The Ex(35)

Today’s hearing wasn’t just about a bail determination. This was a high-profile case. Even worse, it fell into a pre-scripted narrative—from VICTIM TO VIGILANTE, as the Post proclaimed. The odds of getting Jack released were close to zero, but the bail hearing might be our only shot to reframe the conversation before the entire jury pool made up its mind.

“Don’t suppose you came up with one clear theory that explains away all their evidence.”

“I’m good but I can’t make GSR disappear,” Don said.

Our best hope in the long run would be to argue that Jack had not gone to the precinct with Detective Boyle consensually. If the police arrested him without probable cause, we could suppress any evidence gathered at the station, including the GSR testing. But that motion wouldn’t be made for weeks, maybe months. More important, what we needed to do today was to raise real questions about whether the police had arrested an innocent man, not whether they had used the right procedures to catch a guilty one.

“It’s not a total lost cause,” Don said, setting down his sandwich. “We’ve got enough to make some waves.”


DON FED ME TALKING POINTS like a ringside trainer calling jabs and hooks. “Stay on the theme of tunnel vision. The police admit they homed in on Jack the second they saw him on the video; they had him at the precinct within the hour. Hammer away at that. What have they been doing since? Did they even bother looking at other possible suspects? No. They haven’t had time. And then we start lining up all the other possible candidates.”

“The fifty-nine other named Penn Station plaintiffs,” I said, tick ing off this first point on my thumb. I had to be careful about how I handled this point. I wanted the other families to support Jack publicly.

Don pushed one of several piles of paper toward me across the conference table. “And it turns out that the Penn Station lawsuit was only one of many disputes against Neeley, or at least against the Sentry Group. Eight SEC complaints against his hedge fund, some settled confidentially, a couple still pending. And here’s a real gift: a lawsuit filed by Red Pin Capital, demanding the return of its $72-million stake in the Sentry Group.”

“Sounds like something for the financial pages.” As a motive for murder, a corporate fight about money wouldn’t resonate in the same visceral way as revenge for a wife’s death. “Rich people sue, they don’t shoot.”

“Ah, but you’re missing the best part. The creator of Red Pin Capital is another little Wall Street * named Frederick Gruber. In addition to his Harvard MBA and an oceanfront estate in East Hampton, Mr. Gruber also has a wife, Marnie Gruber. Guess who Malcolm Neeley was sleeping with?”

“How’d you get this so fast?”

“It’s all there in black and white,” he said, tapping the table excitedly. “Look at the complaint. The basis for the lawsuit is that Gruber invested in Sentry by relying on his wife, an experienced and respected financier in her own right. Gruber claims Neeley and his wife hoodwinked him by concealing their affair and overstating Sentry’s performance when the fund was overextended and needed a fast cash influx.”

“This is amazing, Don. There’s no way the prosecution will know about this, not yet.” This man’s involvement in Neeley’s murder was a theory that might easily be debunked once investigated. Marnie could have reconciled with her husband by now. Gruber could have an alibi. Seventy-two million dollars might be chump change in that kind of world. But for today’s purposes, this was exactly the kind of evidence we needed. We’d catch the prosecution by surprise and show both the judge and the media how much the police still didn’t know.

“You’re welcome,” Don said, snagging another bite of his lunch. “You should remember to point out that there are also two other victims, and that the prosecution is simply assuming that Neeley was the target.”

“What do we know about them?” The Jack versus Neeley angle had been so prominent in the press coverage that the other two victims were purely an afterthought. Clifton Hunter was described as an unemployed janitor, and Tracy Frankel as a part-time college student.

“Hunter’s forty-one but looked sixty. Multiple arrests and a few convictions, all for low-level stuff: public intoxication, shoplifting, a lot of criminal trespasses. Last known address was three years ago in Hoboken.”

“So he was homeless.” A homeless man wasn’t a likely target for murder, but the only point I needed to make was that the police probably hadn’t even bothered to check whether he was involved in something rough on the streets.

“That leaves Tracy Frankel,” Don said, “and she’s looking pretty interesting. Her only college experience was one class last semester at CUNY. Looks to me like it may have been for show. A few months before that, she got picked up trying to buy heroin from an undercover officer in Washington Square Park. She got diversion treatment for a first-time offense, and my guess is that enrolling in a college class helped. She dropped out once her case was dismissed.”

“Now how in the world did you find that out?” Education records were notoriously hard to access.

“I have a very grateful former client who works at the college.”

If this were a trial, I’d need admissible evidence. But at a bail hearing, I could argue anything as long as I had a good-faith basis for asserting it. This was good. Either Tracy or Clifton was just as likely to have been targeted as Malcolm Neeley.