Seymour lawyer Ralph Crozier spent the fourth day of his trial on federal money laundering charges telling jurors Bruce Yazdzik, a former client who testified last week that Crozier agreed to launder $30,000 in drug money for him, was lying.
But a federal prosecutor launched a blistering attack on the lawyer’s credibility, picking apart portions of Crozier’s earlier testimony and accusing him of everything from sloppy bookkeeping to doing cocaine with Yazdzik’s sister.
Then Crozier walked out of U.S. District Court in New Haven and said he hopes members of the jury “understand the truth.”
Background
Monday was the fourth day of Crozier’s trial before 14 jurors and Chief U.S. District Judge Janet Hall.
Crozier was charged with conspiracy and attempted money laundering — the “washing” of illegally obtained money through ostensibly legitimate investments — last April, and has since been free on $200,000 bond while awaiting trial.
Each of the two charges carries a maximum 20 years in prison and $1 million fine.
Click here to read about the first day of the trial.
Click here to read about the second day of the trial.
Click here to read about the third day of the trial.
Show Me The Money
Crozier began the day Monday answering questions from his own lawyer, Michael Hillis, contradicting nearly everything Yazdzik said on the stand during the trial’s first two days.
The feds say Yazdzik gave Crozier $30,000 cash that Crozier knew was from Yazdzik’s drug dealing.
“It never happened,” Crozier said.
He called the allegation “total rubbish,” adding that the feds didn’t ask for financial records from his office that he said would have showed Yazdzik had given him the money in increments for legal work.
Crozier said he wasn’t just in the dark about Yazdzik slinging illegal painkillers — he still doesn’t believe his former client was a kingpin.
He said he thought Yazdzik’s money came from a used car business for which Yazdzik hired Crozier to draw up paperwork.
He figured the business was prospering.
When the two would meet, he said, “(Yazdzik) kept driving up in Escalades and Audi A6s. Every time he came to the office he had a different luxury car.”
He said he knew Yazdzik might have “dabbled” in selling his own prescription painkillers on the side, but cast doubt on the scale of his client’s trafficking.
If Yazdzik had sold 100,000 painkillers at a conservative estimate of $10 profit apiece, Crozier said, “where’s the million bucks?”
“Where’s the million dollars? It doesn’t make sense to me,” Crozier said.
But didn’t Yazdzik show “signs of wealth” that could be suspicious, Hillis asked?
“Not unless driving used cars you buy at auction is showing signs of wealth,” Crozier responded.
Squeal Or No Deal
Crozier told the jury he was on trial because he hadn’t been able to help in a corruption probe in Waterbury.
He said FBI and DEA agents tried to browbeat him after rushing into his office and throwing him to the floor minutes after Yazdzik’s mother gave him $11,000 of DEA money in a sting operation.
He said he told them he was willing to cooperate and had “absolutely nothing to hide.”
He offered to let them search his office, he said, and asked what they wanted.
“They said they were there because they wanted to know about Waterbury and what was going on in Waterbury,” Crozier said.
The feds then offered him a deal.
“If you do what we need, no one has to know this ever happened, and you won’t be indicted,” he quoted agents as telling him.
Trouble was, Crozier said he didn’t know about any Waterbury corruption.
He said the feds suspected a sweetheart deal he got for Yazdzik on drug and domestic violence charges was the result of something untoward.
“They started throwing names (of prosecutors) at me,” Crozier said, but he maintained the deal he got for Yazdzik was aboveboard.
Lawyer’s Guns And Money
Crozier also told jurors that a drunken driving conviction he told them about when he took the stand last week wasn’t the only blot on his record.
At the time of his drunk driving arrest he was on probation for disorderly conduct for a domestic incident he characterized as stemming from a “difficulty” with an ex-girlfriend.
Hillis pointed out Crozier was also on probation for making a false statement in the second degree.
Crozier said while the domestic case was pending, a judge entered a protective order in the case calling for Crozier to surrender any guns he owned — even a collection of antique weapons from the 1700s and 1800s.
“Blunderbusses, Revolutionary War stuff,” Crozier said.
But he failed to surrender some antiques guns he technically owned but were in the possession of his ex-wife, he said. He said he figured he didn’t have to.
“I made a misstatement,” Crozier said. “I’m willing to take responsibility.”
He said he also had a disorderly conduct conviction from a case that stemmed from his kissing a judicial marshal during a Christmas Eve party.
He said he spent 93 days behind bars on a 179-day sentence for violating probations in previous cases by driving drunk in 2009.
Hillis asked whether Crozier’s time in prison hurt his practice.
Crozier said he had to make arrangements to have other lawyers temporarily handle his roughly 150 clients, and cleaned out his 401k to pay his staff while he wasn’t working.
But he said his past transgressions don’t mean he laundered dirty money for Yazdzik..
“I tried to do everything as proper as I know how,” he said.
Really?
Assistant U.S. Attorney Rahul Kale wasn’t buying it.
Kale suggested Crozier cooked up records showing Yazdzik had given him the $30,000 in increments over the course of his work only after being accused of laundering the cash.
Crozier said the records were in his office the day he was arrested, and the feds could have found them there then.
Kale also accused Crozier of lying from the witness stand last week when he said he had never failed a urine test while on probation after getting out of jail.
Kale pointed out Crozier tested positive for marijuana last May after his arrest in the federal case.
The dirty urine test prompted a warning from a judge during Crozier’s arraignment.
So, Kale asked Crozier, you lied?
Crozier said that during his testimony last week, he meant he hadn’t tested positive for a urine test related to his state conviction.
Kale suggested marijuana wasn’t the only controlled substance with which Crozier is familiar.
The prosecutor said that during an interview of Crozier after his arrest, he had told agents he had done cocaine with Yazdzik’s sister, for whom he handled a divorce case.
“She lit up a pipe and I told her to get out,” Crozier said. “She used it in my presence. I don’t do cocaine, sir. I’ve never, ever had a test show cocaine. Ever.”
Kale also asked whether Crozier handled any money laundering cases before.
Crozier said about 15 years ago a client who owned a company convicted of money laundering.
According to court records, the company in question, Silano Development, pleaded guilty to money laundering in January 1999 and was ordered to pay a $1.4 million fine in May 1999.
Hiding In Plain Sight?
Though Kale isn’t done cross-examining Crozier — his questioning will continue Tuesday — the implication regarding Crozier’s past work seemed clear: Crozier would know how to launder money, even while trying to make it look aboveboard.
Crozier disputed the contention after leaving the courthouse Monday, saying he didn’t initially remember the old case.
“It didn’t even come to my mind,” Crozier said. “If one was to launder money, one certainly would be able to do it a lot better than this. You wouldn’t put any money in his name, you wouldn’t put the receipt in his name, you wouldn’t put the note in his name, the contract in his name. There was no attempt to money launder.”
He said he hopes the jury in the case “gets the picture.”
“I believe in the judicial system,” he said.
Click the play button on the video above to see Crozier’s comments.
