Subject:
Attorney Client Communication/Work Product confidential and privileged
Attorney Client Communication/Work Product confidential and privileged
Dear Hunter and Rob
Good morning.
Our team is just finishing a 4-day visit here in Bucharest with GP and
his colleagues. Long days were followed by productive working dinners
with GP and his colleagues (his lovely fiancé Dorothy joined us last
night). We were very impressed with GP's associates and outside
lawyers.
We reviewed many documents, testimony, trial transcripts--and our
retired Romanian-American FBI Agent (she was previously the Legat here
and met GP at an AmCham event) listened to the actual tape recordings
used by DNA to obtain the Abuse of Office (AOO) and Bribery
convictions. Unlike our system, the court here mostly focuses on the
'transcripts and reports' of the conversations/meetings rather than
the actual tapes.
As she reviewed them, we found that many of the key statements by the
DNA/UCA Motoc are NOT even on the tapes, or, are contradicted by the
tapes (eg., Motoc claims it was Sherban (GP's convicted co-defendant
police officer) who suggested they meet with GP. In fact, the tape
proves that it was Moroc who pushed for the meeting. On another tape
Gabby listened to, it's Motoc who suggests Sherban and Pitcovici (2nd
police defendant convicted) pay him a bribe - which they totally
reject-and so on and so forth. At this point, the only option may be
to resubmit new transcripts to the court if a 'retrial' or appeal
permits evidence to be revisited.
While the AOO conviction should be thrown out on the basis of the
6/15/16 Constitutional Court decision (which says the AOO crime
requires the breaking of a specific law--not our case), and the
bribery charge is unsustainable based on the best interpretation of
DNA's evidence, it's Romania and not the SDNY (or DC Superior Court)!
The entire judicial/DNA/SRI system is at best, totally broken, and at
worst, totally corrupt. So we have told GP and his fiancé and
colleagues that undoing this 6/23/16 court conviction is a very big
challenge.
However, we're writing a 'white paper' on the law/facts here along
with our conclusions. This can be used with the GOR and its agencies,
courts, etc., and also with GP's banks and FIs which are now putting
lots of pressure on GP and his businesses (his Cyprus bank closed
accounts this week).
We reached out through the FBI here and requested (courtesy first)
meetings with the DNA, SRI and US Ambassador. As of last night, only
the SRI responded and said it needed several weeks notice so we'll
start that process.
Separately, we're in touch with a senior FBIHQ official who is
interested in meeting our client.
We may need to think about both a DOS and PR (US and Romania) strategy
as we go forward. It seems like the GOR wants to seize the hugely
valuable Baneasa project, and getting GP out of the picture is a
necessary prerequisite.
The problem with DOS (and probably DOJ/FBI) is they have been
trumpeting the success of rule of law in Romania (of course they
finance and promote it) while the exact opposite is true (we learned
about several other major DNA cases similar to Baneasa).
The DOS is directly affected here because their 99-year leasehold is
now sequestered by the court (so no construction projects). But
getting them to intervene will be tough.
I may try to have GP back to WDC in the next weeks for external
meetings. Meanwhile, the court moved the civil case) part of the
criminal case) hearing from September to 7/21 at the request of DNA.
In a worse case scenario, GP's entire Baneasa project could have its
land forfeited to the GOR.
So let's stay in touch and perhaps we should meet to formulate/update
our common strategies.
Best regards
Louie
.
Sent from my iPhone
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