Chapter 7 - The Depositions
The deposition took place in the grand conference room of the United States Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York on St. Andrew’s Plaza.
It was Thursday morning. Outside, a pack of sixty photographers and camera crews stood behind blue wooden barricades, their lenses pointed like artillery at the revolving doors.
Grant sat across the massive oak conference table between two court-appointed public defenders. His private counsel had formally withdrawn forty-eight hours earlier after their retainer checks bounced. He was wearing an off-the-rack navy suit that hung loosely from his shoulders; he had lost at least ten pounds in five days. His hair was unevenly combed, his skin gray, his eyes hollowed out with the dark, bruised circles of total insomnia.
Across from him sat Assistant United States Attorney Sarah Vance—Marcus Vance’s daughter, an iron-willed prosecutor who had put away three consecutive Wall Street hedge-fund titans for insider trading.
Julian and I sat at the far end of the table as complaining witnesses.
A court reporter’s fingers hovered over her stenotype machine like spider legs.
“State your name for the record,” Sarah Vance said, not looking up from her legal pad.
“Grant Sterling Whitmore,” he muttered.
“Louder, please, Mr. Whitmore,” the reporter said.
“Grant Whitmore,” he snapped, his voice rough as sandpaper. He had already dropped the “Sterling” he had illegally appended to his signature for five years.
“Mr. Whitmore,” Sarah Vance began, her voice crisp, lethal, and devoid of theatricality. “I am showing you Government Exhibit Four-A. This is an authorization for a wire transfer in the amount of six point four million dollars from the Sterling Endowment to an account at Bank Frick in Liechtenstein. Is that your signature on line four?”
Grant stared at the document. His hand trembled as he reached for a paper cup of water, but his fingers shook so violently that water spilled over the brim, soaking the blue table blotter. Neither of his public defenders moved to wipe it up.
“I… I don't recall this specific transfer,” Grant said, his eyes darting to me. “My office handled hundreds of transactions a week. My assistants had authority to use an electronic signature stamp for routine portfolio rebalancing.”
“Your assistants had authority to move six million dollars to an entity named ‘S.A. Creative Consulting’?” Sarah asked, raising an eyebrow. “An entity whose sole officer is listed as Sloane Avery, with an address corresponding to an apartment on West 10th Street that you leased under your own name?”
Grant swallowed. A bead of sweat formed at his hairline, hung for a moment, and tracked down through his eyebrow.
“I was… I was diversifying the foundation’s cultural outreach,” he stammered. “Ms. Avery was an expert in contemporary acquisition. We were building an institutional collection.”
“An institutional collection,” Sarah repeated flatly. “Then why did fourteen point two million dollars from that account get transferred forty-eight hours later into an online brokerage account that purchased short options on the S&P Five Hundred during the August dip?”
Grant said nothing. His mouth opened, closed, and opened again.
“Mr. Whitmore?”
“I invoke my Fifth Amendment privilege,” he whispered.
“You’ll be doing a lot of that today,” Sarah said, turning the page. “Let’s move to Exhibit Nine. This is a deed of trust encumbering the property at Fourteen East 72nd Street, Manhattan. The signature of Claire Sterling Whitmore appears on page twelve. Did you watch your wife sign this document?”
Grant looked at me. His eyes were wide, bloodshot, full of a strange, feral mixture of hatred and absolute terror.
“She knew about it,” he said, his voice rising, cracking into that shrill, defensive tone I knew so well. “She knew we needed liquidity for the Hudson Yards bridge facility! She agreed to it during dinner in July!”
“I was in Geneva in July, Grant,” I said across the table. I didn't raise my voice. I didn't lean forward. “I was addressing the World Health Organization on pediatric health initiatives. My passport was stamped at Cointrin Airport on July twelfth and I returned on August third. The notary has already admitted on video that you brought a woman wearing a blonde wig into his branch to sign that deed.”
Grant’s face turned from gray to an ugly, mottled purple.
“You set me up!” he screamed, lunging forward across the heavy oak table, his chair flying backward and crashing into the plaster wall behind him. “You planned this! You knew about the transfers three months ago! You let me sign those loan guarantees! You waited until that damn gala so you could destroy me in front of everyone!”
The two federal marshals standing by the door were on him in two seconds.
One pinned his right arm behind his back; the other slammed him chest-first down onto the oak table, his cheek pressed flat against the wet blotter where his water had spilled.
“Mr. Whitmore!” Sarah Vance barked, standing up from her seat. “One more outburst and I will have you remanded directly to the Metropolitan Detention Center for contempt!”
Grant lay there, pinned to the table, his breath coming in ragged, wet gasps. His cheek was smeared with blue ink from the wet documents.
“Claire…” he choked out, his voice muffled by the wood. “Claire, please… don't let them do this… I’ll sign everything over… the cars, the art, the name… I’ll disappear… I swear to God I’ll leave the country… just drop the wire charges…”
I picked up my pen from the table. I looked at the man who had thought he could erase me with my father’s waltz.
“You don't have anything left to sign over, Grant,” I said, looking down at his ink-stained face. “The state already owns your freedom. I already own everything else.”
Sarah Vance nodded to the marshals. “Take him out. We’ll resume in the grand jury room.”
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They hauled him up by his elbows, his feet dragging slightly on the carpet as they pulled him through the side door. He didn't look like an investment titan. He didn't look like a Whitmore. He looked like an empty suit being dragged to the furnace.
***
