Posted on 08/26/2006 9:33:29 PM PDT by Ken H
Tony Soprano Channeling Sam Spade
I don't mind a reasonable amount of trouble. If I did, would you find me in those dark hours, eyeing some broad at Blinco's, about to find myself in the middle of the biggest story to hit town in years?
I'm Tony Soprano of the Court TV discussion board fame. No, not the guy on that TV show. I just took his moniker cause it gave me cover like a cheap toupee when a fella's follicles are few. I'm not afraid of cops like Gottlieb. I was there the night the caper with the fry cook went down.
Did I see it? No.
Gottlieb and I rub each other the wrong way, like a cheap wool suit you've had one year too long. Things were tense that night, my friends. I shot off my mouth a few times.
As Gottlieb passed my barstool, he leaned in close. I could see the oily sweat on his shiny bald head. "Keep riding on me and they're gonna be picking iron out of your liver." He straightened up and, with his posse following him, sauntered out the door into the alley. What happened next, well, that's the most baffling mystery story in years.
A friend of mine, a newsie, was in Blinco's a few nights later. "Tony, Have the barkeep pour me some of that booze you're drinking, and I'll tell you a story you might want to hear." "Good booze makes any tale you're going to tell one I want to hear." I motioned for him to pull out the barstool beside me. We waited till the dame serving us gave me a wink and sauntered back to the bar.
"Did you see Gottlieb's picture on the front page of the local rag. Did you read the piece saying his boss Nifong should be worried he's going down for the Blinco's gig?'
"Yeah, me and half the town saw that. What's your beef? Gottlieb's days as a Big Shot Bully are as numbered as a Currier and Ives calendar. The cook ratted him out, said the "Bald guy" was the instigator. Of the coppers here that night, Gottlieb fit that description like a Hong Kong suit you had made to order. He's as finished as a Dame from an East Coast Boarding school. He's going down.
The newsie smiled, took another sip of his drink. "Not so fast, Tony, Gottlieb may have hired a lawyer, but he ain't gonna take the fall. Our big story tomorrow is two young cops will take the rap for him. No way bossman Nifong will let his boy Gottlieb go down till the Dukies are duked out." I took a drag on my cigarette and watched the smoke curl across the table. The newsie leaned in and pushed copy of the morning's paper my way.
Our eyes met again as I glanced at the photos of the two cops charged."
But they have hair! Their heads look like lucky sheep who ran from a careless shearer. No way they fit the Cook's description. And Gottlieb lawyered up faster than a railroad car on an icy stretch of track!"
"Exactly. Nifong's the boss. He ain't gonna let no stinking fry cook ruin the best campaign strategy since Washington rowed across a frosty river in Delaware. Gottlieb's the chief investigator. Three months later, he turned in ...pages of notes. His recollection of events added details to Nifong's case like a New York seamstress adds sequins to a songbird's gown. Gottlieb's in solid with the boss."
I sat in stunned silence, not even a come hither look from the comely barmaid could stop my thoughts. The newsie took another sip of the bourbon I bought him.
"It ain't the first time either. One morning. around 6AM, Gottlieb ran a red light and rammed his car into another guy's ride right here in Raleigh. When the smoke cleared, Mr.Nobody's car had $7000 worth of damage. Our man Gottlieb didn't even get a ticket. Tony, if that was you or me, think the Raleigh cops would let it slide like a fried egg on a greasy stove?"
I leaned back. The newsie smiled a knowing smile. "Ain't gonna happen, Tony. Watch and see. The guy with the smashed car, the poor fry cook here that got knocked around? They are NOBODYS, Tony. And NOBODY cares." My beat can be ugly, my friends. The night can be cold. But this story chilled me like a eager bridegroom's champagne waiting to be uncorked. But it's not over yet. Tony Soprano doesn't go down easy.
******Footnote: Unlike some OTHER fiction writers LieStoppers feels the need to distinguish fiction from fact. Should the NYT wish to carry this story, LieStoppers will insist they disclose the difference. Tony Soprano was NOT in Blinco's the night of the Fry Cook beating, but we link to the basic facts of the story that ARE true.
[Links are at Liestoppers, and will be listed in posts to follow]
Another good point by Maggief.
And his level of involvement can be attested to by the young rookies notes. Himan recorded in his notes that Nifong directed the Police to arrest the Cabbie. He also annotated that Nifong wanted to be alerted when the Cabbie was in Police Custody.
The Cabbie is a minor bit player - yet look at the attention he garners from Nifong. It would hard for Nifong to distance himself from this case with this knowledge in the hands of defense attorneys.
He may have been thinking along the lines you mentioned Condorflight - he had an ADA sign off on the NTO application to the court for DNA, etc.
Which seems inconsistent with his other involvement in this case.
He may have reassured himself that he wasn't culpable for anything ... He did use the open letter to Susan Meadows/Newsweek to say that he didn't criticize the players or make public statements until AFTER they were indicted. That was another false statement - and "his reading" of the applicable laws in that area are as flawed as his ficticious reading of the medical records.
So, it looks like he was trying to defend some of his vunerabilities - and liabilities.
_
I think he does have some prior run-ins with the law.
He's making minimum wages and working Friday and Saturday nights too - so he doesn't have the resources to defend himself.
I know I'd be thinking -
Don't rock the boat - or it'll get shot out of the water.
.
"I don't think Nifong is giving up the fight."
Yet if he is forced to, is it likely he will take any of the blame for himself? Or will he try to blame others?
"And Nifong may be cooked because he said HE READ the Medical Report - when it was Not compiled or provided yet."
Pardonable exaggeration in the heat of the moment; what he really meant to say, was that he was relying on the word of those who told him they HAD read the report--his police investigators.
(his zeal for the cause of protecting victims of rape was what led him to marginally cross the line in what he said; the real guilt must like with the detectives)
I tend to agree with pepperhead, the cook may not want to get Nifonged.
With Gottlieb's 33 page report, from two pages of handwritten notes, critical to the LAX case one would assume the defense has tried to contact the cook.
Not only could the cook paint Gottlieb as a intimidating, instigating, racist redneck. He could also prove him a liar. It would be interesting to read Gottlieb's statements to the RPD.
The cook is indeed laying low, but possibly for good reason.
Just speculating ...
I don't know if anyone has posted this yet, but
Joe Neff points out that Gottlieb is claiming that for SIX WEEKS he didn't take ANY notes - on any handwritten anyway.
If Gottlieb has notes - he MUST turn them over. He turned over only TWO handwritten pages. The date on the top of the handwritten notes is APR 27 - Six weeks after the start of the investigation. Strangely in those two pages he takes many notes and they are all on one subject. Then, inexplicably, Gottlieb goes back to never taking any more handwritten notes.
What kind of detective, hell, the Head of Investigations, shows up at lengthy interviews over a period of months, in an investigation only second to First Degree Murder in seriousness, and doesn't write one thing down?
???????????
The speed limit on those streets is 35 to 45...normally people drive up to 55, which is what I would suspect in this case. Someone may actually want to ask the other driver, whose name and phone number appear on the report. ;-)
That's why you pay me right?
Sorry.
Check your Freep Mail pls
I totally agree. The cook knows how all the other potentially damaging witnesses have been arrested. The cook might have missed a child support payment 5 years ago and doesn't want to get arrested by Nifong, through his buddies at the Raleigh PD.
As far as I can tell, he has two misdemeanors, 1994.
1994
I know a guy with TWO FELONIES charges is 1994 - and he's a celebrity now.
O.J.
Knowing Nifong, he will have the poor guy arrested as the fourth Duke suspect.
Yeah - New Descriptions of the suspects forthcoming.
The thing that gets me the most is the judges order was for Gottlieb to turn over all the notes he had taken. Not to generate new notes to turn over. If he had only 2 pages of notes, that is all that should have been turned over. I wonder what a judge in another state would say if some cop tried to pull this on them? Could a judge disallow Gottlieb from referring to any of his generated notes during his testimony?
Good point. Surely the defense attorneys will use this...
Actually, I think North Carolina law and the motion require you to document everything you did so that an officer cannot show up and testify to something that was not written down. The motion complained in part that a lot was done and not written down. So, the motion said that if he did or heard anything not written down he had to do so now.
So, that does not make the notes any less fraudulent but if Gottlieb had not written up new notes, he would not have been able to testify to that so that is what he is going to testify to.
That is where the fraud came from.
Don't you think the next step is that Gottlieb will say that he used a laptop and recorded them contemporaneously - or immediately after he left the interview.
And that Hard drive started making a terrible noise and it's been disposed of or been reformatted.
Why should he stop now? He's already taken the plunge.
-
On the subject of the Cook, and the likelyhood of him getting involved in the Duke case:
Let's not forget what's alleged to have been said to him by the BALD Ringleader of the group -
"You don't know what you're getting into, boy"
_
I wonder if there is anyway to confirm Gottlieb was on duty that morning prior to the accident?
For all we know he could have been returning from anywhere.
Also, who called the cops? Gottlieb? Did he call the cops or a cop friend who gave a patrolman a heads up?
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