True Crime Stories: Lester

TRUE CRIME STORIES: Lester

when i was in organized crime/public corruption i inherited an investigation of the head of one of the rehabilitation programs who we had gotten intel on was using program credit cards for expenditures--such as vacations and jewelry--that did not, on their face, appear to be directly connected to the aims of reducing recidivism.

every probe by law enforcement, no matter how preliminary and exploratory, was magnified in effect on the fragile constitution of the program head as a whisper is transformed into a shout by one of those science funhouse contraptions.

blithely ignorant of all this i immediately issued a subpoena for some documents on lester himself. the subpoena was served on a sunday morning just as lester was greeting the new day.

monday morning i got a call from his attorney, former judge tom johnson.

"ben, lester called me on sunday, said you served a subpoena on him."

"yeah tom, i did."

"jeezus ben, lester's shittin' so much he can't touch his asshole with a powder puff."

(over my laughter) "there's a knock on his door on a nice sunday morning, he answers the door in his bathrobe and some guy serves him with a subpoena. i think he spent the rest of the day in the bathroom."


-benjamin harris