Mona Soo Hoo just gave her closing argument on behalf of former SBC phone company worked Ray Turner and it was surprisingly good. She did a great job of pointing out that most of the damning testimony against Mr. Turner came from Teresa Wright, a phone company employee who was frightened and terrified after the government was able to prove that she'd looked up private telephone company information because her identification code was still in the system. But, Ms. Soo Hoo effectively pointed out that along with Ms. Wright, all of the witnesses against Mr. Turner were government collaborators who had great motive to say whatever the government told them to say. As she put it, there's no stronger motive than trying to save your own life.
She also noted that none--and this is actually true--none of the government evidence actually showed that Mr. Turner was wiretapping. The Pellicano employees identified him as the "phone guy" for Mr. Pellicano, but she wondered about where were the documents from Mr. Pellicano's office showing the reformatted phone numbers that all these employees supposedly typed in from records brought to the office by Mr. Turner. And while she was arguing all of this, the jury seemed to be taking some notes and actually beginning to think about what the evidence actually showed against Mr. Turner. But at the same time, Mr. Saunders was furiously scribbling away, after announcing before Ms. Soo Hoo's close, that he 'd probably take more than an hour to close. (He'd previously told the Judge that he'd take 30 minutes to an hour. She didn't believe him and neither did I. After all, he's not the sort to let a single argument go by unrebutted--even when perhaps, he might want to be a bit more choosy about what he attacks and a bit more mindful of whether the jury even cares about what he's saying. This is, after all, a group of people being forced to listen to hour upon hour of argument. It might be smart to say something interesting to them once in a while....)
STILL TO COME, MR. SEMENZA CLOSE FOR MR. NICHERIE WHO IS CHARGED WITH LISTENING AND PAYING FOR WIRETAPS LIKE MANY OF THE WITNESSES WHO TESTIFIED ON BEHALF OF THE GOVERNMENT. SHOULD BE INTERESTING...
Read all the coverage from inside the Pellicano courtroom here.