Mickey Haller 4 - The Fifth Witness

pushing it with Judge Perry. I decided to at least see what the agent had to say on direct before I’d go that far.
    Vasquez was about forty, with a dark complexion and hair to match. During the preliminaries he said he had formerly been a DEA agent before shifting to the Secret Service. He went from chasing drug dealers to chasing counterfeiters until the opportunity came to join the foreclosure task force. He said the task force had a supervisor and ten agents coming from the Secret Service, FBI, the Postal Service and the IRS. An assistant U.S. attorney oversaw their work but the agents, assigned to pairs, largely worked autonomously, with freedom to pursue targets of their choice.
    “Agent Vasquez, on January eighteenth of this year you authored a so-called target letter to a man named Louis Opparizio and it was signed by U.S. Attorney Reginald Lattimore. Do you recall that?”
    “Yes, I do.”
    “Before we get into that specific letter, can you tell the jury exactly what a target letter is?”
    “It’s a tool we use to smoke out suspects and offenders.”
    “How so?”
    “We basically inform them that we are looking into their affairs, their business practices and actions they have taken. A target letter always invites the recipient to come in to discuss the situation with the agents. A high percentage of the time the recipients do just that. Sometimes it leads to cases, sometimes it leads to other investigations. It’s become a useful tool because investigations cost a lot. We don’t have the budget. If a letter can result in charges being filed or a witness cooperating or a solid investigative lead then it’s a good deal for us.”
    “So in regard to the letter to Louis Opparizio, what made you send him a target letter?”
    “Well, my partner and I were very familiar with his name because it came up often in other cases we were working. Not necessarily in a bad way, just that Opparizio’s company is what we call a foreclosure mill. It handles all the paperwork and filing on foreclosures for many of the banks operating in Southern California. Thousands of cases. So we kept seeing the company—ALOFT—and sometimes there were complaints about the methods the company was using. My partner and I decided to take a closer look. We sent out the letter to see what sort of response we’d get.”
    “Does that mean you were fishing for a reaction?”
    “It was more than fishing. As I said, there was quite a lot of smoke from this place. We were looking for fire and sometimes the reaction we get from a target letter dictates what our next moves will be.”
    “At the time you authored and sent the target letter, had you gathered any evidence of criminal wrongdoing on the part of Louis Opparizio or his company?”
    “Not at that point, no.”
    “What happened after you sent the letter?”
    “Nothing so far.”
    “Has Louis Opparizio responded to the letter?”
    “We got a response from an attorney saying that Mr. Opparizio welcomed the investigation because it would give him the opportunity to show he ran a clean business.”
    “Have you availed yourself of that welcome and investigated Mr. Opparizio or his company further?”
    “No, there hasn’t been time. We have several other ongoing investigations that appear to be more fruitful.”
    Freeman checked her notes before finishing.
    “Finally, Agent Vasquez, is Louis Opparizio or ALOFT currently under investigation by your task force?”
    “Technically, no. But we plan to follow up on the letter.”
    “So the answer is no?”
    “Correct.”
    “Thank you, Agent Vasquez.”
    Freeman sat down. She was beaming and obviously pleased with the testimony she had drawn from the agent. I stood up and took my legal pad back to the lectern. I had written down a few questions off the direct examination.
    “Agent Vasquez, are you telling the jury that an individual who does not respond to your target letter by immediately coming in and confessing must be innocent of any wrongdoing?”
    “No, I’m not.”
    “Because Louis Opparizio did not do so, do you consider him to be in the clear now?”
    “No, I don’t.”
    “Do you make it a practice to send target letters to individuals you believe are innocent of any criminal activity?”
    “No, I don’t.”
    “Then what is the threshold, Agent Vasquez? What does one need to do to receive a target letter?”
    “Basically, if you come across my radar in any sort of suspicious way, then I’ll do some