Chapter 10: The Judge and the Prosecutor
The meeting with the judge took place two days later, in a private room at a club in the Gold Coast that Roman had been a member of for twelve years and had used for exactly this kind of conversation twice before.
The Honorable Warren Cahill was sixty-one, broad-shouldered, with the deliberate manner of a man who had spent three decades making decisions that other people had to live with.
He had been on the federal bench for nine years.
He was not a man who frightened easily.
He was also not a man who appreciated being summoned.
"I want to be clear," Cahill said, before Roman had finished sitting down, "that I agreed to this meeting as a courtesy, and that nothing discussed here will influence any proceeding in my courtroom."
"I understand that," Roman said.
"I'm not here about your courtroom."
Cahill looked at him.
"I'm here about a federal prosecutor in your district who has a concealed financial interest in the outcome of a ruling you're scheduled to make in fifty-one days," Roman said.
"And who has been constructing a case against me using stolen documents as a mechanism to force your recusal."
He placed the manila envelope on the table.
Cahill did not reach for it immediately.
"That's a significant allegation," he said.
"Yes.
The documentation inside supports it.
The chain of transfer is clear.
The financial connection between the prosecutor and the investment interest is documented through two holding companies that took me approximately six hours to trace." Roman paused.
"I imagine someone with subpoena power could do it considerably faster."
Cahill looked at the envelope.
"Why are you bringing this to me?"
"Because the alternative is watching a twenty-nine-year-old prosecutor manufacture a federal case against me while protecting a private financial interest, and I find that outcome less acceptable than this conversation."
"You understand that if I act on this information, it will trigger an investigation of your own conduct."
"I understand that."
"You're handing me a reason to look at you more closely."
"I'm handing you the truth," Roman said.
"What you do with it is your decision.
But you should make that decision with complete information."
Cahill was quiet for a long moment.
He picked up the envelope.
He did not open it at the table.
He set it beside his coffee cup and looked at Roman with the expression of a man recalibrating something.
"I'll need to verify this independently," he said.
"Of course."
"If it holds—"
"It will hold."
"Then the prosecutor's office will be referred to the Office of Professional Responsibility.
His cases will be reviewed.
The investigation into your affairs that he initiated will be examined for improper origin." Cahill paused.
"That process will take time.
It will not be quiet."
"I know."
"And your own exposure—"
"Is my problem," Roman said.
"Not yours."
Cahill looked at him for a moment longer than was comfortable.
"Mr.
Vascari," he said.
"In my experience, men in your position don't walk into rooms like this one and hand judges ammunition unless they have a reason."
"I have a daughter," Roman said.
"She's two days old.
Her name is Elena." He picked up his coffee.
"That's my reason."
Cahill said nothing.
Roman stood.
"Thank you for your time," he said, and left.
Three weeks later, Daniel Greer was placed on administrative leave pending an ethics investigation.
The referral had come from inside the district, from a source that was never publicly named.
Paul Strick had returned the three ledgers to Marco within eighteen hours of his lunch with Roman, without further communication.
The digital copies Greer had made were flagged in the investigation as improperly obtained.
The class action ruling came down on schedule, forty-nine days after Roman's meeting with Cahill.
The damages awarded were three hundred and eighty million dollars.
The pharmaceutical company's primary investor lost a significant portion of its position in the following week.
Roman read about it in a brief news item on a Thursday morning and set his phone face-down on the desk.
May you like
He did not read the rest.
He didn't need to.
