With Mike Chapman’s latest episode of lying to me, I was beginning to think that there was some truth to my inability to understand men.
“When one of his coconspirators was arrested last evening, at his security job at a shopping mall in White Plains, the man assumed he was meeting with a Dominguez victim-in-waiting, rather than the female undercover agent who showed up,” I said. “That defendant brought to the engagement a Taser gun, rope, a meat hammer, duct tape, and cleaning supplies in his backpack. That’s taking fantasy to a new level, Judge.”
“These are death fetishists, Your Honor,” Drusin said. Apparently, he thought his argument would help his client’s case. “It’s just fantasy role play, and the tools-none of which are illegal to possess, I might add-just bring a little spice to the stories they tell each other.”
“Alba Dominguez thought her husband was serious enough about his plans to kill her, and to make good on his threats to boil her body in a pot of oil after dismembering her, that she took their baby and fled to relatives who live on the West Coast before reporting this to our office. She had the additional fear of not being able to call the local precinct because her husband is a police officer. She came directly to us instead.”
“Your Honor, my client’s record with the NYPD is unblemished. He’s had commendations for bravery, he’s taken the test for promotion, and at the base of all this is the fact that he just wants to clear his name and get his job back. He wants to be a cop.”
“He was a cop, Mr. Drusin. What he wants is to be a cannibal. Maybe a cannibal cop.”
“You’re way out of line, Alex Cooper,” Drusin said, turning to see if any reporters had entered the courtroom. “I mean, that comment is just screaming to make you the poster girl for tonight’s headlines. Is that what you want? Dragging my client into the gutter with you?”
“Tonight’s headlines are taken, David. Some girl who wasn’t quite as fortunate as Mrs. Dominguez didn’t get away from the guy who was fantasizing about doing her harm. Your client won’t even be a footnote in a crime story.”
“Hold off, you two,” Judge Aikens said, banging his gavel repeatedly. “You just asked me to set one hundred thousand dollars bail, Ms. Cooper, am I right?”
“Yes, sir.”
The defendant’s mother’s sobs rose up again over the sound of my voice.
“I think that’s inadequate, actually, for the facts that you’ve laid out and the idea that coconspirators have been identified and arrested. I’m going to set bail in the amount of two hundred fifty thousand, and of course there’ll be an order of protection for the wife and child, in the event he posts that bail. How much time do you want for motions?”
“You can’t prosecute people for their thoughts, Alvin. I mean, Judge Aikens. Have you lost it, too? That’s what she’s trying to do here. Next time some poor slob thinks about getting an erection, Alex’ll probably slap cuffs on him. That’s what we’re coming to?”
“It sounds like Ms. Cooper thinks she can prove that your client took the overt steps necessary to go from thinking about criminal activity to committing a crime.”
“Man, Alvin, it didn’t take you long to go over to the dark side. Six months ago you would have been standing right where I am, making these arguments even more ferociously than I am.”
“Don’t make this personal, Mr. Drusin. Not toward your adversary nor to me. May I have dates for a motion schedule, please?”
“Set whatever dates you want. I’ll have a motion before you by Friday asking you to dismiss the indictment. You remember the First Amendment, Judge, or did you leave your copy of the Constitution in your desk back at Legal Aid? You might want to get ready to give some thought to that one. And don’t think out loud because Alex will try to control your decision.”
“Did you hear me say I don’t want this to get personal, Mr. Drusin?” the judge asked.
“Tell that to Alex. To Ms. Cooper. It’s all personal to her.”
I shook my head. David Drusin didn’t like to lose.
“Some guy threatens her life-or at least she fantasizes about that, if I’m not mistaken-and because my client made one mistake in his distinguished career, Ms. Cooper gets this professional hard-on-”
“Watch yourself, Mr. Drusin,” the judge said, pointing a finger at his friend.
“She takes this professional hard line, Your Honor. That’s all that I was going to say. She goes after my guy for some imagined mind game just to punish him, making it look like legal eagling, because it personally affected her. My next motion is going to be to have you recuse her from the case, if she lacks the good sense to do that herself.”
“I have no idea what he’s talking about, Judge.” I was getting short with David Drusin. He had no business making up nonsense to spin the court.
“No idea, Alex?” Drusin said, stepping toward my table, wagging a finger in my face. “Raymond Tanner. That name doesn’t ring a bell?”
That name was capable of stopping me cold, and Judge Aikens saw the freeze.
“Who’s Tanner?”
“A rapist, Your Honor,” I said. “A man I prosecuted several years ago, who-”
“Who was found not guilty. Cooper’s been wrong on more than one occasion.”
“Not guilty because he’s insane, Your Honor. He’s not only extremely dangerous, but he’s crazy, too. He escaped from a locked psych facility on a work release.”
“And threatened your life, Ms. Cooper?”
I had no idea what Drusin knew about Raymond Tanner or why his name had come into this. I glanced over at Dominguez and saw that he was sneering at me. In June, when Tanner attacked a woman in Central Park, he was sporting a bold tattoo on the back of his hand, inked for him in the psych ward, that read KILL COOP.
“That’s the least of it. He’s on the loose and responsible for at least two rapes-maybe three-since June. This has nothing to do with the case before you, so I’d ask you to disregard Mr. Drusin, who-for the record-seems to be foaming at the mouth… and-”
“You know damn well, Ms. Cooper, that Officer Dominguez did a stop-and-frisk in late July. That he did his job well, that he resisted racial profiling, and that he happened to let Raymond Tanner slip through his fingers. My client did the right thing, and because of that you and the department have been out to get him.”
“I have no idea what David is talking about, Judge.” I was stunned and started to move to the bench to get the Tanner information off the record.
“You wanted this all preserved for the commissioner, Alex,” Drusin said. “You stay right where you are. No going sidebar on my client now. I’ll give you some words to think about.”
I had subpoenaed Gerardo Dominguez’s personnel files from NYPD Legal. There was no mention of this stop in any of the papers.
“There’s simply no truth to the connection that Mr. Drusin is trying to make.”
“Calm down, Ms. Cooper,” Alvin Aikens said.
“I’m perfectly calm,” I said, resting my left hand on the table to stop it from shaking. “Mr. Tanner has been the subject of an intensive manhunt by the NYPD. Someone at headquarters would have brought this to my attention immediately had there been a sighting of Tanner and a mistake by Officer Dominguez. And most especially if there was anything more sinister in this coincidental connection between the two of them.”
“There she goes again, Judge. Another of her wild imaginings. The queen of would-be mind control,” Drusin said, fishing in his briefcase for a slip of paper. He found it and passed it to the court officer to hand to Aikens.