Chapter 7 - The Trial Preparation
The criminal trial was scheduled for late October. The Seattle autumn was gray and rainy, perfectly matching the somber mood of the courtroom preparations.
I spent most of my time at the rehabilitation center with my mother. She was making remarkable progress. The hydration and proper nutrition had restored the color to her cheeks. Maya’s relentless, compassionate physical therapy routines had helped my mother regain her mobility, graduating from the wheelchair back to her walker.
But the psychological scars were deeper.
"I don't want to see her, David," my mother whispered one evening, sitting by the window overlooking the water. "I don't want to go into that courtroom."
"You don't have to, Mom," I assured her, holding her hand. "The prosecutor said the video evidence is ironclad. Maya is testifying to the physical abuse, and the FBI is testifying to the wire fraud. You don't have to step foot in that building."
"Will she go to prison?" my mother asked, her voice trembling slightly.
"For a very, very long time," I promised.
Maya, however, was a different story. She was fierce. She wanted to take the stand. She wanted to look Valerie in the eye.
"She needs to know she didn't break us," Maya told me during a prep session with the prosecutor. "She treated your mother like an animal. She treated me like garbage. I want the jury to know exactly who she is."
The defense's strategy was predictable but pathetic. Valerie's public defender was planning to argue "caregiver psychosis"—a desperate attempt to claim that the stress of managing an elderly patient alone had triggered a temporary psychotic break, minimizing her culpability for the abuse.
As for the wire fraud, they were entirely relying on blaming Harrison Price, claiming Valerie was a naive housewife manipulated by a corrupt, predatory lawyer.
It was a weak defense, but in a jury trial, all it takes is one sympathetic juror to hang a verdict.
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I wasn't going to let that happen. I spent nights meticulously organizing the video timestamps, ensuring the prosecutor had a seamless narrative of calculated, cold-blooded premeditation. Every time Valerie looked directly at a decoy camera to ensure it was off. Every time she locked a door. Every time she smiled after withholding food.
It wasn't psychosis. It was torture for profit.
