The Unlikely Quarterback Ch. 10

*Thanks to Alwaysready64 for editing and contributing some snippets of this story, and PASTMASTER for his beta reading and editing.

*All sex described in this story will be between adults, 18 or over.

******

Chapter 10 - Consequences.

My day in court kept getting pushed back all summer long until our investigators found out who was behind it. My lawyers' IT guy found a backdoor into Abe's father's (Frank Miller) company and dug up a ton of dirt on illicit dealings he had made with China. At the time we had an embargo against them and his dealings were illegal. Frank's company was a fortune 500 company at the time of the trial and he was set to be a billionaire as soon as his deal with China went through.

Assemblyman John Chiznich AKA Big John, was using his political connections to get people to look the other way for Frank. Big John was taking bribes and Frank Miller was greasing the palms of all kinds of politicians, lawyers and judges. Specifically, we found evidence of him bribing the judge that presided over our case.

With our new-found evidence, we went to the judge hearing our case and threatened to reveal everything unless he gave us an immediate change of venue. We not only got a change of venue but the new judge stopped pussyfooting around and gave us a firm trial date. It was late September and our team decided to forgo charges against the rapists' attorneys until after the criminal portion of the trial.

When it came to a grand jury, my charges were quickly dismissed. But, the damage to my reputation was already done. Not only that, I missed the deadline to get into UCLA that school year. I would have to wait until next year to go.

Johnny's gang went with a united defense. They were all tried at once and shared the same law firm, paid for by Frank Miller. We didn't sit idly by and do nothing, we nipped at the edges. We found dirt on three of the lawyers working their defense. We released it to the California Bar Association and they were brought under review. One of their lawyers was disbarred and the other two heavily fined. No one knew who anonymously submitted the evidence, but they rightly suspected us.

When the witnesses and evidence started piling up against them, they still maintained their smug "I'm going to get out of this" expressions. That is until Delilah was called to the stand and her tapes were referenced as corroborating and incriminating evidence against each of the serial rapist. Our legal team worked with the prosecutor and let him know that we had the cooperation of many of the victims on the tapes and they were ready to testify. The DA didn't have to bring them to the stand because after he brought forth a modified witness list, one of the boys turned state's evidence for a reduced sentence. His testimony was damning because he gave details that even we hadn't dug up. The smugness quickly left the room and the defendants quickly tried making deals of their own.

Johnny was the DA's main target since he was the mastermind behind all of the schemes. He, Abe and Biff were all being charged as adults. Although all of the boys at trial took part in the assault on Candy and attempted rape of Stephanie, not all of them took part in the rape of Delilah or the other girls. Four other boys were soon charged with rape in separate trials, two of which had a hand in Delilah's abuse. Some of the crew unfortunately were charged as minors so they didn't get much time. We would have to make them pay in Civil Court.

The criminal trial only lasted five days, started at nine in the morning on a Monday and by noon on Friday the jury had their verdict - guilty of all counts. As soon as they announced the verdict, Johnny and his crew were taken into custody for their prison term. Sentencing wasn't going to happen for another week, but they were all being held without bail.

Johnny's dad and Frank Miller, came over after the verdict was handed down and made a few veiled threats. I simply said two words to Frank Miller, "Singapore minors," and he turned white. Both of the men were quickly pulled away by their legal team as they wisely didn't want to make matters worse.

Frank Miller was the only big wig with deep pockets but he was arrogant and failed to incorporate his company so its personal assets were up on the chopping block. The IT and forensic accounting specialists we hired found every rock and turned them all over during their search and found every dime each parent had. We gathered enough evidence of collusion and malfeasance that implicated politicians, lawyers and judges but we sat on it so that it wouldn't interfere with the case. Besides, Candy, Delilah and Stephanie, along with four other girls, were suing for damages. Our uncovering of the assets revealed, that if we won, we would get the maximum amount allowable by law.

The media frenzy didn't last long because in the news was talk of war. Saddam Hussein had just seized control of Kuwait and the US was forming a coalition to retake it. They had already started a bombing campaign and were gearing up to take back Kuwait. There was talk of a draft and people were worried about the million plus troops Saddam had under his command, not to mention his arsenal of weapons of mass destruction. Iraq just got out of an eight-year war with Iran, in which it used ballistic missiles indiscriminately on cities and used chemical weapon resulting in more than a million deaths on both sides. So, the mood of the nation was one of worry; they were afraid this would be another Vietnam. There was no room for anything else in the news as every facet of the war was covered; people soon nicknamed this the video game war because reporters were embedded in everything. We saw nothing on the news except rockets being fired off of battleships, camera footage of bombs dropping onto their targets. Buildings, tanks, and mobile rocket launcher platforms were filling the airwaves. Occasionally, a few pilots were shot down and taken prisoner, then that became the next topic.

Despite no longer having the media on our side, we moved on with our civil suits. Our strategy was three pronged. We used the newspaper media to 'leak' information about the cases, demonizing the rapists all summer long, so the public was already stigmatized against them. Every day it seemed, there was a newspaper article on what they did, the court evidence against them and public opinion on them was so low that the judges involved in the cases didn't think they had a chance in hell of convincing a jury of being fair or impartial. However, the newspaper's put the case on the back burner and it was soon buried or not covered at all so that they could cover the war. The judge felt that this new turn of events was good enough that they could proceed with the trial.

The second pronged attack was to flood the litigants with so many counter suits that they'd spend a fortune defending them. We had enough money to not only go to court on all matters but our lawyers were able to sue for legal expenses so most of the trivial suits dropped after they started losing.

Candy had huge medical bills and although Stephanie wasn't hospitalized, both girls were seeing psychologists and going through extensive therapy. My lawyers paid all of their bills and used it to rack up damages. Delilah hadn't sought out any kind of treatment but she was included because she suffered the most long-term abuse. We needed her testimony, because without it and the evidence she provided things could have been drawn out a lot longer.

My personal case against the defendant was over pretty quickly and was settled in arbitration. They paid for all of my medical bills, court costs for my criminal and civil trials and I won close to a hundred grand in punitive damages. Most of the parents had insurance that covered all of this so, although I made them pay, they wouldn't really feel it until they settled with the girls' suits.

Their lawyers tried to settle with each of the girls though arbitration, but they wouldn't drop their ridiculous claims of no wrong doings and they tried to lowball the girls claiming that they would suffer more if they had to be dragged through a trial. Although this was all true, all of the girls stood firm and said they'd rather take their chances in court. One thing positive that came out of the arbitration was that only John, Frank and Ted (Biff's father) seemed to be hard assed. The other parents came back to the table and settled, a few of them had to declare bankruptcy afterward but they were able to keep their houses after most of their assets were liquidated. As bad as that sounds, it would have been far worse had they gone to trial. As part of the settlement, the other rapists agreed to go to counseling for five years after their sentences were served including the minors that were charged.

I requested that my lawyers make an appointment with John, Frank and Ted. It was my intention to take everything they had because they were ultimately the reason Johnny, Abe and Biff thought they could go through life raping women with no consequences. They arrived at my lawyer's firm with their new team of legal eagles and we had their arrival times staggered to give adequate time for the needed documents to be signed. We revealed our evidence on their attempted cover-up and threatened jail time if they didn't settle out of court right then and there. I suppose that might be construed as blackmail; however, our lawyers were smart enough to word it in a way where it was part of the settlement.

We pooled the other girls' lawyers in on the settlement so that in total seven girls were being represented. Normally the maximum punitive damages would be 350 grand per girl plus other damages and lawyers' fees. When we added that all up, that only amounted to less than ten million. We were confident we would be able to get that AND send them to jail and they didn't want to go to jail. So ultimately, we settled for 50 million. Candy ended up with close to 10 million after lawyers' fees and hospital bills were paid. Each of the other girls, including my sister ended up with close to 5 million and I got back all of the money I invested.

Although we agreed to not hand over any of the evidence we gathered. We didn't agree not to hand over evidence we had against the others we had linked to their case. We had already handed that over to the FBI and sure enough deals were already being made. The timing couldn't have been any better because as soon as they stepped out of the front door of my lawyer's office, Frank and John were both arrested by the FBI. Their lawyers tried to say that we violated our agreement but it was soon found out that the evidence being supplied against them was coming from a few judges and politicians trying to get immunity for lighter sentences. I only wished I had popcorn while watching that circus. The whole group was cuffed and led to a bus already containing the three judges and two district attorneys. The news was great, they recorded everything even the whole Miranda Rights readings.

Luckily, we got our settlement money before the FBI investigation got underway, because the FBI soon froze all of Frank's assets. We provided the FBI with information on the overseas accounts we found since it was not covered by our agreement as evidence against them and the FBI quickly froze those assets too. John and Ted were bankrupt after the settlement, so none of them could afford lawyers and John and Frank both had to use public defenders in their trial.

It turned out that violating the sanctions on China was a big deal politically so Frank and John both had the book thrown at them. Both ended up with sentences of 20 years, but realistically they wouldn't serve more than 10.

All in all, we had all of our legal proceedings done before Thanksgiving, if we would have gone to trial it could have lasted years.

Frank's wife was lucky, in that her lawyers were able to secure her house before the shit storm started. She was already in the middle of divorce proceedings and technically it was her money that she inherited that funded Frank's company in the first place. She was on title and the divorce judge in that case allowed her to keep her house. We could have gone after her assets too, but we found out that she was the victim of his abuse for years and left her alone.

Johnny's mom was the worst off. She was a stay at home mom and after the bankruptcy and liquidation of all of their assets, her and all of her four other kids would be out on the streets after her house foreclosed. I knew the kids personally, and although Jr. was an asshole to me at Knotts, I also knew he wasn't normally a bad guy. I secretly bought their mortgage off of the bank agreeing to an 80% discount. Their house technically never went into foreclosure so Johnny's mom April technically still owned it but I was the new lienholder instead of the bank. I secretly met with her and told her that I would help her out by either renting her house to her for an affordable price (after she sold it to me) or if she found a good enough job she could pay the mortgage at a reduced interest rate and I would give her time to find a job.

Ultimately, she decided she couldn't afford either option but I gave her another six months to get her affairs in order before she moved. I offered to buy her house off of her for more than appraised which after her remaining equity in the sale gave her a total of 50 grand. She was able to use that money to put a down payment on a house near her parents in Vermont. She took my offer to let her stay there for six more months so that her kids could stay in their schools until the end of the year.

Me and John Jr. weren't on the best of terms at that point and I never let him know what I did for his mother. I don't think if he knew he'd have been grateful anyway, after all, in his mind, this whole mess was my fault. John Sr. was no longer able to pay for John Jr.'s tuition so he was going to Long Beach City College like me.

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*Note: this takes place from June to December of 1990 and overlaps the time of the trials.

The only thing that sucked about going to LBCC was it was 'first come first served' on getting your classes. The night before registration, me, Ted and Dan all camped out overnight. That's an experience I'll never forget. I had some snacks and my Walkman to keep me entertained. Dan and Todd both talked cars and I tried keeping up with them but honestly talking cars bored me, so I ended up listening to the radio more than not. As the day broke, the line quickly filled up with all kinds of freaky people. I loved it; it was like watching a circus except if all the elephants got loose and were running down the crowd - it was chaos.

I don't know how but word got around that I was in line because I was recognized by one of the assistant coaches.

"Hey, Mike, right? Sean Flynn, Co-Offensive Coordinator for the Quarterbacks," he introduced, and I shook his hand. "Someone sent me a video of your CIF championship game, and the way you turned around that game was legendary. It's too bad they didn't have you in that game from the beginning, you'd have won for sure."

"Yeah, it was nice to get a chance to shake and bake for a minute, but Todd is normally a great quarterback, he was just having an off night. I think their team didn't have time to adjust for me. I didn't have a lot of playing time so they probably didn't study my tactics."

"Yeah, I don't know about that," he said. "Have you given a thought to joining our team? It's the only game in town."

He was referring to the fact that Cal State Long Beach dropped their football team in order to focus on Baseball, Volleyball and Basketball. Long Beach City had a football stadium about a block down the road next to the Boeing plant. Cal State, by contrast, was building a pyramid to house their basketball program.

"Not really coach, I'm only going to be here a year. I'll be transferring to UCLA next fall."

"That's OK, we get a lot of part-timers around here, it's a two-year school after all."

"I appreciate the offer coach, but I just got off of an injury and I'm facing charges right now. I mean they are bullshit and will be dropped as soon as the grand jury convenes. Still, I don't know how much time I could commit to the team."

"Listen, kid. I've read about you in the papers and I've got mad respect for you. If you change your mind, look me up," he said, giving me his card.

"Thanks, coach, if things change, I'll let you know for sure."

After I enrolled, I went to the bookstore to buy books for my classes. I had seven books cradled in my arms when I got shoved from behind, forcing me to drop my books. I turned around to see Junior standing there and two of his buddies laughing.

"Pick them up," I demanded.

"What? Fuck you, it was an accident."

"Accident or not, Dickweed, you were the one that caused it. Pick them up and hand them to me."

His friends were confused, they must have thought they could bully me because of what they got away with at Knotts. Quick as lightning I grabbed him by the top of his forearm and latched on to his radial nerve pulling him toward me, lowering him forcing him to his knees. This is a very painful technique; it causes shooting pain to go up the arm and down to the thumb. I stayed dynamic and kept moving his arm at different angles not letting him recover.

"Now, Junior. Just because I didn't kick your ass at Knotts and ruin my sister's birthday party doesn't mean that you get to bully me every time you see me... Now pick up my fucking books that you knocked to the ground before I really embarrass you!"

He knew what I was capable of, and he quickly tapped my arm three times in surrender. When I released him, I backed up a step ready to knock him out.

"Ok, Ok, I'm sorry," he said, and leaned down and picked up my books and handed them to me.

"Am I going to have issues with you every time I run into you Junior, or are we cool?"

"We're cool, man. I'm sorry, I ... lost my head."

He was visibly shaking from an adrenaline let down.

"I want my fucking clothes back too Junior. If you don't get them to me this week, I want a fucking check to replace them, got me?"

"Yeah, OK. I have them in my car... I was going to give them to my sister to give to your sister to give to you... I didn't know you were going here. Are we cool?"

He then took me out to his station wagon and handed me a bag.

"Listen, man. I know things are rough right now, but I didn't cause them, your brother and his buddies did. What you did today was akin to what your brother would do. Don't be like him or life's just gonna get shittier and shittier for you."

"Yeah, you're right, and... sorry."

*

I would run into Candy from time to time at school. Candy was always excited to see me, and since she lived in my neighborhood, I told her we should swap schedules so we could carpool.

Candy regaled me with her class load. She told me she was still seeing a tutor to help her with her dyslexia and she had to go see a shrink once a week so she was limiting her class days to just Monday, Wednesday and Friday. The thing that excited her the most was that she was trying out for cheerleading again. I thought she'd be a shoo-in but she was doubtful, saying that even though she was a cheerleader so were all of the hundred or so candidates trying out from their respective schools. There weren't a lot of open spots and she recognized a lot of the girls trying out from cheer competitions she attended and she said they were "scary good."

"Come on, I've seen you work-it. You're scary good yourself!" I complemented.

"If you're so confident in me why don't you try out for the football team?"

"It's not because of a lack of confidence, with the trials going on, work, and school I don't know if I'd have the time."