Latest / Revisionist History / The Tipping Point Revisited: Georgetown Massacre Part 2

Transcript

The Tipping Point Revisited: Georgetown Massacre Part 2 · Revisionist History

• 0:15
  Speaker 1: Pushkin.
• 0:20
  Speaker 2: On the fifth day in the trial of US v. Kory,
• 0:23
  Speaker 2: right after the defense left the fundraiser for the Georgetown
• 0:26
  Speaker 2: University Athletic Department in small pieces on the floor of
• 0:30
  Speaker 2: the courtroom, the attorneys for Amon Kurry asked the judge
• 0:34
  Speaker 2: for a sidebar. They wanted to call a witness, a
• 0:37
  Speaker 2: surprise witness who the defense team had somehow persuaded to
• 0:42
  Speaker 2: make an appearance. She's in the bathroom, Howard Trebnick told
• 0:47
  Speaker 2: the judge. I just wanted to let you know. They
• 0:49
  Speaker 2: just whispered to me that she's coming. I didn't want
• 0:52
  Speaker 2: you too, his voice trailed off. The prosecutors in the
• 0:57
  Speaker 2: case from the US Attorney's office were there in the
• 1:00
  Speaker 2: sidebar too, standing right beside Shrebnick. And it is safe
• 1:04
  Speaker 2: to say this sudden revelation came as a shock to them.
• 1:09
  Speaker 2: They weren't expecting this particular witness to show up. They
• 1:12
  Speaker 2: were counting on her not showing up, and now she
• 1:16
  Speaker 2: was here in the bathroom. Fuck then, Howard says, and
• 1:23
  Speaker 2: we're going to propose to introduce text messages that she
• 1:27
  Speaker 2: wrote back in May of twenty fifteen, text messages. Fuck
• 1:43
  Speaker 2: my name is Malcolm gladwell you're listening to Revisionist History,
• 1:46
  Speaker 2: my podcast about things overlooked and misunderstood. This is part
• 1:50
  Speaker 2: two of the story of my favorite court case of
• 1:53
  Speaker 2: all time, usv.
• 1:55
  Speaker 3: Coory.
• 1:56
  Speaker 2: In part one, which you should listen to first if
• 1:58
  Speaker 2: you have not already, we talked about how Roy Black
• 2:01
  Speaker 2: and Howard Strebnick were presented with an impossible case, a
• 2:06
  Speaker 2: client who openly admitted to giving one hundred and eighty
• 2:09
  Speaker 2: thousand dollars in cash in a brown paper bag to
• 2:12
  Speaker 2: the Georgetown University tennis coach in order to get his
• 2:16
  Speaker 2: daughter admitted to the school. Days one, two, three, and four,
• 2:22
  Speaker 2: the trial had been a disaster for the defense. Am
• 2:26
  Speaker 2: and Curry seemed destined for prison, but by the end
• 2:29
  Speaker 2: of the Georgetown massacre on day five, Howard and Roy
• 2:33
  Speaker 2: had managed to introduce an element of doubt into the
• 2:35
  Speaker 2: minds of the jury. What exactly is or isn't a bribe?
• 2:40
  Speaker 2: And are the dubious actions of a wealthy man worse
• 2:44
  Speaker 2: than the dubious actions of a wealthy university. This episode
• 2:49
  Speaker 2: is about what happened in the afternoon on day five,
• 2:53
  Speaker 2: the aftermath of the Georgetown massacre. The mystery witness entered
• 2:58
  Speaker 2: text messages. What were the talk about the during the trial?
• 3:04
  Speaker 2: What you feel were the most significant turning points.
• 3:10
  Speaker 4: Most trials don't have one thing like that, but things
• 3:13
  Speaker 4: just developed. You know. The more you worked on it,
• 3:18
  Speaker 4: the more we got into the case, the more facts
• 3:20
  Speaker 4: we learned, the more details, the better it looked.
• 3:24
  Speaker 2: I talked with Roy Black when we met at his
• 3:26
  Speaker 2: offices in downtown Miami. Roy is a trial lawyer. He
• 3:30
  Speaker 2: and his partner Howard are maybe the greatest defense team
• 3:33
  Speaker 2: of their generation. They construct elaborate narratives out of mountains
• 3:37
  Speaker 2: of complicated facts. They are not mystery novelists who tell
• 3:41
  Speaker 2: stories with a clever twist on the last page. Things
• 3:45
  Speaker 2: just develop. But then Roy Black thought about it a
• 3:50
  Speaker 2: little bit and he said, well, actually, I take it back.
• 3:55
  Speaker 2: There was a knockout bunch. It was the mystery witness.
• 4:00
  Speaker 4: I mean to me, that was like an extraordinary event
• 4:04
  Speaker 4: at the.
• 4:04
  Speaker 2: Trial from the very beginning. And Howard had a problem.
• 4:11
  Speaker 2: They could show that Georgetown was a corrupt institution where
• 4:15
  Speaker 2: the lines between admissions and fundraising had been all but obliterated.
• 4:19
  Speaker 2: That was the point of the Georgetown massacre. But that
• 4:22
  Speaker 2: didn't resolve that problem.
• 4:25
  Speaker 4: If we say, Okay, the whole system's corrupt, and our
• 4:28
  Speaker 4: client took advantage of the corrupt system by paying money.
• 4:32
  Speaker 4: What are we doing. We're admitting that our own clients corrupt.
• 4:36
  Speaker 2: The Georgetown massacre, in other words, didn't win them the case.
• 4:40
  Speaker 2: It simply leveled the playing field. They needed something more,
• 4:44
  Speaker 2: another layer to their argument, proof that Georgetown was worse
• 4:48
  Speaker 2: than Amon Curry. And in the first few difficult days
• 4:52
  Speaker 2: of the trial, when the government was running roughshod over
• 4:55
  Speaker 2: at Amon Curry, Howard and Roy began to drop little
• 4:58
  Speaker 2: bread crumbs. They were cryptic. Chances are the jury missed them.
• 5:03
  Speaker 2: But if you read through the trial transcripts, all twelve
• 5:06
  Speaker 2: hundred pages of them, and you pay attention, it's obvious
• 5:10
  Speaker 2: something is afoot. The first inkling came during an offhand
• 5:15
  Speaker 2: moment in Roy's cross examination of a Georgetown admissions officer
• 5:20
  Speaker 2: named Meg Lycey. Once again, we have our wonderful voice
• 5:24
  Speaker 2: actors Dak Sheppard and britt Marling.
• 5:28
  Speaker 1: Listen, isn't it a fact that at Georgetown you have
• 5:31
  Speaker 1: a software called Salesforce? Don't you.
• 5:36
  Speaker 5: Not that? I remember?
• 5:39
  Speaker 1: Isn't it a fact that you have an investigation into
• 5:42
  Speaker 1: the net worth of the parents of potential students.
• 5:46
  Speaker 2: The prosecution jumps up immediately objection, which in retrospect was weird.
• 5:51
  Speaker 2: What was it about the mention of that word sales
• 5:54
  Speaker 2: force that led the government to stand up abruptly and
• 5:57
  Speaker 2: say stop no. But the judge won't have it overruled.
• 6:03
  Speaker 5: I don't know about that.
• 6:06
  Speaker 2: Lyce denies any knowledge. Roy moves on. Then, at the
• 6:10
  Speaker 2: end of the Georgetown massacre with Brenda Smith, he tries again.
• 6:15
  Speaker 2: He leads Brenda through a long series of questions about fundraising.
• 6:20
  Speaker 2: She's evasive in her answers. Then Roy asks, out of
• 6:23
  Speaker 2: the blue.
• 6:24
  Speaker 1: Does Georgetown use a program sales force?
• 6:29
  Speaker 5: It is my understanding that they do.
• 6:33
  Speaker 1: And what is salesforce?
• 6:36
  Speaker 5: It's a customer relations management tool.
• 6:41
  Speaker 2: Roy follows with a few more questions than he says, all.
• 6:45
  Speaker 1: Right, well, let me then show you a document marked
• 6:48
  Speaker 1: in you.
• 6:49
  Speaker 2: Roy is just about to put a document on the screen,
• 6:52
  Speaker 2: a document that he is desperate to show the jury.
• 6:55
  Speaker 2: His finger is literally on the clicker, but just as
• 6:58
  Speaker 2: he does, the prosecutor jumps up again objection. The judge
• 7:03
  Speaker 2: agrees sustained under the rules of a trial, if you
• 7:08
  Speaker 2: have evidence you want to show to the jury. You
• 7:11
  Speaker 2: have to find a witness to authenticate it, someone who
• 7:14
  Speaker 2: will say it's real. That's what Roy is trying to
• 7:17
  Speaker 2: do with Brenda Smith, get her to say, yes, I
• 7:21
  Speaker 2: know all about that, but he's shut down. Your honor
• 7:24
  Speaker 2: objection sustained. You have what you think is a knockout punch,
• 7:31
  Speaker 2: and you can't show it to the jury. Plan A foiled.
• 7:35
  Speaker 1: So what do you do?
• 7:37
  Speaker 2: You go to Plan B. The mystery witness and the
• 7:41
  Speaker 2: text messages a little bombshell dropped in the middle of
• 7:46
  Speaker 2: the sidebar.
• 7:49
  Speaker 1: Your honor, we call Katherine Coury.
• 7:56
  Speaker 2: There had never been any indication during the first few
• 8:00
  Speaker 2: days of usv. Coory that the person at the heart
• 8:03
  Speaker 2: of the case, the person on whose behalf Amon Curry
• 8:07
  Speaker 2: had paid one hundred and eighty thousand dollars in cash
• 8:10
  Speaker 2: to the coach of the Georgetown tennis team, would show up.
• 8:16
  Speaker 2: The government's lead prosecutor made this clear in his opening statement.
• 8:20
  Speaker 2: He told the jury, we're not here because of the
• 8:23
  Speaker 2: defendant's daughter. You're going to hear about her grades and
• 8:27
  Speaker 2: her test scores, the fact that she wasn't very good
• 8:29
  Speaker 2: at tennis. But to be clear, we're not here because
• 8:32
  Speaker 2: of Katherine. We are here talking about Catherine because of
• 8:36
  Speaker 2: the crimes the defendant committed outside of her formal application process.
• 8:42
  Speaker 2: So during the trial, we're going to ask you to
• 8:44
  Speaker 2: focus on the defendant's actions and his words and those
• 8:48
  Speaker 2: of his co conspirators. In other words, the prosecution wanted
• 8:55
  Speaker 2: to make a case about Katherine Courry's shortcomings as a
• 8:58
  Speaker 2: tennis player and student without the awkwardness of actually having
• 9:02
  Speaker 2: Katherine speak for herself. Ladies and gentlemen of the jury,
• 9:07
  Speaker 2: we would prefer if catherine career remains an abstraction. But
• 9:11
  Speaker 2: of course, if you are the legal team of Black
• 9:13
  Speaker 2: and Shrebnik and you sense a certain reluctance on the
• 9:17
  Speaker 2: part of your adversaries to confront the person at the
• 9:20
  Speaker 2: heart of the case, what do you do You convinced
• 9:23
  Speaker 2: the person at the heart of the case to make
• 9:26
  Speaker 2: an appearance.
• 9:32
  Speaker 4: I would say the one thing that stands out that
• 9:36
  Speaker 4: really made a huge difference was the daughter testifying introducing
• 9:42
  Speaker 4: the text messages with her father. I mean, to me,
• 9:45
  Speaker 4: that was like an extraordinary event at the trial, and
• 9:53
  Speaker 4: I thought it was really a great part of the case.
• 9:56
  Speaker 2: Why is that? Explain to you why you think that
• 10:00
  Speaker 2: testimony would have been so powerful for the jury.
• 10:02
  Speaker 4: A couple of reasons. Number one, in terms of POI
• 10:09
  Speaker 4: and speaking, she had such authenticity about her. I know
• 10:16
  Speaker 4: that authenticity is like a cliche these days, but she
• 10:19
  Speaker 4: came across very well as a witness Number one. Number two.
• 10:25
  Speaker 4: The government amazingly change after her testimony. Never changed their
• 10:31
  Speaker 4: theory of the case.
• 10:32
  Speaker 6: Ah.
• 10:33
  Speaker 2: Yes, the theory of the case, the explanation given for
• 10:37
  Speaker 2: the nature of the crime. The government laid out their
• 10:41
  Speaker 2: plan of attack with their very first witness, Timothy Donovan.
• 10:45
  Speaker 2: Remember him from the Boozy Dinner at the Capitol Grill.
• 10:49
  Speaker 2: He played on the Brown tennis team way back when
• 10:51
  Speaker 2: with Amon Curry and Gordy Ernst. He ran and still
• 10:55
  Speaker 2: runs by the way an outfit called Donovan Tennis Strategies,
• 10:59
  Speaker 2: whose goal, according to its website, is to help parents
• 11:02
  Speaker 2: with quote successfully navigating the college recruiting process end quote.
• 11:09
  Speaker 2: Donovan helps tennis players avail themselves of the back door
• 11:13
  Speaker 2: that elite colleges reserve for tennis players. In the Cory case,
• 11:18
  Speaker 2: that meant he was the bagman who picked up the
• 11:21
  Speaker 2: money for Aymond Coury, got twenty k for himself and
• 11:25
  Speaker 2: delivered the brown paper bag to Gordie Ernst's wife. The
• 11:29
  Speaker 2: government gave immunity to Timothy Donovan, and Donovan in return
• 11:33
  Speaker 2: provided them with their theory of the case. Listen to
• 11:37
  Speaker 2: this excerpt from Donovan's testimony on day two of the trial.
• 11:42
  Speaker 2: He's being questioned by one of the prosecutors.
• 11:45
  Speaker 5: Did there come a time when you discussed with the
• 11:47
  Speaker 5: defendant whether Catherine would in fact play on the Georgetown
• 11:51
  Speaker 5: tennis team. Yes, what did you discuss about that?
• 11:57
  Speaker 1: He said that she didn't have any plans to play
• 11:59
  Speaker 1: in that as a matter of fact, that you know,
• 12:02
  Speaker 1: her old shoulder injury would kick in and she'd be
• 12:05
  Speaker 1: unable to play for that reason.
• 12:08
  Speaker 5: And based on how the defendant described Catherine's old shoulder injury,
• 12:13
  Speaker 5: what was your understanding as to the nature of that injury.
• 12:17
  Speaker 1: That was not legitimate, that it was a story that
• 12:20
  Speaker 1: would allow her to not play.
• 12:22
  Speaker 2: The prosecution painted a picture of a conspiracy, Gordy Ernst,
• 12:27
  Speaker 2: Timothy Donovan, and Amon Curry conspiring to deceive Georgetown into
• 12:32
  Speaker 2: thinking they were getting a real tennis player. And what's more,
• 12:36
  Speaker 2: Amon Curry and his daughter Catherine conspiring to fake an
• 12:39
  Speaker 2: injury so she would never have to reveal how unworthy
• 12:43
  Speaker 2: she actually was of playing tennis at Georgetown University.
• 12:47
  Speaker 7: So when the daughter gets to the school as a
• 12:51
  Speaker 7: tennis admission, she then doesn't play tennis.
• 12:55
  Speaker 2: This is Jackie Purchek, one of the Black Shrebnik partners
• 12:58
  Speaker 2: who worked on the case.
• 13:00
  Speaker 7: She doesn't go to practice and never practices with the team,
• 13:04
  Speaker 7: and never play tennis. And so the government fed off
• 13:07
  Speaker 7: of that to come up with this theory that she
• 13:10
  Speaker 7: knew all along that this was paid for admission, because
• 13:15
  Speaker 7: otherwise she would have shown up to play tennis.
• 13:18
  Speaker 2: This was the theory on which the prosecution based its case,
• 13:22
  Speaker 2: and it came gift wrapped and tied with a bow
• 13:26
  Speaker 2: from Timothy Donovan. Why would they advance the theory about
• 13:29
  Speaker 2: the daughter having never talked spoken to.
• 13:31
  Speaker 4: The daughter because they had the fact that she never
• 13:33
  Speaker 4: as Jackie just said, she never went to play tennis,
• 13:36
  Speaker 4: So they just assumed. See what I think what happened
• 13:39
  Speaker 4: with the case is that remember they have a slam
• 13:43
  Speaker 4: dunk all along, you know, fifty five or fifty six cases,
• 13:47
  Speaker 4: how many They didn't think that this was going to
• 13:49
  Speaker 4: be a problem at all. They thought the client was
• 13:52
  Speaker 4: going to plead guilty to begin with, and then then
• 13:55
  Speaker 4: he didn't. Then I guess they got ready for Troyal.
• 13:57
  Speaker 4: I don't think they took it that serious.
• 14:02
  Speaker 2: I don't think they took it that serious. On some
• 14:05
  Speaker 2: unconscious level. I think Howard and Roy were offended by this.
• 14:09
  Speaker 2: It was a slight People from Miami take particular umbrage
• 14:14
  Speaker 2: at the condescension of fancy lawyers from Boston with their
• 14:17
  Speaker 2: high falutint manner and Ivyley pedigrees. Thus the dramatic sidebar
• 14:23
  Speaker 2: when the stiletto that they had brandished during the Georgetown
• 14:26
  Speaker 2: massacre was inserted a little deeper. We have Catherine Coury,
• 14:32
  Speaker 2: the person you didn't think belonged to her, and we
• 14:35
  Speaker 2: have her text messages which you somehow didn't think were
• 14:38
  Speaker 2: going to be an issue. Then a long pause when
• 14:42
  Speaker 2: the news registers with the prosecution, a sharp intake of breath,
• 14:47
  Speaker 2: and a silent scream that echoes across the courtroom full
• 15:10
  Speaker 2: The direct examination of Katy Curry was conducted by Howard,
• 15:14
  Speaker 2: not by Roy, which makes sense. Roy is, as I've said,
• 15:18
  Speaker 2: an apex legal predator. You don't let the grizzly bear
• 15:22
  Speaker 2: play with your grandkids. This one was Howard's responsibility. Howard
• 15:28
  Speaker 2: is not just the intellectual half of Black Shrebnik. He
• 15:32
  Speaker 2: is the warm and fuzzy half. Howard is the one
• 15:35
  Speaker 2: most likely to dress as Santa at the Black Shrebnik
• 15:38
  Speaker 2: Christmas Party. Howard has a daughter of his own, whom
• 15:42
  Speaker 2: I'm quite sure has Howard wrapped around her little finger.
• 15:46
  Speaker 2: Katy Curry was twenty five at the time, tall, long
• 15:50
  Speaker 2: brown hair, generous smile when she's smiling, but she's nervous
• 15:54
  Speaker 2: when she emerges from the bathroom. She clearly does not
• 15:57
  Speaker 2: want to be there. The adults in her life have
• 16:00
  Speaker 2: made a dreadful mess of things.
• 16:02
  Speaker 6: The momentum continued to build when the daughter gets on
• 16:05
  Speaker 6: the witness stand, the government having married itself to a
• 16:08
  Speaker 6: theory that a daughter was a fraud, essentially that her
• 16:11
  Speaker 6: application was a fraud.
• 16:14
  Speaker 2: Howard starts quietly and calmly, tell us how old you are?
• 16:19
  Speaker 2: Easy questions to answer, where do you work? You went
• 16:22
  Speaker 2: to graduate school? Where only when she seems comfortable does
• 16:27
  Speaker 2: he get to the heart of the matter. Once again,
• 16:30
  Speaker 2: we've asked our voice actors to read from the transcript.
• 16:35
  Speaker 1: Okay, Catherine, growing up, did you play tennis?
• 16:40
  Speaker 5: I did yes, okay?
• 16:43
  Speaker 1: And who taught you how to play tennis?
• 16:45
  Speaker 5: My dad?
• 16:47
  Speaker 1: And how old were you when you learned to play tennis?
• 16:51
  Speaker 5: Oh, I want to say I was maybe about five
• 16:54
  Speaker 5: six years old.
• 16:56
  Speaker 2: Her voice is soft. At one point, the judge tells
• 17:00
  Speaker 2: her to speak up.
• 17:02
  Speaker 1: Okay, And your dad, when you said you would play
• 17:06
  Speaker 1: tennis with your dad, was it just hitting the balls
• 17:08
  Speaker 1: or was there anything more instructive about the relationship, the
• 17:12
  Speaker 1: tennis relationship with your dad?
• 17:16
  Speaker 5: Well, so, yeah, my dad is an amazing tennis player.
• 17:20
  Speaker 5: He did play at Brown and so I guess in
• 17:23
  Speaker 5: a way we had not only a father daughter relationship,
• 17:26
  Speaker 5: but in a lot of ways. He was my primary coach.
• 17:30
  Speaker 5: I mean he would help me with drills, techniques, my
• 17:32
  Speaker 5: serve which was the weakest part of my game, set
• 17:35
  Speaker 5: up cones around the tennis court, and try to boost
• 17:39
  Speaker 5: my tennis skills. So it was something he enjoyed and
• 17:44
  Speaker 5: also something he encouraged me to work hard on.
• 17:49
  Speaker 1: How passionate was he about playing tennis with you?
• 17:53
  Speaker 5: I think it was one of our favorite things we
• 17:57
  Speaker 5: did together.
• 17:58
  Speaker 2: Howard pauses and has one of his paralegals put up
• 18:01
  Speaker 2: a photo on the screen. It's Catherine and her father
• 18:05
  Speaker 2: side by side at the tennis court at their country club.
• 18:10
  Speaker 1: Of all the people on the planet Earth, who is
• 18:12
  Speaker 1: the person with whom you played most hours of tennis
• 18:16
  Speaker 1: in your lifetime?
• 18:18
  Speaker 5: My dad.
• 18:20
  Speaker 2: They talked about high school. She went to a very
• 18:23
  Speaker 2: small private school in Massachusetts. Eight players on the tennis team.
• 18:27
  Speaker 2: She was number six, mostly played doubles. Her grades were good,
• 18:31
  Speaker 2: not great. Then they get to the subject of college.
• 18:35
  Speaker 2: What did she want to go Boston College or Northeastern?
• 18:39
  Speaker 2: Did she think she would play tennis at those schools? No?
• 18:43
  Speaker 2: What about Georgetown? Well, she'd never thought about Georgetown until
• 18:48
  Speaker 2: she ran into Gordy Ernst at a July fourth party.
• 18:52
  Speaker 5: I mean he basically said, you know, I'm Gordy Ernst,
• 18:56
  Speaker 5: a friend of your dad's, and I'm a tennis coach
• 18:58
  Speaker 5: at Georgetown, and you know you should like have you
• 19:02
  Speaker 5: ever thought about playing tennis at Georgetown? It could be fun?
• 19:06
  Speaker 1: And what did you tell them?
• 19:08
  Speaker 4: Said?
• 19:09
  Speaker 5: Wow, that sounds amazing. No, we'd love that, but I
• 19:12
  Speaker 5: don't think I'm good enough.
• 19:16
  Speaker 1: And what did he say?
• 19:17
  Speaker 5: He said, Well, you know, train hard and maybe you could.
• 19:23
  Speaker 2: She began playing more tennis. She began to take her
• 19:25
  Speaker 2: tennis more seriously, she got excited. The idea was that
• 19:30
  Speaker 2: she would practice with the team, but red shirt for
• 19:32
  Speaker 2: a year. She got an acceptance letter from Georgetown. Howard
• 19:36
  Speaker 2: put it on the screen for all the court to see.
• 19:38
  Speaker 2: She was in. She thought it was all her doing,
• 19:41
  Speaker 2: her talent and hard work. The back and forth between
• 19:45
  Speaker 2: Howard and Catherine is building slowly. Everyone on the jury
• 19:50
  Speaker 2: must know something is about to happen, but they don't
• 19:53
  Speaker 2: know what it is. And Howard is in no hurry
• 19:56
  Speaker 2: to tell them. He's just content to let her talk
• 20:00
  Speaker 2: and let her credibility, her authenticity, sink in.
• 20:05
  Speaker 1: And then finally, I want to talk to you now
• 20:10
  Speaker 1: about some of your family circumstances that arose in May
• 20:14
  Speaker 1: of twenty fifteen, this after you've been accepted at Georgetown.
• 20:19
  Speaker 1: Do you know what time period I'm talking about? During
• 20:25
  Speaker 1: the months of April. In the first week of May,
• 20:27
  Speaker 1: your parents, Melanie and Amon, did you understand them to
• 20:32
  Speaker 1: be still married and living as a family.
• 20:36
  Speaker 5: I did until like the second week of May.
• 20:42
  Speaker 1: Tell the ladies and gentlemen of the jury what you
• 20:44
  Speaker 1: learned in the second week of May.
• 20:48
  Speaker 5: So in the second week of May, I was actually
• 20:51
  Speaker 5: in a tennis match. I believe it was a match
• 20:54
  Speaker 5: and not a practice. My mom had flown from Florida
• 20:57
  Speaker 5: to Middlesex, which wasn't uncommon. She liked to visit us
• 21:01
  Speaker 5: a lot. But you know, I could tell that something was.
• 21:06
  Speaker 1: Wrong up until that moment moment in time, did you
• 21:10
  Speaker 1: have any idea that your parents were divorcing?
• 21:13
  Speaker 8: No?
• 21:13
  Speaker 1: How did it affect your feelings towards your father?
• 21:17
  Speaker 5: I was really very angry with him for that decision
• 21:20
  Speaker 5: to leave the marriage.
• 21:24
  Speaker 1: And how did you express yourself to your dad.
• 21:27
  Speaker 5: With tears and anger and some mean words. I had
• 21:32
  Speaker 5: lost respect for him at that moment in time and
• 21:35
  Speaker 5: was Yeah, I felt I felt betrayed.
• 21:41
  Speaker 1: How was your mom handling it?
• 21:44
  Speaker 5: She was not handling it well at all. She was
• 21:47
  Speaker 5: you know, it broke her, for lack of a better word.
• 21:53
  Speaker 2: And then Howard puts the text messages Catherine said to
• 21:56
  Speaker 2: her dad up on a big screen for the whole
• 21:59
  Speaker 2: court to see.
• 22:01
  Speaker 1: I made tent you described your dad to directly to
• 22:04
  Speaker 1: him that he's pathetic, yes, and hoping there will be
• 22:09
  Speaker 1: a day when he'll be strong again.
• 22:12
  Speaker 5: Yeah.
• 22:14
  Speaker 1: Next page, Keith. This is two days later, on May twelfth,
• 22:19
  Speaker 1: you write to him. I wasn't the one who traded
• 22:22
  Speaker 1: our family for the feelings of being young again. You're
• 22:25
  Speaker 1: a grown man. Don't equate my actions with yours. Just
• 22:30
  Speaker 1: from that statement, it's a parent how selfish you are?
• 22:35
  Speaker 5: Yes?
• 22:37
  Speaker 1: Is that how you felt at the time?
• 22:39
  Speaker 5: Yes?
• 22:40
  Speaker 1: Had you ever felt that way about your father before? No, Keith,
• 22:47
  Speaker 1: go to the next page. Do you recall your dad
• 22:50
  Speaker 1: trying to explain himself in you telling him you have
• 22:54
  Speaker 1: not done anything wrong? Lol? Laugh out loud. Yeah, next
• 23:01
  Speaker 1: page you tell your daddy's clueless and you have no
• 23:05
  Speaker 1: interest in associating with him. Is that right? It's correct, Keith.
• 23:11
  Speaker 1: If we could go to the next page.
• 23:13
  Speaker 2: At which point the judge interjects how many pages is this?
• 23:18
  Speaker 2: And Howard says fifteen more. The judge says fifteen more, Yes,
• 23:24
  Speaker 2: your honor, fifteen pages, and when it ends, Catherine Cory
• 23:29
  Speaker 2: explains where her anger left her.
• 23:33
  Speaker 5: Well, you know, Tennis was something that my dad and
• 23:37
  Speaker 5: I shared. When I thought of Tennis, I thought of
• 23:42
  Speaker 5: my dad and I wanted nothing to do with him.
• 23:45
  Speaker 5: At that point, I was disgusted and hurt, and I
• 23:51
  Speaker 5: was basically like, you know, screw it. I feel like
• 23:56
  Speaker 5: you've ruined the sport for me. I think of you
• 24:00
  Speaker 5: when I'm out there, and I'm not going to follow.
• 24:03
  Speaker 5: You know, we keep on following your leads and everything
• 24:06
  Speaker 5: when you don't set good examples. To be honest, it
• 24:09
  Speaker 5: was just too painful to be out there with those reminders.
• 24:16
  Speaker 2: So when she got to Georgetown, she didn't join the
• 24:19
  Speaker 2: tennis team. She didn't play the sports she loved. And
• 24:24
  Speaker 2: it had nothing to do with her shoulder. It had
• 24:27
  Speaker 2: to do with her heart.
• 24:31
  Speaker 1: When was the last time you played competitive tennis?
• 24:35
  Speaker 5: May like right before?
• 24:39
  Speaker 1: And did you have you ever since played tennis?
• 24:44
  Speaker 4: Not?
• 24:45
  Speaker 5: Really? Maybe one day I want to love the sport again,
• 24:50
  Speaker 5: you know, like I don't want to just I used
• 24:53
  Speaker 5: to love it. And you know, one day, when hopefully
• 24:57
  Speaker 5: we've found peace and a stable, you know, familial unit,
• 25:03
  Speaker 5: I will be able to be at peace with, you know,
• 25:07
  Speaker 5: playing the sport that reminds me of my dad, that
• 25:11
  Speaker 5: does hold so many good memories again.
• 25:18
  Speaker 2: The lawyers for the US Attorney's Office called Katie Coury
• 25:21
  Speaker 2: a mediocre tennis player when Georgetown's specialty was mediocre tennis players.
• 25:27
  Speaker 2: They said she got into Georgetown because her dad was rich,
• 25:31
  Speaker 2: but recruiting rich kids for the Georgetown tennis team was
• 25:34
  Speaker 2: what Georgetown did as a matter of course. And then
• 25:39
  Speaker 2: they threw her under the bus a third time. They
• 25:42
  Speaker 2: said that she had been involved in a conspiracy with
• 25:45
  Speaker 2: her father to fake an injury, and that just wasn't true.
• 25:53
  Speaker 2: Back at the top of episode one, I said that
• 25:56
  Speaker 2: I asked the US Attorney's office to talk to me
• 25:58
  Speaker 2: about the Coury case and they refused. Now I know
• 26:02
  Speaker 2: why because they went home and tried to wash their hands,
• 26:07
  Speaker 2: and the stink wouldn't come off. Closing arguments in the
• 26:14
  Speaker 2: case of USB Coorry came the next day, Roy did
• 26:19
  Speaker 2: the honors for the defense.
• 26:21
  Speaker 4: I came up with this walking over to the courthouse,
• 26:23
  Speaker 4: goes trying to figure out how to make these text
• 26:26
  Speaker 4: messages as dramatic as possible, And it doesn't come across
• 26:30
  Speaker 4: in the transcript. But what I did is I picked
• 26:33
  Speaker 4: up the exhibits and I walked over to the defense
• 26:37
  Speaker 4: table and stood in front of Corey and read every
• 26:40
  Speaker 4: one of those text messages, looking him in the eye.
• 26:44
  Speaker 2: I mean, the text was is Fronday's.
• 26:45
  Speaker 4: Daughter, Yeah, where she's calling him every name in the book,
• 26:49
  Speaker 4: and how I hate you and all this stuff and.
• 26:53
  Speaker 2: I'm and Coury as you did.
• 26:54
  Speaker 6: That was in tears.
• 26:55
  Speaker 2: Yes, yeah, all of us.
• 26:57
  Speaker 1: So there's the jury.
• 26:58
  Speaker 4: Yeah, there, this is Roy Black. There's the jury.
• 27:01
  Speaker 1: There's the judge.
• 27:02
  Speaker 6: Corey is standing sitting right where you are. By the way,
• 27:04
  Speaker 6: my daughter was sitting right behind him and Corey. Sophie
• 27:07
  Speaker 6: was watching the trial.
• 27:08
  Speaker 4: And my son okay, and your son.
• 27:10
  Speaker 6: Yeah. And Roy who's talking to the jury. And it's
• 27:13
  Speaker 6: right there.
• 27:14
  Speaker 9: We have the transcript and stands literally the distance four
• 27:17
  Speaker 9: feet from Am and Corey, and he's reading to Am
• 27:20
  Speaker 9: and Corey and they're right here. You can read him
• 27:22
  Speaker 9: out loud into the micro into the tape each one
• 27:25
  Speaker 9: of those texts. Roy stands up, Well.
• 27:28
  Speaker 6: Why don't you read it?
• 27:29
  Speaker 5: Roy?
• 27:31
  Speaker 6: This is the actual closing heartment quote.
• 27:34
  Speaker 4: The night of my graduation is supposed to be a
• 27:36
  Speaker 4: fun celebration. I don't think it will be of you. Come,
• 27:40
  Speaker 4: Lexi and I are not doing that well. I hope
• 27:43
  Speaker 4: that you know that your family won't be able to
• 27:46
  Speaker 4: exist peacefully together, and don't spend another holiday together. I
• 27:50
  Speaker 4: will forever blame and resent you and have zero interest
• 27:55
  Speaker 4: in sharing vital parts of my life with you. That's
• 27:59
  Speaker 4: what Katie Corey was saying in the summer of twenty fifteen,
• 28:02
  Speaker 4: not making up some story about her shoulder injury.
• 28:06
  Speaker 2: The courtroom is absolutely still, and rouyg just keeps going
• 28:11
  Speaker 2: right in front of his client, face to face. And
• 28:15
  Speaker 2: so what's happening, Well, the jurors were crying.
• 28:19
  Speaker 6: But the jurorsy, you didn't see that, but we did.
• 28:22
  Speaker 1: There's a juror cry.
• 28:24
  Speaker 2: So there, So explain to me psychologically, what's happening with
• 28:28
  Speaker 2: the jerks there? What conclusion are they drawing from the
• 28:34
  Speaker 2: from the emotion in that moment.
• 28:36
  Speaker 4: Well, I think that they're all parents. Can you imagine
• 28:41
  Speaker 4: getting messages like that from one of your children about
• 28:45
  Speaker 4: how catastrophic, how tragic, how emotional that would be. And
• 28:52
  Speaker 4: the reason why I wanted to do that is to
• 28:55
  Speaker 4: show that there was simply no way that this girl
• 28:59
  Speaker 4: was being controlled by her father and would go and say, Okay,
• 29:03
  Speaker 4: we're now getting into Georgetown on this fake admission, and
• 29:07
  Speaker 4: I'm going to fake a a shoulder injury. It's just
• 29:11
  Speaker 4: that it was just such a powerful, tragic thing to
• 29:17
  Speaker 4: get from a child.
• 29:19
  Speaker 9: What I thought happened was it now became a contest
• 29:21
  Speaker 9: between this prosecutor and Katie Kury, who was the jury
• 29:26
  Speaker 9: going to rule.
• 29:26
  Speaker 2: For Roy's closing argument didn't last very long. It didn't
• 29:32
  Speaker 2: have to. He just said, you know why the prosecution's
• 29:36
  Speaker 2: case makes no sense because they didn't know about the
• 29:39
  Speaker 2: text messages. The jury acquitted Amonkury on all counts. They
• 29:45
  Speaker 2: couldn't distinguish between what Am and Curry did and what
• 29:48
  Speaker 2: Georgetown did. I think they must have wondered what they
• 29:51
  Speaker 2: had been dragged into a full on trial in a
• 29:54
  Speaker 2: federal courthouse that ended up being about a daughter's broken
• 29:57
  Speaker 2: heart and a father's tears. Oh and all taking place
• 30:03
  Speaker 2: on a tennis court, Which is the question that got
• 30:06
  Speaker 2: me interested in us v. Koury in the first place.
• 30:09
  Speaker 2: The other half of the case, the half I write
• 30:11
  Speaker 2: about in Revenge of the Tipping Point. Since when do
• 30:14
  Speaker 2: we care so much about games like tennis that prosecutors
• 30:18
  Speaker 2: and elite universities and rich men and their daughters make
• 30:21
  Speaker 2: at the staging ground for their ambitions.
• 30:25
  Speaker 9: By the way, one more moment that no one knows
• 30:27
  Speaker 9: about because we were there and it didn't.
• 30:30
  Speaker 1: Happen in the courtroom.
• 30:31
  Speaker 6: We walk out of the courtroom with a not guilty verdict.
• 30:37
  Speaker 6: We encounter some of the jurors right outside the courtroom.
• 30:41
  Speaker 9: Aim and Corey is standing next to me.
• 30:44
  Speaker 6: The juror is standing five feet away. She looks over
• 30:48
  Speaker 6: to mister Corey and she says, take care of your daughter.
• 30:57
  Speaker 2: Vision's history is producad. Wait, we're not done. What about
• 31:01
  Speaker 2: the mysterious Salesforce document? The document Roy kept trying to
• 31:05
  Speaker 2: get Georgetown witnesses to say, yes it exists or yes
• 31:09
  Speaker 2: it's real. What was it?
• 31:12
  Speaker 1: Yeah, Salesforce.
• 31:13
  Speaker 7: They kept the database where people were and they have
• 31:19
  Speaker 7: like they had like targets. So if this person is
• 31:24
  Speaker 7: worth this amount of money, my target is to get
• 31:26
  Speaker 7: them to donate this amount, And they would keep track
• 31:30
  Speaker 7: of contact with the family and what they're going to
• 31:32
  Speaker 7: ask for it, And they kept us in a database
• 31:35
  Speaker 7: internally in a Salesforce database at the school for each parent.
• 31:43
  Speaker 2: It uses a sophisticated set of software to analyze thousands
• 31:47
  Speaker 2: of people and figure out who among them is the
• 31:51
  Speaker 2: best target for a fundraising call and what that person's
• 31:55
  Speaker 2: and this is the term that is used, capacity might be.
• 32:00
  Speaker 2: It looks at patterns. Families that have given a lot
• 32:03
  Speaker 2: tend to be those who will continue to give a lot.
• 32:05
  Speaker 2: Then there's a question of the individual's ties to the institute.
• 32:09
  Speaker 2: Do they have a child at school there that helps
• 32:12
  Speaker 2: a lot, or if they are an alarm what did
• 32:14
  Speaker 2: they do while on campus. Turns out a connection to
• 32:18
  Speaker 2: athletics is a top indicator for future giving. Needless to say,
• 32:25
  Speaker 2: this kind of algorithm would really really like aim and Kouri.
• 32:30
  Speaker 2: After Catherine was admitted, before she had even set foot
• 32:33
  Speaker 2: on campus, the admissions officer who handled her application sent
• 32:38
  Speaker 2: an email to someone in the development office, are you
• 32:41
  Speaker 2: able to give me giving for aim and Kuri? Meaning
• 32:45
  Speaker 2: can we run him through the algorithm? And they do
• 32:49
  Speaker 2: and put it all in an internal document. Why was
• 32:53
  Speaker 2: Georgetown so reluctant to admit to the existence of the
• 32:57
  Speaker 2: mysterious salesforce capacity report because their capacity estimate for the
• 33:03
  Speaker 2: Kouri family was, shall we say awkward, one to five
• 33:10
  Speaker 2: million dollars. When the so called victim Georgetown is landing
• 33:16
  Speaker 2: up the so called perpetrator for one to five million.
• 33:20
  Speaker 2: The victim doesn't really look like a victim anymore, do they.
• 33:24
  Speaker 2: It looks more like they're in on the grift.
• 33:27
  Speaker 4: So yeah, they were. They nobody would agree to it,
• 33:30
  Speaker 4: so we mentioned that the jury, the jury knew it
• 33:33
  Speaker 4: existed but never got to see it.
• 33:35
  Speaker 2: Yeah, so for you, you you saw you did you
• 33:39
  Speaker 2: have the doctor?
• 33:40
  Speaker 4: Yes, we have the document.
• 33:41
  Speaker 7: Then after the trial there's the not guilty verdict, and
• 33:46
  Speaker 7: that night or the next day, the New York Times
• 33:49
  Speaker 7: or somebody calls Roy for a comment and Roy comments
• 33:53
  Speaker 7: on the trial, and in part the comment was, there
• 33:56
  Speaker 7: was this Salesforce document and the target for the corries
• 33:59
  Speaker 7: was one to five million. And now Georgetown, who during
• 34:02
  Speaker 7: the trial, is saying, I don't know what document you're
• 34:06
  Speaker 7: talking about, and no witness will own to the document,
• 34:10
  Speaker 7: and no witness is prepared to testify about it. After
• 34:13
  Speaker 7: Roy makes the.
• 34:14
  Speaker 3: Comments, the lawyers for Georgetown send an email saying, hey,
• 34:18
  Speaker 3: why are you talking about our Salesforce document? There's a
• 34:21
  Speaker 3: confidentiality order in the case and you're not supposed to
• 34:23
  Speaker 3: be talking about our documents and rites.
• 34:28
  Speaker 8: So at the trial nobody's owning the document. After the trial,
• 34:32
  Speaker 8: they're all upset that Roy's talking about their document. Roy
• 34:35
  Speaker 8: writes back, I mentioned it an opening, and can I
• 34:40
  Speaker 8: And he writes back to the group in capital letters,
• 34:44
  Speaker 8: sore loser, to the lawyer.
• 34:48
  Speaker 7: To the Georgetown lawyer, Oh my god, when we all
• 34:51
  Speaker 7: got that email. I was like bagging the desk.
• 34:54
  Speaker 6: That's hard.
• 34:55
  Speaker 2: It was awesome. Usv. Courry, best trial ever or maybe
• 35:09
  Speaker 2: second best trial ever, because there was another federal case
• 35:12
  Speaker 2: that I fell in love with while writing my book,
• 35:15
  Speaker 2: Revenge at Sipping Point. It's the basis for the chapter
• 35:18
  Speaker 2: entitled The Trouble with Miami usb s Forms, involving a
• 35:24
  Speaker 2: shadowy nursing home operator from Miami Beach who looked like
• 35:28
  Speaker 2: Paul Newman, drove around town in a one point six
• 35:31
  Speaker 2: million dollar Ferrari, dated supermodels, and in a weird coincidence,
• 35:36
  Speaker 2: was so obsessed with getting his diminutive son onto the
• 35:39
  Speaker 2: University of Penn basketball team that he gave large amounts
• 35:43
  Speaker 2: of cash in a gym bag to the Penn basketball
• 35:47
  Speaker 2: coach who represented that shadowy Paul Newman look alike in
• 35:52
  Speaker 2: a Ferrari handing out bags of cash to IVY League coaches.
• 35:57
  Speaker 1: Ten guesses.
• 36:07
  Speaker 2: Regional's history is produced by Nina Birdlanrance with Ben at A. F.
• 36:10
  Speaker 2: Haffrey and Lucy Sullivan. Our editor is Karen Schakerji. Fact
• 36:15
  Speaker 2: checking by Sam Russick, original scoring by Luis Guerra, Mastering
• 36:19
  Speaker 2: by Eco Mountain engineering by Sarah Buguer and Nina Bird Lawrence.
• 36:24
  Speaker 2: Production support from Luke LeMond, Voice acting by Dak Sheppard
• 36:28
  Speaker 2: and Britt Marling. Thank you, guys. Our executive producer is
• 36:33
  Speaker 2: the incomparable Jacob Smith. Special thanks to Sarah Nix. I'm
• 36:39
  Speaker 2: Malcolm Bobwell.