Chapter 7 - The Old Case
The old prosecution was called State v. Moreno.
Victoria found the archived file in a basement records center.
Three men had been convicted of trafficking narcotics through industrial warehouses.
Crane testified.
Shaw signed the chain-of-custody report.
Joseph Hale prosecuted.
One surviving defendant, Anthony Moreno, still lived nearby.
When Victoria arrived, he refused to speak to police.
Then she told him who her father was.
Moreno stopped.
“Joseph Hale came to see me after sentencing,” he said.
Victoria had never known.
Moreno admitted he had participated in low-level smuggling, but insisted the large drug shipment used at trial had been planted.
“Crane wanted money before the arrest,” he said. “I refused.”
Moreno identified another officer from old photographs.
Robert Dawson.
Preston Dawson’s father.
Former detective.
The connections were generational.
Shaw to Crane.
Robert Dawson to Preston.
A corruption method passed down and modernized.
Then retired property clerk Margaret Lin called the hotline.
She had kept something for twenty years.
An inventory sheet showed the original evidence weight was 4.6 kilograms.
The trial record listed 8.1.
“Why did you keep this?” Victoria asked.
“Shaw told me to destroy it.”
“Why didn’t you?”
“I was young and scared, not stupid.”
Margaret had tried to contact Internal Affairs.
Nothing happened.
That night Crane sent a photograph to Joseph Hale.
Victoria leaving Margaret’s house.
Underneath:
Your daughter is making the same mistake you did.
Victoria stared at the message.
Crane wanted her emotional.
So she decided to use his pride against him.
The state announced that Joseph Hale would testify at a public review hearing about the old case.
May you like
It was genuine testimony.
It was also bait.
:max_bytes(150000):strip_icc():focal(1048x378:1050x380)/Jenna-Bush-Hager-100223-c94955eb572d47ea815a340c18c6e771.jpg)
