Kott Trial Day 3 - PM - FBI Investigation Team Reunion

The afternoon consisted of calling up different FBI agents from all around the country, swearing them in, then asking them the identical questions about whether they had verified that the material on this particular CD - Prosecution exhibits 1- 10 were in the morning, the 11-26 in the afternoon - was the same as the original recording. Then they had to verify the transcripts. (I'm not certain about #14. I had #13 down and the next one was #15. The judge asked about #14 too and the prosecution said, no, the next one was #15. So either they missed one, the judge and I missed one, or they are saving it to introduce at another time. But then they have to bring in the FBI agent again, so I probably just missed it.)

So you can look at this list: (The bulleted ones are from out of town)
Witnesses

Morning
Kelley Woodward, FBI, intelligence analyst, in Anchorage
Jessica Debra Ann Newton, FBI Intelligence analyst, Anchorage Division (twice)

• Joel Stephen, Texas Spec Agent FBI,
• William Bondurat California FBI, special agent, LA division, three years
• Tom Szot, FBI, special agent, 8 years, Chicago
• Frank DePodesta, FBI special agent, Chicago (twice)
• Joseph Thelen, retired FBI, 24 years, organized crime, NYC

Afternoon
DePodesta again

• Agent Dunphy (from yesterday)Cincinnati, 23 years FBI special agent

DePodesta again
DePodesta again
Kevin Loader, Anchorage, FBI, 2 years, special agent
DePodesta again
Joe Thelen again

• Sean McDermott, FBI special agent, 4 years Miami

Break
Chad Kadera Anchorage, FBI special agent
DePodesta again

• Roslyn B. Harris, Atlanta, FBI, 20 years, Special Agent

Jessica Newton again
Patricia A. Mumz FBI, 20 years, special agent, Anchorage

• Ingrid Schmidt, Columbus, Ohio, FBI, 5 years, special agent (Cincinnati Division)

(6 out of 14 were women -42%. Not my stereotype of FBI agents.)

As I said in the previous post, the out of town agents are here because defense attorney John Henry Browne insisted that the individual agent who was monitoring the recording had to be here to verify the recording. In the previous two trials, the defense attorneys allowed the prosecution to have one attorney verify all the tapes.

So we have nine FBI agents from out of town (the bulleted names) and five from Anchorage all gathered in the US Federal Courtroom anteroom. An FBI Investigation team reunion. In the overall scheme of what this investigation and trials cost, nine more airfares and several nights of hotel rooms is a minor costs. But there is also the loss of the work the agents could be doing in on other cases. (Some people may see it as a benefit that they aren't doing other work and I must admit that the work they've done in Alaska has reminded me that the FBI can do important work in the public interest.)

So why is Browne insisting on this? Well, for one, the FBI isn't infallible and there could be mistakes. But I suspect that the more work the prosecution has to do on this stuff, it's a little attention taken away from other stuff. And with two lead attorneys and FBI agent Kepner sitting up front, and two other attorneys sitting behind them (well, Goeke is still around, but Marsh said he was headed back to DC this week and I didn't seem him in court today), they do have things stacked in their favor. And this doesn't even mention the home field advantage: they can push their cart full of documents and equipment down the hallway and into their offices without even going downstairs and outside; they can bring in whatever staff from the building to help them in or out of the courtroom to mention just a few benefits.

By calling in all these agents, Browne is probably hoping one or two won't make it and so a tape might not be put in as evidence. We don't know if that is the case or not. He's emphasizing to the jury how many agents have been spending time on this and how much money the government is spending to bring them up here. (I don't believe the jury knows that Browne is the one who insisted on this, and I guess the prosecution can't tell them that.) Whatever extra steps the prosecution has to take, offers new opportunities for them to mess up somewhere along the line, and some bit of evidence may be lost, or some doubt could be raised among the jurors. What happened to Ex. 14 for example? Was I just not paying attention or did they actually skip it?

Browne did ask several of the witnesses where their names were on the documents. A: Not there. Well, how do you know that you were the person monitoring this? A: Well, it's somewhere. It never was clear how they knew. So there was a seed of doubt.

While the defense attorney should be doing everything he can to get his client off, if all he has are technical maneuvers that wouldn't bode well for Kohring.

OK, there was also the substantive material that was on the tapes we heard today. As I understand the process, the prosecution has to play all the tapes when they introduce them. There was really no discussion of them, other than what Bottini said in the opening arguments. And that did alert the jury to what was going to be shown on the tapes. If the previous trials are predictors, as the witnesses come in - and Bill Allen and Rick Smith (key characters on the tapes) have been mentioned - the prosecution will play the tapes again and ask the witnesses to explain what is going on.

But I'll finish this post and try to put together my thoughts about what the tapes were about today.

Jury Notes:
I saw that at some point today, every juror had a pen in his or her hand and wrote something in the court provided notebooks. Many were taking notes most of the time. This is very different from the previous two juries when I rarely saw a juror taking notes.

Eddie Haskell observation:

At the afternoon break, the defense attorney noted that he has copies of Bill Allen and Rick Smith's testimony from the Kott trial. "Would the judge like a courtesy copy?" He didn't do this in front of the jury at least.