Authors: Tom Connolly
This night NY City Police investigator Jim Conroy slept well in his own bed, having worked with prosecutors and the grand jury to return indictments against six individuals for insider trading in Rocket Solar.
This night Curtis Strong thought of liberation, knowing in three days he would appear in Stamford Superior Court for a hearing that would possibly free him after seven years, two hundred fifty-five days, and looking at the illuminated hands of his watch, five hours in prison. Next to him in his cell and waking him was the noisy Latino pacing back and forth saying he had a get-out-of-jail-free card.
This night Stamford Police sergeant John Walsh would be sleeping with the fishes.
This night Parker Barnes would not be sleeping at home.
Gideon Bridge was asleep in his bed; soon to be awakened, not once but twice.
Chapter 73
When the warrant for the arrest of Parker Barnes came into the Stamford Police, the notice was given to Captain Al Paiva. The receiving sergeant recognized the name and got it to Paiva, who normally ran interference with the big names; in Stamford no name was bigger than Barnes. The company had practically built Stamford; it had built this police headquarters building.
Pavia looked at the Federal warrant, noted that the complaint had come out of the NYC police department, cosigned by the SEC requesting their cooperation in arresting Barnes and notifying them, so they could pick him up once he was in custody.
“Look Sergeant Conroy, we’ll pick him up for you, but you’re not taking him out of this town. His father owns Stamford. You can come here and talk with him,” Pavia said firmly into the phone.
Conroy apparently did not like that approach because in the next second, Pavia exploded at him, yelling into the phone and standing up as he did it. “I don’t give a good goddamn what the NYPD wants. This is our city. You want our cooperation, you come here. We have to live with these fucking people after you leave.”
There was acquiescence. “Fine then, I’ll call you when we have him here. You can come in in the morning and interview him. By the time you finish the interview, his attorney will most likely be with him and he will have been bailed out.”
Paiva debated calling Jonathan Barnes. If it were a local warrant, he could work around it, even get it pulled and let the cops talk through the issue without arresting the young Barnes. This was different. With a federal warrant, he had little leeway, in fact none, other than what he was able to negotiate with Conroy.
Paiva decided to let the warrant go through. When he got the call from Jonathan Barnes, he would simply plead ignorance. But in letting the warrant go through for Barnes’ arrest, Paiva talked to the evening watch commander and told him to wait for Barnes to leave the house. Do not do it on the Barnes’ grounds.
“What if he doesn’t go out for the night?” was the question back from the watch commander.
“Then we just sit there until he does.”
That would be unnecessary. At around 10 p.m. Parker’s Mercedes XL shot up Rogers Rd. The unmarked car followed him onto Ocean Drive West, and when Barnes peeled out onto Shippan Avenue, the undercover car with two detectives and one warrant pulled Barnes over.
The officers in plain clothes approached Barnes from both sides. He saw them out of each mirror. For a second his mind said, “take off—it’s a trap.” He thought of his argument with Chuck DeLuna just a few minutes before. Were these his men? But when the officer on his side said calmly, “Sir, may I see your driver’s license,” Barnes relaxed. He must have been going too fast up Shippan Ave and didn’t see them hiding in a speed trap.
“Yes, sir,” Barnes said, pulling out his wallet and showing his driver’s license.
“It says here you are Parker Barnes. Is that correct, sir?” the officer asked.
“Yes, officer. Was I speeding? Sorry.” Barnes said, before confirmation that he was stopped for speeding.
“Mr. Barnes, would you please step out of the car?”
This was strange he thought but followed the officer’s request.
Once out of the car the officer said, “Mr. Barnes, please turn and face your car with your hands on the roof.”
“Officer, what is this about,” Barnes asked, while complying.
The second officer came around from the back of the car and patted Barnes down.
“He’s clean.”
“Mr. Barnes, I have a warrant for your arrest. We are going to take you to the Stamford Police station.”
“This must be some mistake, I don’t have any outstanding tickets; nothing else is wrong,” Barnes said, now in a plea.
“Mr. Barnes, the charges in the warrant are for insider trading in stocks,” the first officer said to Barnes.
“That’s impossible.”
“This is a federal warrant. Once you are in custody, an agent from the SEC will be arriving to go over the charges with you in more detail. Our job right now is to bring you in,” the officer continued. “We’ll lock your car up and take the keys.”
The second officer put handcuffs on Barnes and placed him in the rear of the Ford sedan. The second officer locked Barnes’ car.
They were at the police station in ten minutes. Barnes was read his rights along the way. He remained silent, wondering how this involved him. The tips that Lenny gave him and that he had Kish execute were for Rocket Solar. Everything was fine there; the stock was a rocket, up 30 percent in the past three days. Could they have somehow found out about Lenny’s information to him? Could Kish have… “Oh my god,” he said audibly.
“What’s that, Mr. Barnes,” the booking officer asked as he fingerprinted him.
“Nothing,” and what had startled him was that Chunk DeLuna was most likely in this very jail. “Oh, my god,” he said again, but this time to himself.
“As the arresting officer has stated to you, we are helping execute a federal warrant. The filers, the New York City Police Department and the SEC will be sending representatives here in the morning to formally charge you. You will have a special arraignment, and then you will be eligible for bail.”
“I want to call an attorney this moment; there is no reason for me to be held overnight here,” he said, determined to not share the same space as DeLuna.
“Once we’re through here, I’ll get you a phone, and you can call your attorney.”
When they completed their work, Barnes was allowed to make a call from a cubicle that gave him some privacy. He dialed Gideon Bridge. This time for himself. Once again he received Bridge’s answering machine. He thought of hanging up and calling his father, but that would be worse.
“Gideon, it’s me Parker. I’m in the Stamford Police Station’s jail on some charge of insider trading. I need you to come here tonight and get me out of this. Please hurry. Thanks.”
“All set?” the processing officer asked, approaching Barnes.
“No, not really,” Barnes said in a panic.
“Well, I’ll take you to a cell. You can wait there until your attorney gets here.”
“I’d rather not,” Barnes said defiantly. “I would like to wait right here until he comes.”
“Here?” the officer said, “You can’t wait here; we have things to do. You’ve been arrested. When that happens you wait in a cell until the next event takes place.” The officer said back firmly, expecting trouble, and letting Barnes know if there was trouble, the officer was ready for it.
“Please?” Barnes begged.
“Mr. Barnes, this happens all the time; there is nothing to worry about.”
Barnes thought of telling him that if DeLuna was there his life could be in danger. But that may make matters worse. Maybe DeLuna, seeing him also jailed, would keep his mouth shut.
“Come along now,” the officer said as he walked towards a door.
The door led down a flight metal and cement stairs. Very firm Barnes thought, the whole building has the feeling of a fortress. Every stair he descended seemed to be taking him further from the privileged life he led. When they reached the bottom, they went through another door. An officer sat behind a desk; beyond the desk were metal bars and gates. For all the trouble Barnes had been in his life over drug use and driving while intoxicated, he had never been jailed. The thought of losing his freedom, of being unable to do whatever he wanted, whenever he wanted, was paralyzing him.
“This is Mr. Parker Barnes, Jerry,” the processing officer said to Officer Jerry Lott, a very large, barrel chested man who was probably serving out his time here until his pension.
“Let’s see. Would you like a single or a double, perhaps a water view?” Lott said sarcastically. “Ah, here we are, I have a lovely single. It’s in a noisy neighborhood, but things usually calm down by 11 p.m.”
He opened the sliding gate with his keys, and he and Barnes walked down an aisle of about twelve cells, six to a side. Every cell had one or two men in them.
“Here we are, your room with a view,” he said, sliding the barred gate to the cell to the left as Barnes entered.
“I trust you’ll sleep well; see you in the morning,” and he slid the metal gate shut.
“When my attorney comes,” Barnes began quietly as he could see there were men in the cell directly across from him on their beds, “would you please come and get me.”
“Yes sir, if your attorney comes tonight, we will get you. I’d get a good night sleep. Usually the lawyers don’t show up till morning,” and the officer walked back up the aisle.
“Your attorney?” it was the voice of DeLuna, “Don’t you mean our attorney, Mr. Barnes, sir,” and he slurred the “sir” in the same sarcastic manner as Officer Lott.
No nightmare could be worse than this. Parker Barnes was in jail, and Chunk DeLuna was in the cell across from him.
The other occupant of the DeLuna cell was startled by the name Barnes. He listened as his cellmate DeLuna spoke across the bars. It was only an hour before that DeLuna had started confiding in the black man about the deal that had gone bad.
“We had it complete. All the drugs came off the boat. Hell, I even gave the kid who brought the drugs in his boat half his money up front. If I can’t get out of this, I’m screwed. I’ll be out a million and a half and have nothing to show for it.”
As DeLuna told his tale, nothing about it seemed familiar. CJ Strong thought now, how could he have missed it—rich kid, own boat, father’s a big shot builder, running for Senate. Hadn’t CJ’s mother told him that her employer Jonathan Barnes was running for Senate? Yes. But Strong had been so focused on tomorrow, Saturday, the meetings, then Monday the hearing with the judge, he did not pick up on it.
“Barnes,” DeLuna feigned a whisper, loud enough for the entire cell block to hear. “When we getting out.”
“DeLuna, shut the fuck up,” Barnes screamed in a low stifled rage. “Are you nuts? Be quiet. This has nothing to do with you.”
“What, you got yourself arrested on something else?” DeLuna said, and then added. “God’s punishing you. You were going to leave me in here, and He didn’t think that was right. When your lawyer comes, we walk out together.”
“Damn it, DeLuna, be quiet,” Barnes said, knowing that the runt across the way was a caged animal. Barnes could sense his relentlessness.
“Barnes. What did they get you for? Is it something with us?
“I already told you, it has nothing to do with you.”
“Then what. Tell me. I have to know,” DeLuna persisted.
“Insider trading. Buying stocks with information only company people should have,” he blurted out to shut him up.
“I know what that is. Did you do it?” DeLuna asked.
“No. Now be quiet,” Barnes said
Turning to Curtis Strong on the bed, still facing the wall, DeLuna said, “This is my boy across the way. He’s the one I’ve been telling you about. Big shot. He and his old man. It was his boat we used to bring the stuff in. That’s why he’s going to get me out of this,” DeLuna concluded, having said this loud enough for Parker Barnes to hear.
Barnes was trembling. “Mother of God,” he said to himself. “This imbecile is going to take me down with him.” “DeLuna, be quiet. We’ll never get out of this if you don’t shut up.”
“Then tell me how this is going to work. How do we get me out of here?”
“I’ve got calls in to my lawyer. He’ll be here. He’ll get me out. I’ll get you out. Now stop.”
DeLuna sat back down on his bed. He whispered across to Strong, who had not responded to anything DeLuna had said since he came in the cell, and now figured DeLuna was talking to him as you would to yourself, only Strong could hear everything. “This kid is gonna fuck me. I know it. He says he’ll get me out of here. I don’t think so. Well I’ve got a surprise for him,” DeLuna continued in his monologue, loud enough for Strong to hear but muffled to Barnes in his cell. “The surprise he’s gonna get is that I’m tougher than anyone alive. I can take anything. If I go to jail for this, he’s coming with me. If they give me twenty-five years for bringing millions of dollars of drugs in, they’re gonna give Parker Barnes twenty-five years for bringing millions of dollars of drugs in.”
Around midnight DeLuna created a scene, screaming for the jailer. He made a case that his one call was to someone who couldn’t help him. He needed to call his girlfriend and he would be quiet. The jailer had another officer come downstairs; they cuffed DeLuna from the front and took him to a small office by the front of the jail by the stairwell. The officer handed him his cell phone. “Make it quick and be quiet.”