Chapter 6 - The Corrupt Legal Network
While my family sat in federal holding cells, my investigation expanded toward the professional facilitators who had enabled their criminal enterprise. At ten-hundred hours, I led a federal execution warrant at the law offices of Vance & Associates, the prestigious real estate and estate planning firm that had represented the Sterling family for three decades.
The senior partner, Harrison Vance, was sitting in his leather executive chair when my agents breached the glass double doors of his suite. He jumped to his feet, adjusting his silk tie and attempting to project legal outrage as two armed investigators secured his computer terminals and filing cabinets.
"This is an illegal seizure of protected attorney-client communications!" Vance blustered, waving a printed statute at my face. "I will have your badge for this, Commander Sterling! You cannot invade a law firm without a specialized federal master!"
"We have a Special Master waiting in the lobby, Mr. Vance," I said, handing him the federal search and seizure warrant signed by a federal district judge just two hours prior. "And as for attorney-client privilege, that is entirely invalidated under the crime-fraud exception. You didn't just give legal advice; you actively participated in a conspiracy to kidnap and defraud an elderly citizen."
I walked over to his mahogany desk and picked up a heavy bronze letter opener, tapping it against a stack of freshly printed documents sitting next to his shredder.
"We pulled the metadata from your server, Harrison," I explained as an agent slapped handcuffs onto the lawyer’s wrists. "You drafted three fraudulent wills over the last twelve months, backdating them and forging my grandfather’s signature using a digital autopen. You also set up the shell companies in Delaware where my parents funneled Arthur’s pension funds."
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"I was merely executing the instructions of my clients!" Vance protested nervously as he was led toward the doorway. "Richard told me Arthur had consented to the asset transfers before his cognitive decline!"
"You knew Arthur was being held hostage," I replied, holding up a printout of an email Vance had sent to my father two months ago. 'Make sure Arthur is visible at the window if the bank appraiser drives by, otherwise the reverse mortgage won't clear.' "You traded your law license and your freedom for a twenty percent cut of a stolen inheritance. Enjoy the federal penitentiary."
