Rosenthal's recess

So Chuck Rosenthal's testimony came to an abrupt halt yesterday after his attorney requested and was granted a recess. It would appear that Rosenthal and his attorney have a few things to discuss before Chuck goes back under oath.

Rosenthal acknowledged in testimony that he made some "errors" in previous sworn explanations for why he deleted the e-mails.

Defense attorney Brian Wice, who isn't involved in the case but observed the hearing, guessed that Rosenthal and his lawyers asked for the recess to get a copy of the transcript.

"They want to go over it with a fine-tooth comb for any statements that need to be retracted or corrected before the hearing ends to avoid a possible charge of aggravated perjury," Wice said. "You don't have to work really hard to perjure yourself."

The irony of Rosenthal possibly perjuring himself, given how he once brought his eventual Democratic rival CO Bradford up on a bogus perjury charge, is pretty thick. If this were a work of fiction, such a plot twist would feel contrived. But here we are, faced with the real possibility of it happening. How crazy is that?

The inconsistent statements made by Rosenthal in affidavits and depositions filed with the court made for a contentious round of questions as the embattled DA came under fire while defending his Nov. 5 deletion of more than 2,000 e-mails from his office computer.

Kelley established in court that Rosenthal swore that he deleted e-mails from his inbox, his sent box and his trash box in bulk by their dates.

Rosenthal testified that he selectively deleted e-mails as he read the subject line on each one. He said he opened a few of the e-mails to reread them before deciding whether to delete them.

Kelley also established that Rosenthal said in a deposition that he had tried to delete all but the past month's e-mails.

"If that was true, then this is false," Kelley said pointing to a large notepad on an easel in the courtroom on which he wrote out Rosenthal's prior statements.

Rosenthal said there were "errors" in his affidavit. He also said that some of his statements were false when confronted with the inconsistent statements.

[...]

Will Outlaw, who has been a lawyer for 33 years, sat through most of the hearing and said Rosenthal opened himself up to allegations of perjury.

"I'm not saying he perjured himself, but he opened himself up to those allegations," Outlaw said. "It's pure speculation, but if there has been perjury, this would be an opportunity to clean it up."

Criminal defense lawyer Todd Dupont said he was surprised Rosenthal didn't invoke his Fifth Amendment right not to incriminate himself.

"If he was my client, he would have pleaded the Fifth," Dupont said. "It didn't make any sense."

Dupont said Rosenthal's testimony amounted to an admission of a material misrepresentation of a fact in a sworn affidavit -- the definition of perjury.

In court, Rosenthal also told Hoyt that he understood that his actions could be likened to obstruction of justice or tampering with evidence.

I don't know what I was expecting from Rosenthal's testimony - most likely a bunch of lame excuses - but this wasn't something I'd seriously considered. Remember again, the emails in question were evidence in a lawsuit that alleged Rosenthal looked the other way at malfeasance by the Sheriff's office. I don't think it's possible to overstate how bad this all looks. Mark Bennett has more.

Posted by Charles Kuffner on February 02, 2008 to Local politics