Mickey Haller 4 - The Fifth Witness

one of them, the judge entered the courtroom and took the bench. He called for the jury and we quickly went back on the record. I called Donald Driscoll to the stand. After he was sworn in, I got right down to business.
    “Mr. Driscoll, what is your profession?”
    “I’m in IT.”
    “And what does IT mean?”
    “Information technology. It means I work with computers, the Internet. I find the best way to use new technologies to gather information for the client or employer or whoever it may be.”
    “You are a former employee of ALOFT, correct?”
    “Yes, I worked there for ten months until earlier this year.”
    “In IT?”
    “Yes.”
    “What exactly did you do in IT for ALOFT?”
    “I had several duties. It’s a very computer-reliant business. A lot of employees and a great need for access to information through the Internet.”
    “And you helped them get it.”
    “Yes.”
    “Now, do you know the defendant, Lisa Trammel?”
    “I’ve never met her. I know of her.”
    “You know of her from this case?”
    “Yeah, but also from before.”
    “From before. How so?”
    “One of my duties at ALOFT was to try to keep tabs on Lisa Trammel.”
    “Why?”
    “I don’t know why. I was just told to do it and I did it.”
    “Who told you to keep tabs on Lisa Trammel?”
    “Mr. Borden, my supervisor.”
    “Did he tell you to keep tabs on anybody else?”
    “Yes, a bunch of other people.”
    “How many is a bunch?”
    “I guess there were about ten.”
    “Who were they?”
    “Other mortgage protestors like Trammel. Plus employees of some of the banks we did business with.”
    “Like who?”
    “The man who was killed. Mr. Bondurant.”
    I checked my notes for a while and let that percolate with the jury.
    “Now, by keeping tabs, what did that mean?”
    “I was to look for whatever I could find on these people online.”
    “Did Mr. Borden ever tell you why you had this assignment?”
    “I asked him once and he said because Mr. Opparizio wants the information.”
    “Is that Louis Opparizio, founder and president of ALOFT?”
    “Yes.”
    “Now were there any specific instructions from Mr. Borden in regard to Lisa Trammel?”
    “No, it was just sort of see what you can find out there.”
    “And when did this become your assignment?”
    “It was last year. I started working at ALOFT in April and so it would have been a few months after that.”
    “Could it have been July or August?”
    “Yeah, right about then.”
    “Did you give the information you got to Mr. Borden?”
    “Yes, I did.”
    “Did there come a time that you became aware that Lisa Trammel was on Facebook?”
    “Yes, it was sort of an obvious thing to check.”
    “Did you become her friend on Facebook?”
    “Yes.”
    “And this put you in a position to monitor her posts about the FLAG organization and the foreclosure of her home, correct?”
    “Yes.”
    “Did you tell your supervisor about this specifically?”
    “I told him that she was on Facebook and was fairly active, and that it was a good spot for monitoring what she was doing and planning for FLAG.”
    “How did he respond?”
    “He told me to monitor it and then summarize everything once a week in an e-mail. So that’s what I did.”
    “And did you use your own name when you sent Lisa Trammel your friend request?”
    “Yes. I was already on Facebook as, you know, myself. So I didn’t hide it. I mean, I doubted she knew who I was anyway.”
    “What sort of reports did you give Mr. Borden?”
    “You know, like if her group was planning a protest somewhere I would tell them the date and time, that sort of stuff.”
    “You just said ‘them.’ Were you giving these reports to someone other than Mr. Borden?”
    “No, but I knew he was forwarding them to Mr. Opparizio because Mr. O. would send me e-mails every now and then about the stuff I sent Mr. Borden. So I knew he was seeing the reports.”
    “In all of this, did you do anything illegal while snooping around for Borden and Opparizio?”
    “No, sir.”
    “Now did one of your weekly summaries of Lisa Trammel’s activities ever include reference to her posts about being in the garage at WestLand National and waiting to talk to Mitchell Bondurant?”
    “Yes, there was one. WestLand was one of the company’s biggest clients and I thought maybe Mr. Bondurant should know, if he didn’t already, that this woman had waited for him out there.”
    “So you gave Mr. Borden the details of how Lisa Trammel