A federal jury may decide Wednesday whether Seymour lawyer Ralph Crozier is a cash-hungry money launderer — or a helpless victim of a “shameful” government “frame-up.”
The dueling pictures of Crozier — emerging over the past five days of his trial on money laundering charges in U.S. District Court in New Haven — crystallized Tuesday in closing arguments by lawyers on both sides of the case.
The jury’s verdict could see Crozier walk out of U.S. District Court a free man or face up to 40 years in federal prison.
Background
Tuesday was the fifth day of Crozier’s trial before 14 jurors and Chief U.S. District Judge Janet Hall.
Federal prosecutors say Crozier agreed to launder $30,000 in drug money for Bruce Yazdzik, a former client now in federal prison who testified last week.
The feds also claim Crozier agreed to launder another $11,000 of what he thought was Yazdzik’s dirty cash — in reality it was DEA money — given to him by Yazdzik’s mother in a sting operation last April.
He 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.
Court began Tuesday with Assistant U.S. Attorney Rahul Kale peppering Crozier with questions about his involvement in the alleged scheme with Yazdzik, the former client, for about 25 minutes.
After Crozier left the stand and his lawyer, Michael Hillis, rested his case, Kale recalled FBI Agent Jeffrey Waterman to the stand to contradict Crozier’s testimony about interviews he gave to the feds after his arrest.
Kale and Hillis then delivered their closing arguments to the jury.
‘Are You Kidding Me?’
For nearly an hour Hillis stood before jurors and delivered a scathing indictment of the government’s case against Crozier, saying the feds set up his client with perjured testimony.
Hillis said that from the date of Crozier’s arrest last April — when he said his client was “thrown on his face and handcuffed” in his office — Crozier has been completely open about his dealings with Yazdzik, who Crozier said he knew as a used car salesman.
But when the feds realized Crozier couldn’t give them any information leading to alleged Waterbury courthouse corruption, Hillis said they decided to throw the book at him.
The defense lawyer ridiculed Yazdzik’s testimony to the jury, saying that while the 31-year-old inmate might have appeared to be “a poor criminal, he is smarter than most people in this room.”
Those smarts led him to keep Crozier in the dark about his drug dealing, Hillis said.
But once he was convicted in a drug conspiracy to which he himself alerted the feds Yazdzik saw a chance to get out of jail early, Hillis said, — by testifying Crozier knew Yazdzik’s $30,000 investment in a solar company was a scheme to clean his drug money.
“The government is trying to flim-flam you into believing that Mr. Crozier in some way made an admission about this,” Hillis said, mocking Yazdzik’s allegation that Crozier took $30,000 cash and waved it around excitedly in his office.
“Are you kidding me?” Hillis said, calling Yazdzik’s testimony “planted and structured.”
He pointed out that Yazdzik, while being cross-examined, said he would lie to get out of jail early.
“He tells you he would lie … And he did lie,” Hillis said.
You Think We’re Scumbags?
But the defense attorney didn’t stop there, telling the jury that “from the inception of this case, (the government) has been trying to frame Ralph Crozier.”
But he said they didn’t even do that adequately.
“This was a frame job and they never carried the ball across the line,” he said, trying to poke holes in the government’s case and saying federal agents lied on the witness stand.
Hillis ended his closing by telling the jurors not only that Crozier’s “life is in your hands,” but that the principal of good government is, too.
“You are the guardians of justice here,” he said. “Is this the way you want your government to operate? Do you think this is proper?”
He also asked jurors to set aside common perceptions about defense lawyers.
“No matter how much you want to think we’re scumbags,” Hillis said, attorneys like Crozier are what keeps the country from becoming a “police state.”
“Hold fast,” Hillis told the jury.
‘Dodging, Arrogant, Full Of Himself’
Kale, the prosecutor, said simply that the government was following dirty money in its investigation of the case.
By choosing Crozier for a lawyer, Kale said, Yazdzik struck paydirt.
The prosecutor pointed out Crozier handled a prior money-laundering case in federal court and said he had the know-how to “funnel Bruce Yazdzik’s drug cash through bank accounts before parking it as an investment in a solar panel installation company.”
“It was hidden in plain sight,” Kale said of the dirty money, saying the company, now-defunct Brightside Solar, was “desperate for startup funds and didn’t want to ask too many questions.”
Kale conceded Yazdzik “poisoned his community,” but argued that doesn’t mean he was lying on the stand.
“You don’t have to like him to believe him,” the prosecutor said, ridiculing the notion that Yazdzik would be “savvy enough” to launder drug money through an unwitting lawyer’s bank accounts.
It was Crozier who lied on the stand, Kale charged, pointing out inconsistencies in the lawyer’s testimony, like when Crozier said Yazdzik asked him to put the money in the solar company as a way of hiding it from his girlfriend, mother, and sister.
“Why would a legitimate car salesman hide money?” Kale wondered. “It doesn’t make any sense. There are institutions in the United States called banks.”
Kale told jurors to think back to his cross-examination of Crozier, saying the lawyer, far from being completely open about his dealings with Yazdzik, was “dodging, arrogant, and full of himself.”
“Is this a man who tells the truth, (or) is this a man who evades every question given to him?” Kale went on.
Far from the innocent patsy portrayed by Hillis, Kale said, Crozier was Yazdzik’s “partner in crime.”
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.
Click here to read about the fourth day of the trial.
