Criminal Attorney - The Devil’s Bargain | 1

Episode Date: September 23, 2024

Paul Bergrin is a federal attorney and Shawn Brokos is an FBI agent. Both are dedicated to putting away the “bad guys” in Newark. But Paul makes a choice that puts them on opposing sides and sets them up for an epic collision.Follow Criminal Attorney on the Wondery App or wherever you get your podcasts. You can listen to new episodes early and ad-free on Wondery+. Join Wondery+ in the Wondery App, Apple Podcasts or Spotify. Start your free trial by visiting https://wondery.com/links/criminal-attorney/ now.  See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Wondery Plus subscribers can binge all episodes of Criminal Attorney early and ad-free. Join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app or on Apple Podcasts. It was an early summer evening in Middletown, New Jersey. Just your average quiet suburb about an hour south of Newark. The sun was setting. It was the start of the weekend, and Sean Brokos was out back having drinks with a friend. Our deck sat up high, and we overlooked woods,

and there was this kind of rolling stream that I loved because it just was that, you know, the constant sound of just water trickling. Sean was coming off an intense week. She'd been slammed at work and was doing double duty with the kids since her husband was out of the country. That night, she was excited to relax and connect with her girlfriend,

who was visiting her for the weekend. I didn't even take my cell phone with me, which is unusual. I usually have my cell phone attached to my body at all times. They were drinking some Dale's Pale Ale that her friend had brought from Pittsburgh. It was exactly the break that Sean wanted.

But it didn't last long. When Sean got up to grab two more beers from the kitchen, she noticed her phone on the counter. I've got all these missed calls and I'm thinking, what's happening? We all know that feeling. But Sean was an FBI agent. And the person calling her was a prosecutor working with her on a case. Sean called him back. He told her there was an issue with someone that Sean had arrested, a guy by the name of Paul Bergren. Sean had been investigating Paul for several years and had finally put him in handcuffs

a few months before on charges that included drugs, racketeering, and conspiracy to murder a witness. But the reason the prosecutor was interrupting her Friday evening was that Paul Bergeron had just been caught on tape talking about Sean. All I knew was he had mentioned something about getting rid of me, something like that. Bergeron had mentioned to get rid of me. And I'm thinking, I've got a three-year-old and a two-year-old in bed asleep. She'd been an FBI agent for 13 years. But this was the first time a target had tried to put a hit on her.

This is surreal. You know, all I wanted to do was have some drinks on the deck with my girlfriend. And now, like, this whole thing has just gotten crazy and out of hand. She barely had enough time to figure out what to do next before she heard people arrive at her house. So law enforcement had already been notified, our FBI office, and local police. So within probably five minutes of me seeing my phone,

we had local Middletown police parked out in front of my house. Sean looked at her friend. My poor girlfriend's there like, what the hell is happening here? I'm trying to process this. Moments after the police arrived, Sean's boss at the FBI showed up. Walked in my kitchen, 9 o'clock at night.

They wanted me to go, to go into a hotel, to take the kids, go somewhere else. But Sean wasn't feeling that. She put Paul Bergeron in jail. She wasn't going to let him run her out of her home. And she was definitely going to finish up her girls' weekend. They said, nope, I'm staying right here. And that's when they said, well, we'll have the police out here 24-7. Everybody took it very seriously.

And there was a reason they took it seriously. Paul Berggrin had a reputation as someone who was connected. He was a lawyer who knew the system and did what he needed to win. He was someone who did not make empty threats. If Paul asked you to do something, it wasn't a request. It was an order. Loyalty is blind and blind loyalty is really blind. I don't have anything to say under the Fifth Amendment without my attorney being present. Psychosis is a kind of mysterious thing, you know.

I mean, people make up all kinds of stories. I knew that if she had to defend herself and our family that she'd be able to do it. He was a murderer that wore a three-piece suit. From Wondery, I'm Brandon Jinks Jenkins, and this is Criminal Attorney. Run, better run, better run, run from the boogeyman. When I was a kid, I spent a ton of weekends visiting with my dad's family in Newark, New Jersey.

And I always looked forward to those trips because I'd get to hang out with family on the big front stoop of my grandma's apartment. And as we got older, we'd graduate from the stoop to the stairs, and then the stairs to the sidewalk, and then from the sidewalk to the ends of the corners. But no matter what, we were not allowed in the street. Because at any moment, a stolen car could come speeding down the block.

And as much as I love Newark, I was always aware of this hidden danger. Maybe it's that speeding car, or maybe it's a cop in a uniform. Newark was vibrant, but with vibrance comes vigilance. And the thing is, I was told to stay out of trouble, and I tried to, I listened. But if you didn't, if you were the least bit inclined

to venture out into the street and get in the mix, even a little, Newark was the kind of place where you could find yourself sliding downhill before you even knew what was happening, before you could do anything to stop yourself. And it might start out as guilt by association, but it can become more than that. It can become guilt by action. This is Episode 1, The Devil's Bargain. In 1989, Newark felt almost like a playground for criminals. Robbery, vandalism, murder, you name it.

If you had criminal intent, then Newark, New Jersey was a land full of possibility. And there was a good chance you would get away with it. That is, unless you ran into a young prosecutor named Paul Berggrin. I think Paul won every case that he tried. He was ruthless. He was unwavering. John Edwards Tiffany was a fellow attorney who went way back with Paul. John was a little bit younger, but they both ran in the same Newark legal circles. And John knew that Paul did not try the type of cases that were exactly easy to win. At the height of his prosecuting career at Essex County, he was trying murder cases. And winning. This record helped him get recruited to join the U.S. Attorney's Office in Newark.

See, before he was attempting to take out FBI agents, he was on the side of the government. For someone like Paul, to get a job in the U.S. Attorney's Office was the big leagues. Paul would later claim that his new boss instructed him to kick ass and show the other prosecutors how to try a case. Paul arrived at the U.S. Attorney's Office with his signature mustache and nice suits. But he didn't really fit in with the other attorneys, the high-achieving Ivy League types. He had gone in over Southeastern, a small law school in Florida,

and reportedly hung up a Playboy calendar in the office instead of a diploma. The other assistant U.S. attorneys played golf on the weekends, while Paul said he went to his second job, running security at a Holiday Inn. He was a boxer in ex-military, so the side gig made sense. But Paul had a bigger problem than feeling like an outsider. His new office had just filed corruption charges against two homicide detectives he had worked with on a regular basis in Essex County. Paul was indefatigable. He said, it's a bunch of malarkey. This is a witch hunt.

We shouldn't be going after these individuals. These two guys were crucial to a whole bunch of murder cases Paul had won when he was a county prosecutor. And Paul was loyal to them. This is according to his unpublished memoir, which we got access to during the course of our reporting. But his new colleagues at the U.S. Attorney's Office didn't listen. They had enough proof against these detectives that they were willing to bring the case to trial. This trial was held in Newark and presided over by Judge Marion Trump Berry. Yes, you heard that right. Donald Trump's sister. At the trial,

the evidence against the policeman poured in. The jury and judge heard how they were recorded on wiretaps tipping off a drug dealer. They told the drug dealer about a police informant within his organization and helped him avoid arrest. I mean, the drug dealer himself took the stand to testify against the cops. It seemed like everyone and everything was against him. Everyone except Paul. During the course of the trial, Paul agreed to be a character witness. Okay, look, no one at the U.S. Attorney's Office knew why Paul was willing to basically commit career suicide by vouching for these two corrupt cops. But it cannot be understated how unusual it was. You're a sitting U.S. Attorney, and now you're not only injecting yourself into the mix of a case,

you're injecting yourself into a mix of a case to provide testimony that potentially is going to be beneficial and could lead to an acquittal of a defendant who's being prosecuted by the very office that you're employed. When you look at it, it's mind-blowing. Paul was testifying against his own people, voluntarily. He drafted a memo laying out his intention to speak on behalf of the accused cops. Well, that memo ended up in the hands of the United States attorney, who at the time happened to be Samuel Alito. Yes, that's future Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito.

The office, understandably, was trying to put pressure saying, you can't do this. This is really going to jettison your career. After the memo reached Alito, one of Paul's superiors stormed into his office and tried to convince Paul not to take the stand. He said, no, I've got an obligation. I know this man. He was an excellent investigator. And so in front of the jury, the local press, his colleagues in the U.S. Attorney's Office, and Donald Trump's sister, Paul Berggrin testified on behalf of the defense. He said the detectives were honest and trustworthy guys.

He also said he asked one of them to maintain contact with the drug dealer to get information out of the dealer for a triple murder case. Not only was he giving them credibility, he was giving them an excuse for giving confidential information to a drug dealer. But that wasn't the end. After he testified, Paul said he snuck over to the court to watch closing arguments. Typically, U.S. attorneys, if they're watching, will sit behind the U.S. table where the U.S. attorneys are sitting. Paul would often sit in the gallery, but behind the defense attorney table. After sitting down, Paul looked across the aisle.

There was Samuel Alito sitting behind the U.S. attorneys. He was looking directly at Paul. And he was not happy. When Paul got back to his office, he was called in to see one of his bosses and chewed out. He was told that his actions had been both distasteful and disloyal. The thing is, the case against the cops was solid. At best, Paul was playing the hero, testifying, knowing he was on the losing side.

The judge rejected a plea bargain, and both men were convicted on a litany of charges, including racketeering and drug and extortion conspiracy. Paul was punished too. After the trial, he was exiled to the sixth floor, where there weren't any other prosecutors. His new office was more like a broom closet. He had no telephone, no secretary, he didn't even have a filing cabinet. Basically, all the caseload that Paul had was taken away, and for at least three to six months, he would come into the office and really have nothing to do.

There wasn't anything going on. They weren't giving anything to him. His career at the U.S. Attorney's Office was over, and he knew it. He had another year left on his contract, but instead he submitted a letter of resignation. When Paul walked out of the building, he left with only a few belongings,

but plenty of hard feelings towards the feds. When Paul set up his private practice about four miles north of his former place of work, it was a completely different world from the U.S. Attorney's Office. No more fancy columns and 16 floors. His new office was in the Dollar Savings Bank building in Newark. Paul had one thing to say to the people of Newark. I'm here to serve you. This is Paul himself at an event organized by a small community group in Newark.

I mean, this is a system that's supposed to protect the good, the bad, the strong, the weak, the rich, the poor. And you come to realize that it really doesn't work like that. He was wearing a black tailored suit with a burgundy striped tie. His hair is jet black and pushed back, and his thin mustache is neatly trimmed. He was there to tell the attendees about their legal rights. Paul Berggrin was now a criminal defense attorney, and he knew exactly how the system was rigged, how a bad lawyer or untruthful witness could get an innocent person sent to prison.

And he had also seen how a good defense lawyer could help a guilty person beat charges. You get the mindset of a police officer so you know every trick of the trade. He knew how police officers did their jobs, what they could and couldn't do. That's where Paul had an advantage because he knew exactly what to do. And you know how to adjust the case to show and prove that the police are not telling the truth,

the whole truth, and not put the truth to help them God. And I think that's made me a much stronger defense counsel. And Paul Bergrin got results for his clients. It helped that he had his inside people. An assistant prosecutor with a gambling problem. Cops who were stealing drugs and money. He could give these guys a bit of legal help. And in return, they slipped him information that he needed for his cases.

You scratch my back, I scratch yours. It paid off. Paul won more and more cases that got him more clients and bigger clients, celebrities. There was Tretch from the group Naughty by Nature, who caught a weapons charge, and the rapper Eric B. after he got into an altercation with a police officer.

You have some other movie stars? I said Queen Latifah, you work with her? I've represented her, and she's a personal friend of mine. Queen Latifah was charged with video piracy for having bootleg VHS tapes in a video store she owned. Paul Berggrin got the charges dropped. I'm going to treat every single person like they're my own child, like they're my own brother,

and I'm going to pour my heart into every case, whether it's the simplest possession of marijuana in municipal court or to a murder trial. That was Paul Berggrin. No matter what you were accused of doing, he would do everything he could do to win, and he would be loyal no matter what it cost him. But this was Newark. You couldn't just represent celebrities. If you were a criminal defense attorney, the biggest business was with kingpins, people heavily involved in gangs and drugs. And one of those clients would soon catch the attention of an upstart FBI agent

and set Paul Bergrin on a collision course with his former employer, the federal government. In the 1970s, the FBI had weathered one scandal after another and implemented a mandate to regain the public's trust. But in doing so, they opened a Pandora's box to one of the most controversial missions in FBI history. Abscam, as it came to be known, was a sting operation to root out white-collar crime. Spearheaded by a lifelong conman, the FBI staged a lavish party on a yacht, set up illegal deals for casinos, with federal agents pretending to be Middle Eastern businessmen. From the creators of American History Tellers, Business Wars, and Ties of History comes American Scandal, where we take you deep into the heart of America's dark side. Every scandal begins with a

lie, but the truth will come out. Follow American Scandal on the Wondery app or wherever you get your podcasts. Experience all episodes ad-free and be the first to binge the newest season only on Wondery Plus. Join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app, Apple Podcasts, or Spotify. Start your free trial today. It was 2003 and Shawn Brokos was on her way to a Newark apartment complex. She'd received a tip that someone in that apartment had a gun, that they shouldn't. Shawn was in her early 30s, blonde and white in Newark. She looked like a teacher or a dentist, or someone with a desk job at a bank, which is actually what she'd been doing seven years earlier.

She ran the loan department at a bank in El Paso. So overseeing who qualified for commercial loans, personal loans, car loans. Until one day when federal agents came to the bank, they were investigating one of the bank's clients who they suspected of money laundering. It wasn't like in the movies. It wasn't all that exciting. Just two guys wearing suits serving a subpoena. But Sean was fascinated. She thought to herself, wow, this sounds a whole lot more interesting than the work I'm doing. I literally walked down to the local FBI office. I

put my name in, filled out an application, and before I knew it, I was off to Quantico for training for the FBI. Fast forward to present day, and Sean was a full-on, bona fide FBI agent. It was something that I knew would be an adventure. Look, Newark at the time was not a great place, but if you're in law enforcement, boy, there's no better place to be. She was part of the gang squad. We were always running cases on the Bloods and the Crips

because at the time in Newark, those were the strongest street gangs. And on this day, the case involved someone affiliated with the Crips. The man's name was Kimo Deshawn McCray. Kimo had been convicted of a felony, so it was illegal for him to have a gun. And that was enough to take him down. When Shauna and her partner got to the apartment, they knocked on the door. They were let inside, where they met Kimo and his mother.

We said, hey, we know you have a gun in the apartment. We know that you cannot be in possession of a gun. We don't have a search warrant. We can get one, but if you turn that weapon over to us, that would be the best thing to do. They went to the bedroom and opened the closet door. And there it was in the back of the closet. It was a sizable shotgun.

Brownstock, older model, and sawed off, meaning the barrel had been shortened. They grabbed the shotgun and headed back to the living room. I immediately walked up to chemo, and I said, you're going to have to come with us. And I was holding him. I think it was on his forearm or maybe like his upper arm. And I remember he just literally slipped right out of the jacket. So in a split second, he's gone and I'm left holding this jacket and he's out the door. Kimo and his mom were on the ground floor of the apartment building.

So his escape was pretty simple. And he had another advantage. I'm thinking I'm not chasing him. I'm in skirt and heels. I'm not going to chase after him through the projects. As Sean watched Kimo run off, she also saw a lost opportunity. See, Sean wasn't just there to get a gun off the street. Sean Brokos needed someone like Kimo. She had her eyes on some of the bigger players in Newark, and getting Kimo into custody was just the next very important step in her plan. In this case, Kimo McCray was not the white whale she was looking to land, but he was connected and could lead her up the ladder. She needed someone to go inside the crew and feed her information. That was why she needed Kimo McCray to agree to be a confidential informant.

Now let's be clear here. The FBI, throughout its history, has had a pretty bad reputation when it comes to informants. They use a small fish to go catch the big fish. But that feels more like big game hunting for optics more than any attempt to stop a problem or protect citizens. Like how long ago did they start the war on drugs? And how's it going now? But that's the game Sean's playing here.

There is no FBI investigation without getting people on the street to talk. And that was why the fact that he was now out the door and down the block was such a bad look. Sean turned to Kimo's mother. At first she claimed the gun was hers, not Kimo's. But Shawn wasn't buying it one bit. I said, you cannot own this gun for your son.

It is his and you cannot do this. It's just not the right thing to do. Then she said, yes, it is his gun. It is not my gun, but I don't want to get my son into trouble. So that's when I said, look, just come down to our office tomorrow. We can work through this. Sure enough, the next morning, Kimo and his mother showed up at the FBI field office in Newark. Kimo's a slim black guy in his early 30s. He's been in and out of jail a few times at this point. But now he's got kids.

He's very close with his family. And he does not want to do any more time. Sean remembers that Kimo's mom did a lot of the talking. He looked terrified. In his mom's apartment, Kimo had gotten the jump on Sean. But here, in her office, with Kimo's mother by his side ready to do anything to secure his freedom, Sean had all the leverage. She'd been in this situation enough times before.

She'd sat across other young men like Kimo and tried to flip them. So by now, she had a whole speech worked out. You don't have to answer any questions. I'm not going to ask you any questions. But I'd like you to listen to me for the next five minutes. Sean lays it out for Kimo. It's simple. You can either join our team, become part of team government, which means you're going to help us in our investigations.

If you decide against that, you do know that I will have to arrest you for being in possession of this weapon. And what that's going to look like is you're going to do jail time. You have the previous conviction. You will be going to jail for quite some time. So go to jail or become an informant and risk your life trying to infiltrate a ruthless drug game. Rock, meet Hard Place. And so, you know, it's that crossroads, and you have to pick now. I'm going to give you a couple minutes to think about this. You need to think about this now.

Decide here and now what you're going to do. I'm not going to tell you what to do, but I can tell you if you become an informant, we'll do everything in our power to protect you forever. Sean left the room so Kimo could talk things over with his mother. What Sean was pitching Kimo was obviously very dangerous. In Newark, getting caught collaborating with the authorities was the ultimate betrayal and could get you killed. Witness statements had a way of finding their way out the police file and getting posted on telephone poles around the neighborhood, leaving the streets to deliver their own retribution.

On the other hand, Kimo didn't want to go to jail. He wanted to spend time with his family. And there were other considerations, like money. Hooking up with Sean could mean a little extra income for himself and his family. The devil's bargain, for sure. Sean waited a couple of minutes, then walked back to get her answer. Back in the room, Kimo McCray told Agent Sean Brokos he'd take her deal. Kimo would lead Sean directly to her

white whale. But joining up with the FBI and essentially betraying everybody he runs with? It would go exactly as you would expect. Initially, Sean had Kimo making deals with guys towards the bottom of the pyramid, low-level dealers. They did a lot of these buys and built a routine. First, Kimo and Sean would meet up somewhere in the Newark area. At a predetermined location. It was off the beaten path.

If we pulled up in a van and he was on the street corner and hopped in, people wouldn't think twice about it. Once Kimo was in the backseat of the minivan, they'd discuss their next buy. We'd talk a little bit about what's going on, are you ready to do this, have you spoken to the target, have you run into them, are they available, and then we come up with our plan of action.

The plan of action was usually pretty simple. Tell them you want an ounce of crack. Now it was a matter of getting chemo wired up and ready to go. The digital recording devices, they were small. It almost looked like one of those square cigarette lighters. And you would just say, look, put it in your pocket. Like, but close to your mouth. We'd activate the device, do a preamble, put it on him, and then send him out.

But not before they'd agreed on a safe word. There was always the risk of an informant being identified. And if that happened, the situation could go south south fast chemo came up with his own usually you pick a random word but he's like i can't just say banana in the middle of a drug deal that's just not gonna work so i said okay well what is something if this was going south in your terms what would you say and he said i'd say this is up this is fucked up. This is fucked up? Huh. Clever. Sure. They had safety measures like the safe word. But the reality was that as soon as he stepped out of the minivan, Kimo was on his own. Sometimes there'd be a video feed, but often it was just audio from Kimo's wire.

And if that feed dropped out, Sean would have to improvise. Sometimes I would just call him and just, he'd act like I was a girlfriend or somebody else and I'd be like, hey, where are you? What's happening? And he, you know, he'd say something along the lines of, I'm almost done. Give me a minute. I'll be there. After the deal was done, Kimo would head back to the minivan.

We grab the drugs off of him right away, shut off the recording device and then debrief him. You know, what did you see? What did you hear? How'd it go? What's going on? Take the drugs back, test them, and off we went. It became just like a routine to us. We did a lot of those. And that's how it went for a while. Kimo got wired up. He made buys. He went back to the minivan. And Kimo did well as an informant. In fact, he was pretty much the perfect informant because he was the last person anyone suspected of being one.

Because people liked him. They didn't suspect him. Just a really good person. Salt of the earth, good person. Of course, there were hiccups. There was always drama. One time, Kimo's pet dog ate the transmitter and then there was a child care.

He adored Man-Man, loved him. Man-Man was like a son to Kimo's pet dog ate the transmitter. And then there was a child care. He adored Man-Man. Loved him. Man-Man was like a son to Kimo. He would sometimes bring him along when he was working with Sean. It was very mixed, because you see this kid who's four or five, this adorable young kid who's thrown into this life, didn't ask to be thrown into this life. But she couldn't tell Kimo not to bring him,

or she'd risk losing a chance to send Kimo out for a buy. They would laugh and joke and have fun and, you know, Kimo, he'd always have a little toy with him that Kimo bought him, and it was very heartwarming. Sean says she and Kimo were in nearly constant contact, so she got to know a little about his personal life, and she liked him. But Sean was an FBI agent, and Kimo was her confidential informant. By nature, the rapport was one of power and transaction, where Sean held all the leverage. Kimo needed to do what she said, because she held his freedom in her hands. Most of the early deals Kimo made were small time, small amounts from lower-level dealers. But that all changed when Kimo told Sean that he'd been connected to someone major. He said, hey, this guy, Will,

knows that I've been buying from one of the housing projects and told me I can get crack heroin from him. I don't have to buy from these lower-level guys. I can just go directly to him. This guy't have to buy from these lower level guys. I can just go directly to him. This guy, Will, was William Baskerville. Sean didn't recognize the name, but when she asked a colleague, he knew exactly who she was talking about.

Oh yeah, that's Will Baskerville. He's a big time dealer. And so that became a game changer for us. We thought, okay, this is now taking us to a much higher level. So we just started doing buys from Will Baskerville. But leveling up came with increased risk. On the street corner, you have visibility.

You set up surveillance. You can cover the corner. This, it was a car with dark tinted windows. You couldn't always see who was driving. You didn't know where the car was going to come from. The buys from Will became a regular thing. Kimo would purchase at least five grams of crack cocaine. That was a threshold to get Will on a high mandatory minimum sentence.

But Will Baskerville was on high alert. For snitches. We could sense that Will was starting to get a little suspect. One day, Sean was getting chemo ready for a buy. She got him wired up in the van, dropped him off where he was going to approach Will. But this time, they decided to switch things up a bit. We ended up trying to change the drugs we were buying, because we wanted to see what Will could get his hands on.

Instead of buying the usual, crack cocaine, chemo would ask for heroin. That was suspicious for Will because Will's like, why all of a sudden do you need this? Sean was listening in and could hear the conversation getting more and more tense. And then, Will came out and said it.

I know you're a snitch. Will really gave him hell and thought he was a snitch. And he wasn't wrong. Sean started to panic. And we're listening to it thinking, oh my gosh, what are we going to do? I mean, I remember a couple times looking at some of my coworkers saying, should we go in? Should we go in? Sean and her team sat waiting for those four words from Kimo.

The signal to storm in. This is fucked up. But it never came. Kimo managed to talk his way out of it when Will pressed him. That's where his personality really played well, because he was so likable and gregarious. He could tap dance. He could do that tap dance where a lot of people, I think,

would be really, really nervous. He was known in the street, so I think that helped his credibility. When Sean got Kimo back in the van, she was finally able to breathe. She knew that if the situation had gone bad, she could have jumped in and protected chemo, but she was just glad he was safe. After chemo had made enough buys, Sean had the evidence she needed. She was ready to arrest Will Baskerville. But the plan wasn't to lock him up. He was just another step in her plan, another rung on the ladder. You know the drill. Sean wanted to flip Will so she could aim her sights even higher. But as she was gearing up for the arrest,

she had no idea about the unexpected consequences. Will Baskerville's lawyer was Paul Berggrin, criminal attorney. And what she would soon learn is that Paul would do anything to keep his clients out of jail, no matter the cost, no matter who got in the way. Isn't it funny how witnesses disappear or how evidence

doesn't show up or somebody doesn't testify correctly? That's on the next episode of Criminal Attorney. Follow Criminal Attorney on the Wondery app, Amazon Music, or wherever you get your podcasts. You can binge all episodes early and ad-free right now by joining Wondery Plus in the Wondery app or on Apple Podcasts. Before you go, tell us about yourself by completing a short survey at wondery.com slash survey. From Wondery, this is episode one of six of Criminal Attorney. Criminal Attorney

is hosted by me, Brandon Jinks Jenkins. This series is reported and written by Matthew Nelson. Senior producers are Chris Siegel and Stephanie Wachneem. Senior story editor is Rachel B. Doyle. Associate producer is Malachi Wade. Consulting producer is David Fox. With additional writing from Neil Drumming. Fact-checking by Annika Robbins. Sound design and mixing by Jeff Schmidt.

Audio assistance by Daniel William Gonzalez. Sound supervisor is Marcelino Fio Pondo. Music supervisor is Scott Velasquez for Freesound Sync. Senior managing producer is Lata Pandia. Managing producer is Heather Beloga. Development producer is Olivia Weber. Executive producer is Matthew Nelson. Executive producers are Nigel Eton, George Lavender, Marshall Louis, and Jen Sargent for Wondery.

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