By all accounts, Joel J. Seidemann, the veteran litigator who closed the case against Brooke Astor's son Anthony D. Marshall and lawyer Francis X. Morrissey, is pugnacious, unrelenting and highly effective.
And Mr. Seidemann's take-no-prisoners advocacy finally paid off in what was one of the most high-profile cases of his 27-year career. Yesterday, on its 12th day of deliberations, the jury delivered guilty verdicts on 15 counts of a 17-count indictment.
Emotion is the key to getting convictions, Mr. Seidemann said in an interview before the verdict. "You can prove guilt beyond a reasonable doubt, but if no one was hurt the jury will just say 'so what,'" he said. "It's easier to prove a murder than a shoplifting."
To steel the jury to convict in the Astor case, Mr. Seidemann launched a barrage of attacks on the two defendants' actions, motives and credibility during a summation that lasted more than two days. Some examples:
• Mr. Marshall's "mother had committed the unpardonable sin of living too long. He waited and waited, with an undertaker's shovel in hand for his mother to die."
• "The evidence shows that the defendant began to see Ms. Astor as his personal piggy bank, as his own little ATM, that there was no credit limit on it."
• "Mr. Marshall was a person of many contradictions. The yacht for $920,000, he wasn't frugal about that…but a safety gate [at his mother's duplex Park Avenue apartment] for two grand, not gonna happen."
Those verbal brickbats are expected fare from a prosecutor who was "a go-to guy in the office for difficult cases," said Daniel J. Horowitz, a former Manhattan prosecutor who is now a partner at Dickstein Shapiro.
"He pulled no punches," Mr. Horowitz said, "and stories about his use of humor, sometimes cutting, were legend in the office."
Gerald Shargel, who most recently represented convicted swindler-lawyer Marc S. Dreier and has been hired to counsel the CBS producer who allegedly tried to shake down David Letterman, described Mr. Seidemann as "a very tough advocate, pugnacious and intense. I had the sense he didn't like defense lawyers any more than he liked their clients."
Robert Gottlieb, a defense lawyer, represented a crucial witness for two inmates who were seeking to reopen their convictions and sentences of 25 years to life for the 1990 slaying of a bouncer at the Palladium nightclub.
Evidence had emerged that the witness Mr. Gottlieb represented was one of two other men who shot the bouncer.
Mr. Gottlieb recalled that his client had been given immunity by the Manhattan District Attorney's Office. But when Mr. Gottlieb approached Mr. Seidemann with the immunity letter and asked the prosecutor to reaffirm it, Mr. Seidemann was "obstinate and rigid" and refused, said Mr. Gottlieb.
Mr. Seidemann said he delayed affirming the letter for several hours until it had been vetted by the office's appeals bureau. Mr. Seidemann said he then confirmed that the testimony of Mr. Gottlieb's client could not be used against him. Eventually, the client testified that he was one of the shooters.
The district attorney's office agreed it would not retry one of the men, Olmedo Hildago. A judge ordered that the other man, David Lemus be retried. Mr. Lemus was acquitted after his retrial (NYLJ, Dec. 14, 2007). Both had been in prison approximately 13 years.
Jonathan P. Bach, a partner at Cooley Godward Kronish who represented Mr. Lemus at his retrial, said Mr. Seidemann "fought a full-pitched battle from start to finish, but this time he happened to lose."
Daniel Bibb, a former prosecutor who worked on the Palladium case but quit the office after becoming convinced the two original defendants had not committed the crime, nonetheless praised Mr. Seidemann as "one of the best trial lawyers in the office."
"If I had done something wrong," Mr. Bibb said, "he is on a short list of guys I wouldn't want after me."
22 Homicide Trials
Over the course of his 27 years at the Manhattan prosecutor's office, Mr. Seidemann, 55, has tried 22 homicides and obtained convictions in 20.
Among his biggest cases have been the conviction of Manuel Martinez, a divorce lawyer, for hiring a hit man to kill his client's ex-husband. He also handled the prosecution of cabbie Ronald Popadich, who is serving a sentence of up to 25 years after pleading guilty to killing a neighbor. Mr. Popadich was also accused of running down 25 New Yorkers in midtown and shooting another cabbie during a three-day crime spree.
For three years before joining the district attorney's office in 1982, Mr. Seidemann was an associate in the trusts and estates and corporate banking departments of Shearman & Sterling.
Mr. Seidemann has produced two books: "In the Interests of Justice," a collection of memorable opening and closing statements from the last 100 years; and "Guilty by Reason of Stupidity," a recounting of more than 100 tales of bizarre and ridiculous conduct in the courtroom.
Mr. Seidemann said that the two New York City lawyers he admires the most are Jay Goldberg for his ability to use humor to humanize both himself and his clients; and Benjamin Brafman for his ability to turn a phrase and tell a heart-wrenching story for his clients.
Mr. Goldberg's influence could be seen in Mr. Seidemann's closing statement. Referring to the length of the trial, Mr. Seidemann's first words to the jury were, "I was thinking of coming out here with a sandwich board which read 'The end is near,'" but the two other members of the prosecution team—Assistant District Attorneys Elizabeth Loewy and Pierce Moser—"outvoted me…so here I am."
Elder Abuse Unit
Mr. Seidemann was added to the prosecution team after Ms. Loewy, the head of the Manhattan office's elder abuse unit, had developed the case. She and Mr. Seidemann handled the lion's share of the witnesses. Ms. Loewy also delivered the prosecution's opening statement.
Ms. Loewy, 51, has been a prosecutor in Manhattan since graduating from Albany Law School in 1984. She was appointed in 1990 head of the domestic violence unit, where her portfolio was expanded to include elder abuse cases. In 1995, elder abuse cases were spun off into a separate unit, which Ms. Loewy has since overseen.
Mr. Moser joined the office in 2006 as a member of the special prosecutions bureau and has been involved in this case since then. He has a background in tax litigation and handled the financial witnesses at the trial.
Mr. Moser, 42, a 1999 graduate of the University of Virginia Law School, had spent three years as a tax associate at Wilmer, Cutler & Pickering (now WilmerHale) and four years handling tax litigation at McKee Nelson, which in August merged with Bingham McKutchen.
@|Daniel Wise can be reached at dwise@alm.com.
