ny Times News Service, NEW YORK
In February of last year, A. Alfred Taubman, the former chairman of Sotheby's, had a chat with Diana Brooks, the company's former chief executive. During their talk, he pointed to a newspaper photograph of her and said, "You'll look good in stripes."
At least that was the way Brooks told it. According to testimony during the Sotheby's price-fixing trial, which ended last week in a guilty verdict against the 76-year-old Taubman, it was he who said, self-mockingly, "How'd you think I'd look in stripes?"
Whoever said what, both Brooks and Taubman were preparing, perhaps with nervous humor, for some possibility of prison. As their legal fate unfolded -- Brooks pleaded guilty and testified against Taubman at his 16-day trial in Manhattan federal court -- their lawyers also prepared for such an outcome. For every jury that tries a white-collar criminal for tax evasion, collusion, conspiracy, embezzlement, racketeering or fraud, there is a lawyer thinking about the worst-case scenario: how to get a client into the best prison with the easiest sentence possible and smoothly bridge the vast divide between polite society and prison.
Bill Stanton, a security consultant and investigator who has worked for a roster of wealthy clients, said that both Taubman's and Brooks' lawyers were likely to be acquainted with minimum-security federal prisons around the country.
"In these cases, the defense attorney will act almost like an agent in Hollywood, negotiating the perp's rights, wheeling and dealing to get her into the best spot," Stanton said. "He can say, `This prison has tennis, this one has nicer rooms.'"
Defense lawyers have some influence over where their clients serve prison time, legal experts said. Typically, they present the judge with an elaborate profile of the criminal to be sentenced, including details such as the person's record of community service, illnesses or special needs that might bear on where the time will be served. In the past decade, dozens of specialists have begun marketing their services as experts in sentence mitigation.
These are the lawyers, criminologists or former corrections officials known as "postconviction specialists," who -- for fees that can reach into tens of thousands of dollars -- navigate and cajole the prison and judicial systems, bargaining for the chance at a light, sweet sentence. They are a grim reality in the lives of the criminally convicted elite: counselors as valued in their way as the SAT prep teachers, personal shoppers and chefs who also serve the well-to-do.
Does the client play tennis? There's a federal prison camp for him in California. Will she volunteer for community service, or has the client given generously to charitable organizations? It might be grounds for a reduced sentence from a federal judge, who can choose to make an influential recommendation to the Bureau of Prisons. Will the client admit to a drinking problem? Then he can be admitted to an alcohol rehabilitation program in prison, which also serves as a way to reduce total sentence time.
Alcohol rehabilitation
In the case of Albert Pirro Jr. -- the husband of Jeanine Pirro, the Westchester County, New York, district attorney -- who is completing a sentence for tax fraud, a consultant recommended a prison camp with an alcohol rehabilitation program, because such programs can reduce a sentence dramatically, according to a lawyer who worked on the case. Pirro, who was convicted of federal tax fraud last year, was sentenced to 29 months; last month he was released to a halfway house from a Florida prison camp after serving 11 months and completing an alcohol treatment program.
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