.
Beautiful manners, elegant, but cold cold as ice.
Not human.
His name was Anders, I think.
One day, one of the prisoners fell and couldn't get up.
He came over.
"Bitte, bitte," I heard him say.
"Get up, please.
" She couldn't get up, so he shot her in the face.
And then he shot five other women, the ones who cried.
One, two, three, four, five.
Like it was nothing.
And then he looked at the rest of us and said, "Bitte, bitte," and we went to work like nothing happened.
The fifth one he shot, number five, was my sister Rebekkah, my little sister.
Why? Have you reached a verdict? We have.
As to the defendant Kyle Mellors, on the first count of the indictment, murder in the first degree, how do you find? We find the defendant, Kyle Mellors, guilty.
As to the defendant Stefan Anders, on the first count of the indictment, murder in the first degree, how do you find? We find the defendant, Stefan Anders, guilty.
Think Anders is telling the truth, that he didn't have anything to do with Leah Glaser's murder? They knew a guilty man when they saw one.