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53

Preparing a Defense

I thought I pretty much understood what I was up against until I saw the indictment. In all honesty, it was about the furthest thing from the truth that I had ever seen in my life. I knew that Bobby had implicated us by telling the government that we were aware of everything he had done wrong. In the eyes of the law, that would have made us co-conspirators. But the indictment did not even include Bobby Davids’s name. It listed all the things he claimed to have done improperly and stated that the executives did these things—or more precisely, “caused them to happen.” We were all facing conspiracy charges that could result in up to fifteen years in prison.

I was floored when I first read the indictment. Randy was not. It was just about what he had expected based on his thirty years of experience. The indictment represented the government’s story in the strongest possible language to justify the charges. Truth, on the other hand, could hopefully emerge from the fires of the trial. So far there had been absolutely no pushback against Bobby’s view of the world. We had, in fact, not yet begun to fight.

I met Randy and my South Carolina attorney, John Simmons, in Charleston for the arraignment. All ten of the indicted Medical Manager executives were there, along with more than twenty of our attorneys. Joining me were John Kang, John Sessions, Rick Karl, David Ward, two regional vice presidents, the chief financial officer, an accounting comptroller, and the attorney who had worked on the dealer acquisition program. It was quite a circus. Before the court proceedings, we all had to get booked and fingerprinted by the FBI. Needless to say, that was a first-time experience for all of us.

When we were finally brought together outside the courtroom, it was the first time many of us had seen each other for years. We had built a successful company together and there was still real friendship and camaraderie between us. The attorneys preferred that we not speak to one another, but that just wasn’t going to happen. The scene turned into a reunion with warm handshakes and hugs. Each of us knew in our hearts that we had not done the things we were being accused of. Perhaps the sense of a common enemy brought us even closer together. All I know is that by the time the prosecutor showed up, it looked more like a social gathering than an arraignment.

I really wanted to meet the prosecutor. I didn’t hold anything against her. In fact, I felt a strange kinship with her because we both had been duped by the same con artist—Bobby Davids. The difference being that I knew it and she didn’t. Against Randy’s better judgment, but with his permission, I introduced myself to her. She shook my hand, but it was very clear that she didn’t like me very much. It was the first time we had ever met, but she had already built a Mickey Singer inside her head who I’m sure I’d rather not meet.

The proceedings progressed smoothly except that instead of one defendant and his attorney standing before the judge, we had to squeeze in ten defendants and twenty attorneys. The courtroom was quite small, and the public seating area was completely filled with the remainder of our legal teams. The room was so packed that the jury box was being used to hold ten to twelve inmates in orange jumpsuits who were waiting their turn to see the judge. I was standing right next to the jury box, and these inmates reminded me of my group back in prison. I allowed myself to think that the way things were going—that could be me someday. I knew if I was going to be at peace throughout this ordeal, I would have to be comfortable with that thought. I just let go and relaxed into the moment. I was standing in a South Carolina courtroom being arraigned, but I was overcome with love for those inmates sitting next to me. Randy had to nudge me to stand up straight and pay attention to the proceedings. All I knew was that I was on the journey of my life and just look where it had taken me.

The judge released us on our own recognizance without the need to post bail. Though we were free to leave, I lingered in that courtroom for a while and wondered what it had in store for me. These were very unique moments in one’s life—best not to miss them.

I spent time with some of the executives afterward. I hadn’t seen Rick Karl for many years, but that hadn’t affected our close friendship. He told me he had been nominated for a federal judgeship in Florida. Indications were that he would have received the appointment, but he had to pull his name the moment he heard he had been indicted. Likewise, John Kang was preparing to step down as chairman and CEO of the public company he and his brother had started. Everyone was putting their best face forward, but this situation was altering people’s lives.

Aside from these executives and their families, the front-page publicity from the indictment had affected some other people very dear to me. I had already received a call from the warden at Union Correctional Institution saying that until this situation was resolved, he had no choice but to revoke my authorization to meet with my Saturday morning group. After thirty years of committing myself to perhaps the most important thing I had done in my life, my prison work was over. A wave of darkness was falling over everything that had been the source of so much light. It was all completely out of my control. I was determined to sit peacefully deep inside and see if it could pass by without affecting my inner state. It was like the early days when I had first started my experiment of letting go in the face of perceived danger. The big difference now was that this danger was way beyond anything I could have ever imagined. It was the perfect storm.

Meanwhile, it had been over two years since the raid. The government was required by law to disclose all the materials investigators had seized. Yet by the time of the arraignment, we still had no documents with which to prepare a defense. That evening, the entire joint defense group got together at a hotel. I really enjoyed watching all the attorneys interact. Randy had taken the lead in putting together a joint defense agreement that would allow us to share materials. But in the end, each attorney was responsible for their own client’s best interest. Surrounded by a roomful of criminal defense attorneys, I realized that I was in an amazing situation. I was about to embark on a very personal tour of the American justice system. I knew I had never even thought of doing the things I was accused of. But how was this going to turn out? Would our great system of justice work?

A month later we began to receive the first wave of disclosure materials. We gained access to the 1.2 million e-mail messages taken during the raid as well as the notes from some of the FBI interviews. It would be five more months before we had any access to the millions of pages of paper documents that had been seized, not to mention the hundreds of thousands of computer files that had been copied during the raid. The government had almost three years to review all this material; it was going to take the defense years to work through it.

Once the disclosure materials began arriving, Randy and the Baker Botts team kept giving me tasks to do: review these tens of thousands of e-mail messages; review all six years of notes from the executive meetings; review all my written responses to years of nightly take-home work. I would periodically go up to D.C. to work with the team on specific items. There were always four or five attorneys from Baker Botts working on the case on my behalf. All the other executives’ attorneys also had dedicated teams, though not always as large. The further we got into the material, the more obvious it became—no one except Bobby and his group had done anything wrong. There were no e-mail messages or documents that showed any executive instructing, or even implying, that accounting should be done improperly. We had thirty to forty of our attorneys buried in these documents solely to find anything that could tie us to Bobby’s misdeeds. No one found any hard evidence against any of the defendants. Unfortunately, since we had worked with Bobby Davids on a regular basis, there would always be circumstantial evidence that could be exploited to mean whatever you wanted it to mean.

This was the backdrop under which I wrote The Untethered Soul. To the core of my being, I wanted to communicate to others that they were deep inside listening to that voice’s incessant chatter, and there was a way they could be free. That was the work of my life—not this absurd legal mess. I didn’t care how threatening this nontruth had become—I wanted to share a deep truth that would brighten the lives of others. I committed myself to the book. Karen and I had finished writing by late 2006, but we were still doing editing passes. I sent an early draft to Randy because I wanted to get his feedback. I also needed my attorney’s permission to do just about anything that might affect the case. Randy was very concerned that the government prosecutors would find a way to use the book against me, as they had been doing with everything else. I told him that I was willing to take that risk. Especially since we had no idea where the case would end up, I needed to get the book published as soon as possible. Having discussed the risks, Randy left the decision to me.

Getting The Untethered Soul published came together very quickly. I had given an early draft to James O’Dea, a dear friend of mine who was on the Temple’s board of trustees. As the perfection of life would have it, James was the director of the Institute of Noetic Sciences (IONS) at the time, and they had just signed a co-publishing arrangement with New Harbinger Publications, the country’s foremost psychology book publisher. They all read the book and loved it. Given how everything else in my life was being pulled toward the abyss, it amazed me to see these energies flow so smoothly.

The Untethered Soul was launched in September 2007. I bypassed the customary promotional book signing tour and declined all interviews. I knew it was an author’s responsibility to promote their book, especially during the launch, so I informed New Harbinger that I would handle the publicity by way of the Internet. Karen and I devised a marketing strategy, and without leaving the woods of Alachua, we poured time and money into promoting the book. The results were phenomenal. New Harbinger’s first press run of The Untethered Soul was supposed to last a year—we ran out of books in just three months. The book has continued to sell very well on its own after the launch, including internationally. In the midst of that intensely dark period, the book managed to manifest, sprout wings, and soar off around the globe. The feedback from everywhere was overwhelming. The Untethered Soul was fulfilling its purpose—it was helping people. In the midst of phenomenal darkness, it was spreading light.