Minutes and Transcript of Proceedings

Before the April 2011 – June 2011 Grand Jury,

Thompson County, State of Marshall

Testimony of Jamie Riley before the Thompson County, State of Marshall, Grand
Jury, June 8, 2011.

Present: Assistant State’s Attorney Kenneth Buksas, (witness) Jamie Riley

[The witness is sworn]

Q [ASA Kenneth Buksas]: You are Jamie Riley, J-A-M-I-E R-I-L-E-

Y, and you are an attorney at law, admitted to the bar of the State
of Marshall. Your current law office is at 2527 W. Royko Avenue,
in Marshall City. Right?

A [Riley]: That’s right. I have a law office over on Royko Avenue.

I also brought my C.V. in, just in case.

Q: Thank you. Let’s mark this Exhibit number one. Now, please
describe your law practice.

A: For the past seven years I have been a solo practitioner,

specializing in criminal matters and occasionally such related
matters as immigration and civil rights cases against government
employees and government entities – you know, police brutality
cases. I go to court a lot. I’m very busy. They call me “Busy Busy”
Riley. The newspapers gave me that name. “Busy Busy.” As a solo
practitioner, I keep running. Busy, busy.

A: You are alone in your office?

A: Right. Well, I have a law clerk to help with the office. The law
clerk is a student here at the law school. I usually hire law
students to do occasional research, file papers in court, answer
the phone, act as witnesses in investigations sometimes, run
errands, clean the ashtrays, that sort of thing. I pay my law
clerks $12 an hour. More, once they know what they are doing. I
have one or two law clerks on board at any given time. They are
typically two or three semesters from graduating. The Thompson
Law School at the University of Marshall has an evening division
here. Sometimes my clerk is a part-time and sometimes full-time

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student. I hire law students because they can learn, and they
have these steep debts.

Q: Is Pat Baer your current law clerk?

A: Yes.

Q: When did you hire Pat Baer?

A: Two years ago. At that time Pat was suspended from classes
for a semester or a year, as there was an investigation over
money being missing from the student bar association funds. The
investigation did not conclusively show that Pat was involved, so
Pat was allowed to continue classes. Pat had already been
enrolled for over two years. I think Pat Baer’s student loan debt is
now over $100,000.

Q: Did you have any other law clerk at that time?

A: Yes. I also employed another Thompson Law student, Karol

Caesar, for a while. Caesar was a year behind Pat but because of
Pat’s suspension they will graduate – they graduated – at the
same time. Caesar quit not long after Pat came to work for me. I
understand that they share the same apartment across the street
from my office – not that they get along at all.

Q: So why does Karol . . . ?

A: Karol moved into the city to be closer to school and to the

courthouse.

Q: And moved in with Pat Baer?

A: As I understand it, Pat is the landlord. Pat took out a lease

there maybe three years ago, and subleases a couple of the rooms
in the apartment. Karol Caesar rents or rented one of those
bedrooms. Last summer, Caesar took a position with the
Thompson County State’s Attorney’s office as a Rule 711 student
– that’s a law student who is allowed to appear in court under the
supervision of a government attorney. The student can’t do that if
you work for a private attorney.

Besides, Caesar was so pro-prosecution that it was not a good fit,

you know, working for a defense firm like mine. I mean, if

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someone had one joint –- one marijuana cigarette -- Karol would
say, “Put him in jail. He’s a bad guy.”

Q: Why did you hire Pat Baer?

A: I thought Pat had a good attitude. Pat seemed bright, a go-

getter. People make mistakes, people get in trouble, people are in
the wrong place at the wrong time; people take small risks that
get them in big trouble. Pat may be a corner-cutter, but Pat is a
hustler, a hard worker.

Q: What do you mean by “corner cutter”?

A: Look, I’ve had problems with the system myself. Defense

lawyers get a lot of beefs from disgruntled clients.

Q: Beefs?

A: Complaints. Complaints filed or reported to the Marshall

Attorney Registration Disciplinary Commission. If anyone thinks a
lawyer is doing something improper, they can report it to MARDC
–the Marshall Attorney Registration Disciplinary Commission.

Q: You just said that Pat Baer was a corner cutter. What . . . .

A: Well, here’s a good example: Last fall, Pat went over to the
criminal courts building – this building, actually – to tell the judge
in drug court that I could not make it in that day, as I had a case
set for trial in federal court. When Pat stepped up and gave my
message to the judge, the prosecutor objected and said that Pat
could not address the court because Pat is not a lawyer. Well, the
judge knew better. Solo practitioners frequently send a secretary
or clerk over to court to let the judge or at least someone in that
courtroom know that the lawyer has a conflict and needs a
continuance. But this prosecutor was new and did not know the
custom. But that was not the real problem. When Pat went out
into the hall, there was this guy, his name was Caruso, who was
out there, and asked if Pat was a lawyer, and Pat said no, but
worked for a good criminal defense lawyer. Pat said that if the
defendant could go back on another day, he, the defendant, could
come into my office and maybe I could represent him. Pat went
back into the court and told the clerk that this defendant needed a
continuance. That’s when things got kind of ugly. Turns out that
Karol Caesar was in the courtroom that morning, and thought Pat

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was over the line – was now practicing law without a license.
Karol stepped up and objected, but the judge blew it off saying it
was no big deal. So Karol complained to ARDC. ARDC refused to
listen, so Karol wrote a letter to formally complain. ARDC wrote
back to point out that Pat was not a lawyer and therefore ARDC
did not have jurisdiction. So then Karol filed a complaint with the
law school, but the law school did not want to take any action
either. They said it was a matter for Character and Fitness.

Q: What is “Character and Fitness”?

A: Character and Fitness is a committee that screens applicants to

be admitted to the bar – to be sworn in as lawyers. Character and
Fitness examines a candidate’s background to make sure he or
she is morally fit to become a lawyer – that sort of thing.

A: Thank you. So what happened?

A: So then Karol wrote to the Character and Fitness Committee –

like I said, that’s the committee that screens people who are
applying to be admitted to the bar in this state. Character and
fitness did not do anything because Pat has not applied to be
admitted. Well, if Pat had not gone back into court to get a
continuance, there would have been no problem. I chewed Pat out
– I admonished Pat that delivering a message is one thing,
getting a continuance for a stranger is another. Karol, as I said, is
strictly a rule-oriented person. Honest to a fault. I told Pat to be
careful around people like that.

A: Any other examples?

A: Well, I think that’s why I am here. We are talking about Wanda

Bruja.

[Court reporter: Spell that?]

A: B-R-U-J-A. It’s pronounced brew-ha. It’s Spanish, though I

think Wanda is -- was – of Polish or Eastern European
background, as she had a strong Eastern European accent when
she talked. She also sometimes used a Polish or Russian name. I
did some legal work for her.

Q: Let’s talk about the night Wanda was injured, and what role
Pat may have had.

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A: First of all, I hear people saying that Wanda was in a fight and
got hurt. I seriously doubt that. Wanda did not believe in using
force or violence, and she would not have been in a fight. She was
a peaceful person, very spiritual. In fact she was a sort of
religious zealot, as she tells people to pray. If they didn’t she
might utter a curse on them. She might have been fending off a
robber. I think that if the guy was trying to take her purse, she
would forget to hang onto her property.

Q: Let’s go back. How do you know Wanda?

A: Wanda was a client of mine since 2007. She had originally

come into the country as an illegal, I’m sorry, as an
undocumented worker. She came into my office because she
wanted to become legal here in this country. I advised her, and
she found out that one thing she could do is get married to an
American citizen.

This was in early 2007, and she paid me a small fee, maybe $1500
cash, which I declared, and told me of her status. I had to do
research to find out about her options. I was doing all criminal
defense work and some driving -- DUI -- cases. Anyway, she
apparently met Matt Smith who was out on parole and who was
waiting to see me in my office at the same time she was waiting
to see me. A few days later these two lovebirds show up at my
office and tell me that they were just married. No flowers, no ring,
just a marriage of convenience so she could apply to be a citizen,
or at least to get a green card, you know, so that she could work
legally instead of not-so-legally in this country. Anyway, she and
Matt said good-bye in my office, and as far as I know they never
lived together. Probably never saw each other.

I saw Matt a couple of times out on the street. I would see

Wanda often, as she was working next door at the bakery. About
three months ago she came into my office and confided that she
wanted a divorce from this Matt Smith. I am not a divorce lawyer,
but I figured that if I could find Matt, he would probably go along.
It was all a sham, anyway.

Then I found out that she had originally paid him $5,000 cash to
get married. She saw him for maybe a total of an hour after they
were married, then she never saw him again.

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Last fall she came into my office and asked for advice again. I did
talk to her, but at this point I have to invoke the attorney-client
privilege.

Q: I want to remind you that you are here testifying under a grant
of immunity.

A: Well, I’m not stupid, Counsel. I asked for immunity because

you people might try to claim I had something to do with this, or
that I tried to take money from Wanda. I didn’t keep that lottery
ticket; that must have been Pat.

Q: I think you’re confused….

A: Ok, I get it. I am not invoking a personal privilege. I am

invoking my client’s privilege. I cannot tell you what the
conversations were without being released by Ms. Bruja.

Q: Seems to me that you’ve already said a lot about Ms. Smith or

Bruja. So we’ll come back to that, then. After you had this
conversation with her, did she do anything?

A: I can tell you that she filed for divorce. That’s of public record.
The divorce went through in mid April, the day before she was
mugged. I can tell you, I did a lot of work in that divorce, but she
didn’t want to pay me.

Q: How did she find Smith?

A: I really cannot say anything more.

Q: Do you have any reason to believe he might have been the

person who fought with her, or mugged her, in the alley on ….?

A: I do not think so. He is not a violent person. His criminal

background was as an art thief, not a ruffian.

Q: Have you seen him recently?

A: We are getting into tricky waters here. I think I can tell you
that I saw him on the street and I told him to come into my office.
I told him that Wanda wanted a divorce because she wanted to go
back home. I do not know where her home is. Mexico or Cuba or
Russia, I don’t know. He said he would sign the consent papers,

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but he wanted half of what she was worth. I said she didn’t have
anything; then he said it would cost her $4,000 for a property
settlement. He finally agreed to a thousand as a property
settlement. The divorce papers are a public document. You can
look it up.

To my knowledge they did not see each other, much less live
together or consummate the marriage. He came to my office and
signed the papers and got the thousand dollars she had agreed to
give him. I never saw him again. I have no idea where he is. He is
apparently not wanted by the authorities. I checked before
coming here today. I had Pat Baer run it down, and the results
came back negative. Not wanted. He has a habit of disappearing.
Some of these guys are drifters, sometimes they change their
names, sometimes they die and nobody knows who they are so
they get buried in a pauper’s grave. Whatever.

I believe I can also tell you that on, well, April 12th, she came into
my office to complain that the owner of the bakery would not pay
her all the wages he has been holding back. There were three
people seated in the waiting room, and she let everyone there
know. She said her boss promised that he would be the bank for
her and pay her 10% interest. Nothing on paper, as she was still
working and getting paid off the books. Not paying income or
social security taxes. She was rattling off swearwords in English
and other languages. She announced she was in touch with
people in another world and she was putting a curse on the
bakery, and on the owner. When Pat Baer started to interrupt, she
put a curse on Pat. She said that she is going to pray that Pat will
suffer for trying to cheat her. I think Pat was upset by that.
Wanda had a reputation for cursing people, and people said bad
things would happen shortly afterwards. She said she was
through with this country and going home

When I told her I did not think I could help her get her money,
she said she was going to put a curse on me. Keep in mind that
this is the same day that she was mugged – well technically the
day before, on the 12th. Then she walked out.

I had to prepare for court the next morning, and I was in the
office working late. Wanda came back late, around 11 PM. I was
getting ready to leave. Pat was still doing homework in the office.

Q: Did you notice anything at that time?

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A: Yes. The “billy club” that is or was an exhibit in a civil case I
am working on – a police brutality case – was not on my desk. It
was on Pat’s desk. I told Pat to put it back on my desk, and Pat
said, “Right away.” I then went into the back office to get my coat
and briefcase.

Q: You brought in a photograph of that club. I have it here, and I

am going to mark it as GJ exhibit number 2. Take a look.

A: Yes, that’s it.

Q: For the record, what is it?

A: This is a photograph I took while preparing the civil rights case

against a member of the Marshall City police department. This is
the club—this is a picture of the club – that I will show was used
in injuring a client of mine. It’s a case Pat was working on,
beginning to work on, in my office. I do not know why Pat had it
out. Maybe Pat was concerned that Wanda . . . .

Q: You say Wanda was non-violent.

A: Maybe Pat did not know that.

Q: Ever see the club again?

A: Yes. Just when I was leaving the office at 11 PM on April 12, I

saw that Pat was holding the club and was arguing with Wanda.

Q: We have a medical report that indicates that Wanda was

injured by – injured on the back of the head and on the face -- by
a blunt instrument that might have been very much like the one in
the photo.

A: Well, it is a nasty little club.

Q: Did you ever see Pat handling it?

A: You bet. The last time I saw that club, Pat was arguing with
Wanda in my front office as I was leaving on the the night of the
12th. Pat was arguing, and then shouting at Wanda. I was in the
doorway between the front office and the back office, and I saw
Pat pick up the club and slam it against the desk. Wanda was

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talking in Spanish to Pat and was very excited, and Pat said, “You
are not getting anything. I don’t have your ticket. You gotta get
out of here.”

Q: How did you react when you saw that?

A: I stopped it. I told Pat to stop. I said, “Pat, you can’t threaten
clients like that. You’re fired.” I should’ve fired Pat a long time
ago. I then took the club from Pat and put it in the back office, on
a filing cabinet behind my desk.

Q: Did anyone else in your office have access to this back room?

A: Well, there’s only Pat and me. I don’t think Wanda took it off
my desk and gave it back to Pat. Maybe she went back there and
grabbed it and came after Pat.

Q: Who else might she have talked to?

A: The only people she talked to in my office were Pat Baer and
me. She probably talked with the people she worked with over at
the bakery.

Q: What about her divorce?

A: Her divorce went through as an uncontested divorce. She went

into court early in the afternoon, and we did a prove up. In this
state one can get divorced on the basis of irreconcilable
differences. If you don’t get along, you can split legally.

Q: Can you tell us, without betraying any confiadences, why she
wanted a divorce?

A: Well, she was telling everyone that she hated this country, and
had a phony marriage, and everyone was stealing her money, and
she wanted out of the phony marriage and out of this country.

I also got the idea that she had a love interest elsewhere, and the
odd thing is that I began to think she was interested in Pat. Come
on, she is 60 years old, twice Pat’s age. But, she had started
asking questions. Was Pat married? Did Pat have someone
special? Was Pat involved with Karol Caesar – why did they live
together in the same building?

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Regarding the night Wanda was beaten and left in the alley. I left
the office around 11 PM. Pat and Wanda were still there when I
left, and they were still at Pat’s desk, and I told Pat again to clean
out and get out, But they were still engaged in a very intense
conversation.

Q: Why did you leave when Pat was just fired, and Wanda was
still there?

A: It was a mistake. I was exhausted. Earlier in the day, I was in

court with Wanda and her divorce. Then I spent about an hour
arguing with her over my fee. She said she had won a lot of
money, but she was not going to pay me anything. I went over
her concern that she had -- might have -- a winning lottery ticket,
and she was entitled to something like $54,000. She did not want
to expose her possible illegal status here, and she thought she
could not cash in the ticket without running into trouble. She
wanted to sell the ticket to me for half of that, but I explained to
her that she still had to pay taxes on it even if she sold it to
someone for half-price, and the buyer would also have to pay
taxes on the income. I did not and I do not know whether any of
this would affect her status in this country, although I was aware
that she wanted to leave. Her divorce was final. She had paid off
her bogus husband. I believe that Pat was discussing how all this
worked, as she seemed to want to hear the story over and over
again when I was advising her. This is not uncommon. Many
people want to hear the lawyer reassure them as to what is going
on, and Wanda seemed to want assurance and reassurance
almost every day. Pat ran out of patience. She seemed to think
that Pat had stolen her lottery ticket, but I could not quite make
out what was going on. I was tired.

When I returned to the office the next morning – the morning

after Wanda was taken to the hospital, I looked around for the
club. I could not find it. I have looked for it several times, and it is
gone. I do not know what happened to it. I have the photograph.
I brought the picture with me. The club ,s a baton. It is what was
once called a “billy club.” It’s made of a heavy wood, and it has a
rod of metal, probably iron or lead, inserted into the middle. From
the outside, the club appears to be all wood, but there is a
hollowed core that houses the metal. It can do a lot of damage.

I know I left at 11p.m. because I called my spouse at home at

that time and I sent a text message. The message simply said, “I

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will be home around 11:30.” I sent it to my spouse who was out
of town in Wickford, Rhode Island, with relatives and the text
message shows a time date stamp for that night at 11 PM.

I drove home, and arrived pretty close to 11:30. I went to bed

around midnight, and did not wake up until my cell phone rang
around 2:30 AM. Pat was on the phone to tell me that Wanda had
just been taken to the hospital with a bad head wound, and the
police were investigating. I told Pat to cooperate as best as
possible. I learned that Wanda was at the Thompson County
Hospital in the emergency ward. I told Pat to keep me informed. I
did not feel the need to go to the hospital, and I did not think to
connect Pat or the billy club to Wanda’s situation. I later saw the
newspaper, you know, the article about Wanda’s being beaten up
in the alley.

I did not visit Wanda in the hospital. I assumed she would be out
soon. I have an active law practice in which I represent many
people who are either accused of crimes or are the victims of
some kind.

Ordinarily, a battery case is not that important in the scheme of

things. In this case it turns out that the battery was very serious.
The doctor said it was temporary; she’d be OK.

Q: Has Pat talked about this incident?

A: Yes. About a week after the incident, Karol Caesar came across
the street to ask me about Wanda. I do not think Karol expected
to see Pat in the office. Pat and Karol got into some kind of
argument. Wanda’s name came up. Pat said, “She got what she
deserved.” Karol then said that Pat was the one who hit Wanda.
Pat said, “You will have to prove it, Karol. And you can’t do that.”
Karol said, “I saw you in the alley with Wanda. You beat her up.”
Pat said that there was no way Karol could have seen that
because there are no lights in the alley.

So Karol said, “You think that by running to the police right away
that you can avoid a battery charge? This is not grade school,
Pat.”

Pat did not deny it. That bothers me. Come on, Pat’s being
accused of beating up Wanda and says nothing?

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Karol told Pat, “I know all about you. I know people from your
grade schools and high school. You had a reputation of being the
kid who would be in all sorts of trouble, but when the teacher or
the cops came, you were the first to run to them and say, “Isn’t it
awful?”

Q: No further questions. Thank you.

Whereupon, the witness was excused.

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