In the criminal justice system, the People are represented
by two separate yet equally important groups:
The police, who investigate crime
and the district attorneys, who prosecute the offenders.
These are their stories.
Good morning, Mr. McFadden.
Mr. McFadden?
( indistinct radio transmissions )
MAN: Give me another shot of that.
So, Eduardo, what time did you punch in?
5:30.
And you let him in when?
No, no, Mr. McFadden's always the first one here.
I think 4:00 or something...
and he has his own key.
CERRETA: Mikey?
Oh, wonderful.
Taped trigger, taped butt.
Serial numbers filed?
Sure.
Of course. Why should it be easy?
The vic's wallet and keys, Detective.
He had over a grand in 20's on him.
Not a robbery. Not an amateur.
So it's a hit.
Maybe the Mafia
plays the stock market.
McFadden let himself in here every morning
according to the porter.
No security guard.
No witnesses.
Walter Fairlee, Detective.
Anything I can help you with?
Why was Mr. McFadden here at 4:00 in the morning?
Checking the Daxie--
that's the German stock exchange.
Marshall had a lot of international interests.
What about enemies?
Ours is a competitive business.
But everybody loved him, right?
Everybody... respected what he accomplished.
Which was?
Which was overcoming his humble beginnings
and amassing a net worth in the hundreds of millions.
This is a terrible moment for our company.
( stock exchange bell rings )
Excuse me.
( clamoring voices )
I guess the moment's over.
Captioning sponsored by NBC/Universal
Exactly what business
was Mr. McFadden in?
Like America,
his business was business.
He bought companies.
He sold companies.
He was one of the only mergers and acquisition experts
to emerge from the '80s
with his assets and reputation still intact.
Your boss had more degrees than a thermometer.
They're all honorary.
Mr. McFadden never finished high school.
Has anyone notified the family?
No one to call.
His wife, Ann,
passed away six years ago.
Cancer.
Oh, Dwight Corcoran.
A former ambassador to England.
Mr. McFadden had many friends in high places.
We'll need a list.
Were any of them
close to him?
Mr. McFadden was a private person.
All I knew of his life was what I read in the papers.
"Marshall McFadden, king of the takeover,
"son of a Yorkshire coal miner,
strikes it rich in the New World."
He bought companies like I buy six-packs.
Only after he recycled the waste
it was worth more than when he bought it.
Net worth, nine figures.
Anything from ballistics?
The bullet matches the .38 we found in the garbage.
No prints.
The FBI is running
an argon scan on what's left of the serial number.
Takeover guys buy up a company, spit out the pits.
People get hurt.
18 months ago, hostile takeover.
McFadden acquires a company: Evans & Black.
When the smoke clears, 480 people are looking for work.
A guy standing on the assembly line--
is it worth killing over?
What about the guy sitting in the executive crapper?
After the takeover
McFadden replaced the entire board of directors.
White collars can get pretty dirty
waiting on the unemployment line.
Old days, when I ran the Brooklyn plant,
I put in ten hours a day, six days per.
And now?
McFadden closes the plant.
Now it's mornings at my quotron
and afternoons at the club.
How much did he pay for the company?
Papers say around $700 million.
And he shuts it down?
Evans & Black was worth 700.
The Brooklyn plant was the company's prodigal son.
Hadn't shown a profit in ten years.
Some divisions get closed, others sold.
That's what takeover's all about.
Like a chop shop.
These takeover guys--
McFadden, Pickens--
the press is giving them a bad rap.
They're calling them sharks, barracudas.
They're not?
They're like angels.
They trim the fat.
Less waste, more profit.
Correct me if I'm wrong, Mr. Reynolds.
After the takeover
McFadden threw you and the board out.
Yes, but we landed very gently.
Golden parachutes.
I walked away with close to seven mil.
All thanks to McFadden, huh?
They should carve his face on a mountain.
'90s Horatio Alger.
Get canned, walk away a rich man.
High school physics.
There is no such thing as spontaneous generation.
Reynolds and his cronies are making money.
It's coming from somewhere.
The guys at the bottom.
My Uncle Sal-- 40 years of sweat and ink
at Pylon Printing in Queens.
The owner sells out to a German corporation.
Your Uncle Sal is history.
No medical, no pension.
He's 68 years old
and all he's got to show for it
is purple fingernails.
And no golden parachute.
Let's go see what happened to the working stiffs.
FAIRLEE: Excuse me.
You can't confiscate documents without a warrant.
Why not?
McFadden's the victim, not the suspect.
Of course, I just thought...
Don't think.
Cooperate.
Over there.
Got to hand it to him.
He made it
but he wasn't afraid to spend it.
A real philanthropist. On this Evans & Black deal
his lawyers collected close to two mil.
Maybe they earned it.
Listen to this.
Memo from his attorneys "RE: Brooklyn plant.
"Collective bargaining agreement with Local 8157
"expires November 30.
"It would therefore be ill-advised
"to cease operations
prior to December 1."
McFadden was closing that Brooklyn plant
from the get-go.
Screw the union with legal approval.
His father worked for the coal mines.
You'd think he'd have sympathy for the grunts.
They sure had some for him.
This is a letter from the union
agreeing to roll back all the salaries by 15%.
To McFadden?
No, to the loan department
at Bank of the Five Boroughs.
"In order to induce the bank to finance the acquisition
"of Evans & Black, Inc. by Marshall McFadden.
"Signed: Edward Palmieri,
president of Guild of American Industrial Workers."
He gets the union to close the deal
then bites them on the butt?
All's fair in M & A.
That union letter-- who did you say signed it?
Palmieri.
Last month, a check drawn on the account
of Ann McFadden Cancer Foundation,
payable to Edward G. Palmieri
in the amount of 100,000 smackeroos.
Wow.
Do you think this Palmieri
moonlights as a cancer specialist?
McFadden gets the union to agree to future rollbacks.
Company looks more profitable.
More attractive to the bank. It's all kosher.
Except McFadden never intended to sign a new contract.
He planned on shutting down the plant
when the union contract expired.
It was a con.
And the union head is running point.
A mook named Palmieri pocketed 100 g's
from McFadden's charitable foundation.
Fellas, what's wrong with this picture?
McFadden is making Palmieri rich
and he's gonna kill the golden goose?
This guy would sell out the rank and file.
It doesn't make him a killer.
If the stakes get high enough...
LOGAN: All right.
Maybe there's a history between McFadden and Palmieri.
Unions keep records.
A subpoena might help.
Well, how does a subpoena duces tecum sound?
Means lay your cards
on our table.
You want documents, you got documents.
My client is merely satisfying
the subpoena.
We asked for documents
relating to the union's dealings with McFadden,
not the "History of the World,
parts one and two."
The duces tecum was specific.
Duces my tuches. You want to know something, you talk to me.
Tell us about the agreement to roll back union bennies
when McFadden took over.
The old owners lived in the Dark Ages.
They hold on, the Brooklyn plant goes down the crapper.
If the Brooklyn plant goes Chapter 11,
the union's on the street.
Where I come from
something is better than nothing.
Eddie agreed to the rollback.
The bank likes the deal.
Everybody's happy.
Until the limey stabs us in the back.
Us?
Looks like you did all right.
Are you implying something?
$100,000, payable
to your client from McFadden's foundation.
Uh, that was for consulting.
We don't really care about the payment.
What we're concerned with
is why the payer is dead.
Wait a minute.
You guys think that I...?
My union's got 10,000 members.
10,000members.
The Brooklyn plant canned-- what?--
a couple hundred?
It's not even worth my time.
Eddie, whose time is it worth?
You charging me with something?
CRAGEN: No, no, we're not
but maybe the U.S. Attorney's Office
would be interested in those consulting fees.
The boys who worked the plant--
got a couple of hotheads there.
Unemployment bennies are running out--
some of them have nothing left to lose.
Podosky, Dborkin, Vilanis, and Black.
MAN: ...the Department of Labor.
My hands are tied.
Closed meeting, fellas.
We won't go in.
We'll just listen at the doorway.
about unemployment benefits. There's nothing we can do
Local 8157, official business.
Get lost.
Shield 9215.
Ditto.
MAN: We are scheduled to meet
with Department of Labor reps
of the month. the first
gentlemen. Everything takes time,
My recommendation is, therefore,
to work with the Economic Development Council
and the state insurance commissioner...
The insurance commissioner
wouldn't know
a tool-and-die maker from a cheeseburger.
( laughing )
You want the floor, Simon?
What happened to our pension plan
shouldn't ever, ever have happened in this country!
We paid into it for 40 years, and now...
that policy in your hand?
You may as well wipe your arse with it.
It's useless!
( cheers of agreement )
Let's hear it for the rank and file.
politicians, managers, We trusted
and those clowns on 52nd Street with their expensive suits
that we paid for with our dues!
to overthrow Palmieri, Simon. We all know you want
Overthrow nothing.
How about throwing him in the East River?
That's right!
You tell 'em!
So, Mr. Vilanis,
what happened to your pension plan?
Before McFadden closed the plant
he took our contributions, invested them in junk bonds.
With the market today,
we're lucky to get ten cents on the dollar.
Were you serious, back there,
about dumping the union heads in the river?
Yeah, right.
I shot McFadden in the back, too.
In the head.
In the head!
( coughing )
I wish.
Are you serious?
At this point, you're the best we have.
You have an alibi, Simon?
I was drinking over at Nooch's in Red Hook
till closing time, probably.
Same as most nights.
Are you sure about that?
Either there,
or St. Eligius Hospital in Brooklyn.
Every other Thursday's party time at the clinic.
Oh...
here we go.
The old owners,
they got their ounce of flesh, definitely,
but they also offered us a 99-year lease
at 150 per month.
150 bucks?
Those were the good old days.
Then McFadden and his bean counters
got into the act.
First thing they did was discover $120 million
in hidden assets-- i.e.,
20 buildings just like that one.
But you had a lease.
99 years...
or until there was no longer an Evans plant
in Brooklyn.
He closes shop,
he's got a lot of real estate.
Up there, top floor.
Only two bedrooms, but we raised three kids
and we got along somehow.
Today, it's luxury condos for the upwardly mobile exec.
He just tossed you people out, huh?
Naturally, we couldn't come up
with the down payment.
Now the economy's down the john.
Even the yuppies can't afford the luxury.
The McFadddens of the world leave a lot of wreckage behind.
You don't know the half of it.
Your doctor, Simon.
My doctor?
Dr. Bergman.
You mind if we talk to him?
Her. Her!
Go ahead.
She's a laugh a minute.
Alveolar carcinoma of the right lung.
CERRETA: Which is?
Consolidation of the air spaces.
It's a tumor-- lung cancer.
Is that from two packs a day?
Could be.
Could also be 30 years of breathing in chemicals.
The prognosis?
Cough, profuse sputum, often blood-streaked.
Untreated, a patient can survive up to nine months.
With treatment, the overall survival rate
is still less than ten percent.
Damn.
That's the good news.
I doubt he can afford the chemo much longer.
But insurance would cover it.
If he had it.
Excuse the pun,
but his life savings is saving his life--
or prolonging it, anyway--
and he doesn't seem like a guy
who rolls over CDs for a living.
Treatment's expensive. How much longer can it last?
Thursday night-- was he here?
The man's prompt.
Checked in at 8:00.
CERRETA: Out by 9:00?
Does this look like Lenox Hill?
This is a clinic, Detective.
First come, first serve.
Thursday was busy.
I saw Mr. Vilanis at 11:30.
So Vilanis left the clinic at 12:30.
He hops into a cab, blows McFadden away at 5:00.
What's the problem?
The man is dying.
Which means he has nothing to lose.
McFadden took his job,
his money, his house, his health.
Sounds like McFadden deserved it.
Yeah, well, your guy Vilanis
is not exactly St. Thomas, either.
Four months ago-- assault.
Vilanis was arrested for tossing an egg at McFadden.
Charges were dropped, but...
But what? McFadden died
of eggshells in the brain?
There's also a weapons charge in Brooklyn.
That was four years ago, Donny.
I think we're spinning our wheels with Vilanis. We're hassling this little guy
while these rich yahoos are laughing all the way to the bank.
Unless you got something better,
check out the charges in Brooklyn,
and if it's not too much trouble
take Robin Hood with you.
Vilanis, Simon J., arrested 1988 for CPW Three.
Knocked down to prohibited use of a weapon.
Judge gave him a conditional discharge.
It's an Easter Sunday tradition with Greek Orthodoxes.
A few ouzos and they're taking shots at the moon.
Not realizing what goes up comes down.
Stupid, but in this case, a misdemeanor.
He had a permit.
Could I have the serial number?
Yeah.
A-J-7, 3-9-9-2-1.
Smith and Wesson, .38 caliber.
Thanks, Sarge.
Now let's hope that Simon's Smith and Wesson
is in his bedside table next to Gideon.
I was half in the bag.
But an egg...
Well, it seemed like a good idea at the time.
A message to McFadden.
You should have seen that egg...
dripping down his face.
( deep, hacking cough )
You sure you want to fire one of those up?
This has nothing to do with it.
It's that damn air in the plant.
36 years.
Maybe if you talked to a lawyer...
That's another part of the conspiracy.
That shyster on Madison, he saw me coming.
$5,000 nonrefundable retainer.
"Case like this," he said,
"must be worth ten million, minimum."
So I write him a check.
And?
The guy gets in a cab
and goes out to the plant with his expert.
He comes back, he says to me, "Sorry. No case."
"Why?"
"Because what you got could have been caused
just by breathing the air in Brooklyn."
That's it?
He sent me a bill for the cab.
Simon, your gun--
do you mind if we have a look at it?
If you can find it.
It disappeared a couple of weeks ago.
Thursday, the 23rd.
My night to get chemo.
And you reported it, I hope.
Reported it?
This is the third time they broke into this dump.
The first time they broke in, they took my television set.
The cops came out, they said, "It's too bad."
The next break-in,
they took my record player.
The cops didn't even show up.
The third time...
go down to the station? What do you say we
Maybe somebody turned it in.
Maybe you'll get lucky.
Maybe I'll win the lottery.
So we'll just go have a little talk,
with the super, okay?
Detective Mike Logan.
Sorry to bother you.
Did you see anybody suspicious
hanging around Mr. Vilanis's apartment
two weeks ago Thursday?
No.
No? You're positive?
Yeah.
He never sees anything till the first of the month.
Then his eyesight improves.
It's worth a shot
but if he really did kill McFadden
you think he's going to identify his own gun?
He's an honorable man. You never know.
Right. He was George Washington in a previous life? Come on, Phil.
We're up.
I don't have to tell you.
A lot of guys are dying to talk.
We'll see.
Take your time.
It looked like this.
I don't know, but mine never had any tape.
Make sure, Simon, huh?
He's not sure-- not yet.
Yeah? Well, maybe this will help.
The FBI retrieved six of the eight filed- off serial numbers.
It's his gun for sure.
You better tell your friend to call a lawyer,
and Phil, don't forget to read him his rights.
Usually, I'm half in the bag.
Oh, Simon...
( coughing )
JUDGE: I'm getting behind here, Counselor.
Why does Mr. Vilanis refuse to enter a plea?
He wants to represent himself.
I hate pro se cases.
Did he bring his own soapbox, or does he expect the court
to provide one?
ROBINETTE: The People aren't thrilled.
By the time he learns the rules of procedure,
we'll all have gray hair.
Meaning what?
He's stalling?
Always a good tactic.
Mr. Vilanis can't afford to stall.
He's dying of lung cancer.
I've read his file, Miss Cantwell.
I'm going to enter a not guilty plea on the defendant's behalf.
I'd appreciate it if you'd act as the man's ad hoc advisor.
Of course, and I suggest ROR.
The man needs chemotherapy every Thursday.
Any arguments, Paul?
SCHIFF: What's the problem?
If Vilanis is that sick, take a plea, get it over with.
You don't think I tried?
You got enough to convict or what?
Motive, ample opportunity--
the brokerage firm was unsecured
plus the FBI ballistics report.
Get a trial date.
Get it over with, quick, easy.
It may not be that easy.
I used to pick up my grandfather after his chemo treatments.
Yeah. And?
And all he could do afterwards was puke his guts out
and then fall into bed.
Let me talk to the man.
I checked with Dr. Bergman at St. Eligius, Simon.
She said the floor was jammed the night McFadden was hit.
She didn't get around to you till almost midnight.
I shouldn't be talking to you without a lawyer.
You're representing yourself, Simon, remember?
You're your own lawyer.
Oh, yeah.
And then... she gave you a dose of doxorubicin?
Yeah.
And 120 milligrams of CIS-platinum?
Yeah.
That's heavy chemotherapy.
Way too heavy to go out
and stalk somebody
and then shoot them.
So what's the story?
What's with this pro se nonsense?
I want my day in court
to show what that bastard did to us.
But you didn't kill McFadden.
Nope, but I'd make a hell of a scapegoat,
me and my big mouth.
When your gun was stolen, did they break in or what?
Somebody picked the lock, or...
Or had a key.
Listen, I pay
900 bucks a month for this dump.
Who could afford to hand out spare keys?
You okay?
Yeah, yeah.
When your insurance crapped out
wasn't there anyone you could turn to?
The Labor Department-- occupational illness.
But I wasn't their number-one priority,
shall we say?
It's not just Simon Vilanis. Hundreds of workers had their health plans gutted.
We're aware of that.
Mr. Vilanis's story is known to us.
You can stonewall him, but not me.
He told you that?
Yeah.
Figures.
The man's in trouble.
That's what I'm saying.
He thinks no one listens to him, but far from it.
Okay, you listen.
Listened.
I gave our investigation
to the Justice Department for prosecution.
Who at Justice?
Fellow named Cousins in the Bank Fraud division.
McFadden used the workers' health fund
to finance a takeover--
he and some bank he had in his pocket.
What bank?
Bank of the Five Boroughs.
You'd better talk to Cousins, if you can find him.
They shut down his office--
budget cut.
When was that?
When he was this close to indicting McFadden.
Are we talking bank fraud or murder
or we don't know?
We're looking for a connection.
Apparently the victim was about to be indicted.
Apparently?
What's going on?
is getting bigger. The case
McFadden was the classic '80s shark.
old, failing companies-- He'd go after
take whatever was worth salvaging. In this case,
the workers' housing, health and pension funds.
Which he invested in high-risk bonds that failed.
Then he dumped the company
and the lender just wrote off the loss.
Sure.
Someone at the bank was profiting from the takeover.
Who?
The lender was the Bank of the Five Boroughs.
These are the officers.
Adam?
What?
I know that bank.
Dwight Corcoran is the chairman.
Governor Corcoran, former Secretary of State,
Ambassador to England-- that Corcoran?
That Corcoran.
He and I cut our teeth together in politics,
right out of law school.
Why isn't he listed as a bank officer?
The man is 68.
I doubt if he's in there counting bills
every day.
What happened, I guess,
is someone heard of McFadden's pending indictment
and figured he'd panic and take a plea.
Only Justice would be privy to that information.
Someone at the bank got nervous...
This murder could have been preemptive.
at Justice, We find the leak
squeeze him, and find the killer.
Where is that Justice investigator?
Cousins is his name?
Doing pro bono work on Liberty Street.
I've called there twice.
He's never in.
Try him again.
I'll see what I can find out from the other end.
You leave the Justice Department,
you can get hired on Park Avenue.
Sure. I can represent banks. I'm an expert, after all.
I'll take widows and orphans hurt by exploding toasters.
Maybe I don't sleep better,
but at least I like getting out of bed in the morning.
Who was in bed with Marshall McFadden?
Half of official Washington.
They stay under the covers together?
I'd hear about a file at the IRS--
Whoops, misplaced.
Comptroller of Currency--
they treated me like I was stealing silverware.
I thought you had sufficient evidence.
I was ready to indict McFadden
with eight counts of bank fraud.
Suddenly, they were changing the locks on my office door.
"They"?
They.
Told me it was budgetary.
Before you were shut down, who was on your staff?
I'll need names, addresses.
Ben Turner. He moved over to HUD.
Kevin Morehead at Trott and Donovan, Park Avenue.
Mike McNeer, I hear... maybe a monastery.
You got this wrong.
Nobody in my office told anybody we were indicting McFadden.
Let's hope so.
40 years, Adam.
Did we ever back a winner?
We backed you for governor.
Hell of a lot different than backing.
Without your brilliant political strategies,
I'd have never seen Albany.
Don't act so modest.
If you'd run my second campaign,
maybe I wouldn't have been a one-term wonder.
You made your mark in other ways.
The road less traveled?
No regrets here.
Then why the sudden turn into banking?
Maybe this is a battle I can win.
Our contemporaries--
they're not just the captains of industry.
They're the generals.
Envy? Ridiculous.
With your record,
they're going to be naming junior high schools after you.
My children, their children--
when my time has come,
I'd like to give them more than a folded American flag.
The bank asked me to sit on the board.
My name-- to them, it's worth a lot of money.
Dwight, is there anything I should know
about your bank's business?
Adam, we've been friends for more than four decades.
If there was anything,
believe me, you'd be the first to know.
Thank you.
I've done complete bios
on everyone involved in the McFadden investigation.
Rappoport and McNeer aren't connected to the bank.
And Morehead?
Inherited his old man's blue blood,
who is currently the senior partner at Tyler and Jones.
Guess who ran their international department,
in the early '70s?
Dwight Corcoran.
Whose biggest client at the time
was a young British upstart named...
Marshall McFadden.
I want Mr. Morehead in my office first thing tomorrow morning.
So there was a leak.
What is it, a slow news day?
You're the only one who was privy
to the pending indictment of McFadden
and connected to Dwight Corcoran.
We know what you did, Mr. Morehead.
The only remaining issue
is how long you'll spend in prison.
Wait a minute.
Even if I did speak out of school,
your office has no jurisdiction and you know it.
You don't understand.
We are charging you as an accomplice to murder.
You can't do that.
Yes, I can, sir,
and I most definitely will.
Full immunity, state and federal.
How you work it out is your problem.
You got to keep this in perspective.
It was the crazy '80s.
Banks were floating loans
to every creep in a three-piece suit.
Five Boroughs was no different.
200 million in failed loans since '82.
Someone there was making money
because of the bad loans to McFadden.
I never thought it was Corcoran.
Then why the leak?
I grew up believing
that Dwight Corcoran was a good man.
I wanted to let him know that he was being investigated,
so that he could disassociate himself from the bank.
I never thought...
I had nothing to do with any murder.
You look like the messenger
who's afraid he's going to be killed.
I'm afraid the message might kill the recipient.
Well?
Paul connected one of the staff lawyers in Cousins' office
with one of the bank officers, all right.
Apparently, the man's father
was Corcoran's law partner back in the '50s.
And he told Corcoran
about the pending indictment on McFadden.
I'm afraid so, Adam.
Don't be.
No fear, no favor.
You know, that's an old liberal muckraker's campaign slogan.
As a result of these preliminary findings,
my office will begin a full-scale investigation
of fraud in the banking industry.
We're targeting what may amount
to nearly $700 million worth of fraudulent loans.
That concludes my statement.
I'm ready for questions.
I've heard that the Bank of the Five Boroughs
might be investigated.
Could you comment?
Any bank within our jurisdiction
might be a target.
Do you have information about the Five Boroughs?
Yes.
Will you also target individual bank officers?
Yes.
How far up the ladder are you prepared to go?
The investigation will go wherever it goes.
Isn't Governor Corcoran chairman of the bank?
That's our understanding.
Don't you have a relationship with him?
Yes. Friendship is no guarantee of immunity.
"Friends" doesn't mean he'll get preferential treatment.
Do you want your own lecture?
It's not about conflict of interest,
but the appearance of conflict.
The press has you joined at the hip.
Why throw fuel on the fire? We recuse ourselves,
the appellate division appoints a special prosecutor.
Recusal is mandatory only if there's
a business relationship with the defendant.
Dwight was my friend and my political ally.
Still, if we don't recuse we may compromise
the perceived integrity of this office.
Not if we convict the son of a bitch.
Get me a smoking gun. Start at the bottom.
Somebody broke into Vilanis's apartment that night.
ROBINETTE: Well? Were you home that night or not?
No, I wasn't home.
You told the police
you didn't see anything suspicious.
If you weren't here,
how did you see anything?
Lying to the police is a felony.
It's called obstruction.
All right, there was a guy.
He said he was a buddy of Vilanis.
You know, from the union.
What did he want?
He said Vilanis sent him over
to get some things from his room, some papers for their meeting.
And you let him in?
He had a union button, you know, on his jacket.
Did he take anything out of the room?
I wasn't paying attention.
You pay attention to what he looked like?
He had black hair
and cowboy boots--
you know, with the metal tips.
He was a piece of work.
( coughing )
You want some juice?
No, thanks.
Well, it... it sounds like Joey Boots.
That's Joey Palmieri, the Hoboken cowboy.
Any relation to Eddie Palmieri?
The head of the union?
Are you suggesting there's nepotism
in local 8157?
( chuckles )
That's Eddie Palmieri's cousin--
his wacko cousin.
He takes orders from Eddie?
He's supposed to work for the union.
With a little arm-twisting and a little leg-breaking,
Joey's your man.
Why? What did he do now?
That's still an open question.
JOEY: You guys are nuts.
Vilanis is nuts. All that hacking knocked his screws loose.
Do you deny
you were in his room?
Sure I deny it.
You work for Local 8157,
is that correct?
That's right.
And you take orders
from your cousin, Eddie Palmieri?
I take orders from the rank and file.
Just what do you do for the rank and file, sir?
I promote union solidarity and discipline.
You're both Palmieris.
Don't give us that.
He is my cousin, not my Siamese twin.
His life does not concern me.
He breaks in, steals a gun,
uses the gun to kill the guy who's lining your pockets.
It would concern me.
Joey Boots killed McFadden.
We know that.
We also know that he took orders from you.
You got proof Joey offed the guy,
I'll testify against him myself.
As for the money, it's totally above board.
McFadden pays you...
PALMIERI: McFadden gave me shinola.
It was his wife's foundation. I did some consulting.
You expect me to believe that, Eddie?
You sold out your union.
I tried to save it.
There's a recession.
We had to make cutbacks.
The letter to the bank was legit, the payment was legit.
You want my cousin Joey?
Why don't you give him a migraine for a change?
The union boss was the link.
Eddie Palmieri facilitated deals
between McFadden and Corcoran's bank.
Not enough-- I want a smoking gun.
His cousin was the trigger man.
I want a smoking gun with fingerprints.
What about the payment-- $100,000?
The check was made out to Palmieri.
He's still sticking by his consulting fee story.
Then we need more.
A check signed by McFadden-- that's not enough?
No.
It wasn't McFadden himself.
It was a foundation, remember?
The Ann McFadden Foundation.
The what?
The Ann McFadden Foundation
for Cancer Research.
I gave him $1,000 every year for five years.
That foundation...
one year, we were on the banquet committee.
Him?
Dwight Corcoran--
trustee of the foundation.
He had to approve all checks.
So it was Corcoran who paid Palmieri, not McFadden.
The money had to be for the hit.
No way Corcoran wants
to do heavy jail time.
A little push, he'll give us the Palmieris.
That's exactly what I want you to tell Palmieri.
You want us to deal Eddie and Joey?
I want Corcoran.
So you cajoled Mr. Vilanis's landlord
into letting you in.
And then what?
Then I found the guy's gun...
taped the handle and the trigger
and stuck it in my pocket.
Back home, I filed the numbers down.
STONE: And you used the gun to kill Mr. McFadden, right?
That's right.
Why did you use
Mr. Vilanis as your scapegoat?
The guy had a big mouth.
Everybody in the union knew he hated McFadden,
'cause he took over the company and ran it into the ground.
And?
Plus he's dying of cancer, so what the hell?
What's he going to care, right?
Who paid you to do the hit?
My cousin Eddie.
Tell me, Mr. Palmieri,
do you recognize People's Exhibit 37-M?
Yes, I do.
It is a check for $100,000,
made out to you
and drawn from the account
of the Ann McFadden Foundation, is that right?
Yeah, that's right.
On the books, it was supposed to pay for my union people
to set up the tables and stuff
for the annual banquet.
The foundation's annual banquet?
Yeah, that's right.
Mr. Corcoran had the check
signed by the secretary.
Objection. Outside the scope of the witness' knowledge.
Let me rephrase the question.
How did this check get into your hands, sir?
Well, I was having dinner at Park's Steak House
and Mr. Corcoran came in and joined me for dessert.
Then what happened?
He gave me the check.
He told me to take care of the problem
that we had discussed earlier.
What problem?
McFadden's indictment.
He said if McFadden goes down,
he'll name names
and we'll all go down with him.
So the check wasn't for setting up tables.
You kidding?
Marshall McFadden, right? It was to kill
Objection.
Withdrawn.
Tell me, Mr. Palmieri,
why did Mr. Corcoran pay you $100,000?
You know.
It was to kill the English guy, McFadden.
Thank you.
MALE REPORTER: Mr. Corcoran, could we get a statement from you?
( reporters clamoring )
SCHIFF: Norwich...
bring him around the back stairs.
Thank you, Adam.
Thank you.
I could use a friend.
You always did, Dwight.
That was always the problem.
What is your reaction to the decision?
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