“Ms. Hill told him to get lost, and that’s when Mr. Christopher took the video recording to the police.
“Ms. Hill was arrested and charged with a felony that she did not commit. Mr. Christopher’s premeditated extortion scheme cost my client her job and her reputation, and now she is forced to defend herself against the false testimony of this vicious and vengeful man.
“Please. Don’t let him get away with it.”
CHAPTER 79
BRIANA HILL, WEARING dark-gray jersey down to her boots, looked as vulnerable as a soaked kitten as she took the witness stand.
Giftos took her through the events of October 11, and she responded with her version of the conversation in the bar in which Marc introduced the idea of the rape sex game and beyond.
“What were your thoughts the day after?” he asked.
“I felt … disgusted with myself. I hadn’t enjoyed the role-playing. And Marc still reported to me. We had work to do. I asked him to meet with the creative team about a Chronos commercial that had been approved. He said, ‘You bet. Right away.’ He had worked on other Chronos commercials. It’s a plum account. But this time he didn’t follow up. I asked him a second time, and again he said, ‘Okay,’ and blew it off. I had to assign another producer.”
“How did Marc react to your executive decision?”
“He didn’t respond at all to losing the Chronos spot, but he called me on my cell three days after what happened in his apartment. He asked me out again. I told him no, that we were through. I told him that if he didn’t snap out of it and do his job, I was going to have to report him to management.”
“What did he say to that?”
“He laughed at me. He told me I didn’t know what trouble was.”
“Did you ask him to explain what he meant by that?”
“Yes. I remember. Marc came to my office after work. He was sitting on the couch, talking to me from across the room. He said, ‘You’re a star, you know.’ I said, ‘What are you talking about, Marc?’ I was waiting for a client to call. Marc said, ‘I watched that video of you raping me, and wow, you are something else.’ He grabbed his … crotch.”
Her last words came out cracked into pieces.
Giftos said, “Do you need a moment, Briana?”
“No.” She cleared her throat and said, “So he told me that he had recorded our sex and that he wanted me to deposit $250,000 into his brokerage account. Otherwise he would post the video to YouTube, Facebook, and internet porn sites.”
Briana pulled back, showing indignation, and at the same time her eyes were screwed up and her face was crumpled. She reached for a tissue from the judge’s box and covered her eyes.
When James Giftos spoke again, his client looked startled and dazed.
“And how did you respond, Briana? To this extortion attempt?”
“I dismissed the demand for money at first. How could he be serious about that? But it was easy for Marc to set up a hidden camera. He’s a professional film producer. I was scared to death. I told him that he was crazy. And I mean, I saw for the first time that he was actually crazy, for real.”
“Did you call the police?”
“No. I still hadn’t wrapped my mind around the extortion. I was furious about the video—I didn’t know if he was even telling the truth.
“Then the call from my client came in. I asked him to hold on. I put my hand over the receiver and said something like, ‘No more threats, Marc. Let me know if you still want to work in production.’
“Marc left, and I thought of how much crap would rain down on me if I fired him for insubordination. I mean, that was true. He just stopped doing his job, but he could call it sexual harassment. How could I prove otherwise?”
“Did you tell anyone about Marc’s extortion threat?”
“Finally. I told my sister Angela. She’s a lawyer. Estates and trusts. She said, ‘He’ll never do it. Extortion is a felony.’”
Giftos said, “What happened after that?”
“Stories started circulating around the agency that I had threatened Marc with a loaded gun, that I had raped him and that he could prove it. I denied it, of course, and set up a meeting with our CEO, Mr. Keely, to report Marc. But before I saw Mr. Keely, Marc took the video to the police, and they arrested me for something he dreamed up in the depths of his very sick mind.”
CHAPTER 80
YUKI FOUND BRIANA’S testimony credible and very compelling. She tried to shut down her sympathy for the young woman and thought about how to get the jury to do the same.
She approached the witness.
“Ms. Hill, have you ever heard the expression buyer’s remorse?”
“Yes.”
“It means after a purchase the buyer has regrets. Would you go along with me on that definition?”
“Okay.”
“Is that what happened to you? You decided to rape Marc and afterward realized you’d made a bad mistake?”
“I regretted going along with him. That’s all.”
Yuki had an idea for a line of questioning that she might get away with up to a point. It was worth a try, even if Judge Rathburn smacked her down.
She said, “Ms. Hill, after the police arrested you for raping Mr. Christopher, you were released on bond, weren’t you?”
“Yes.”
“But you were arrested again, weren’t you? Why?”
Giftos was on his feet, yelling, “Objection! Relevance.”
Yuki knew that Briana’s return to jail had nothing to do with the rape, but it would raise questions in the jurors’ minds. Why was she back in jail? Did she shoot Marc Christopher?
Yuki said, “Withdrawn, Your Honor.”
Rathburn said, “You know, you’re walking a fine line, Ms. Castellano.”
She said, “Sorry, Your Honor,” thinking she’d made a good decision. Desperate times called for desperate measures. She turned back to the witness.
“Ms. Hill, would you say that it’s risky to date someone who reports to you?”
“I do now.”
Yuki asked, “Are you telling us that you’ve had other interoffice relationships?”
“Objection,” Giftos shouted.
“Sustained.”
“I want to answer,” said the witness.
The judge said to her, “You understand that the question does not apply to the action against you. As your attorney was about to say at the top of his lungs, anything that does not pertain to this case is irrelevant.”
“I understand. I want to set the record straight.”
“Then, go ahead.”
Briana said, “Interoffice dating is no big deal in advertising. I have dated people I’ve worked with, but I’ve never done anything like what I did with Marc that night. I should never have done it. He sold me on it, saying it would be fun. It wasn’t fun. And it wasn’t a crime. It was regrettable.”
And with that, Briana started to cry and couldn’t seem to stop. The judge spoke her name. Her lawyer stood up and said, “Your Honor, can you give the witness a few moments?”
Yuki found Hill’s sobs heartrending—but would the jury find her convincing? If Yuki pushed her any further, she risked coming off as a bully.
“Thank you, Ms. Hill. I have no further questions,” she said.
Rathburn told the defendant that she could step down, and called the court into recess.
Out in the hallway Yuki told Arthur, “I didn’t have a hook to hang my hat on.”
He said, “Didn’t hurt, could’ve helped. She doesn’t seem stable.”
Yuki checked her phone and saw that she had a dozen missed calls. One of them was from Red Dog.
She called him back.
“Talk to me,” he said.
“Giftos has got three character witnesses on deck,” she said. “Briana’s sister, her boss at the agency, and her ex-boyfriend of about a year prior to her relationship with Marc. They’re all going to say she’s a fantastic person.”
“You still like our chances?”
“What I think is that she’s na?ve. He’s calculating. Whether this rape was her idea or his, she was never an even match for him. As things stand right now, there’s enough reasonable doubt to fill a freight train.
“My gut,” Yuki said, “tells me that this jury is going to hang.”
Parisi said, “My gut says make time to go over your closing argument with me.”
“Will do,” said Yuki. She welcomed input from Parisi. Because she believed Briana’s story, and that worried her.