Black Watch: Today’s Top Stories
Beyond a failed effort by Jack Boultbee’s lawyer to engineer a mistrial, thereby winning for his client a trial separate from his co-defendants (more on that in a later post), yesterday’s proceedings, and the reporting thereof, were reduced to a sort of crude show and tell. Fred Creasey’s days beneath the proscenium arch are drawing to a close, and whatever future he saw for himself as a prosecutorial witness for hire has receded well beyond the visible horizon. In order to counter the jury’s impression that Creasey didn’t have the faintest idea what he was talking about, prosecutor Julie Ruder was reduced to an AV display worthy of Arnold Schwarzenegger in Kindergarten Cop. The Globe’s Paul Waldie reported it thusly:
“Under cross-examination by lawyers for Lord Black and the others… Mr. Creasey had difficulty answering…and resorted mainly to saying repeatedly that he couldn’t remember… Ms. Ruder walked Mr. Creasey through the same material. She pointed out that none of the filings mentioned that money from the non-compete agreements was going directly to Lord Black and the others… As she asked Mr. Creasey about each document, she marked a big ‘X’ across the front page of the filing, something the jury could not fail to miss.”
The Star’s Rick Westhead reported that one of the 14 female jurors was excused yesterday for “extenuating personal reasons.” As to whether these pertained to her having been treated like a six-year-old throughout the trial by both the court and the press, I cannot speculate.
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