Many of you know my travels were interrupted between January 6 and the first week of
March this year as I was selected to serve on a Federal jury.
The criminal case involved three defendants (two humans and a
corporation) and 22 counts involving international espionage, conspiracy, sale
of trade secrets, income tax fraud and bankruptcy fraud. We’re talking China
and TiO2 by chlorination process. TiO2 may mean nothing to you,
but to the owners of the trade secrets in question, it’s worth billions. TiO2
(titanium dioxide) is a fine powder that’s an ingredient in everything white,
including paint, porcelain, paper, and yes, the fillings in Oreo cookies and Twinkies and your teeth.
There are five companies in the world who use this
process, and one of them is E.I. DuPont, the U.S.’s major by-chlorination manufacturer, and one of the biggest honchos in the game. Much of this process is public
knowledge—however, a few measurements within the plant build are closely guarded
secrets.
Every day, 16 of us picked at random from more than 90
“candidates” listened to testimony by the FBI, IRS, and various experts and
involved parties while examining about a third of nearly 3000 documents,
pictures and engineering charts in evidence. I nodded off periodically, as did
everyone, including the attorneys—sounds terrible, doesn’t it? At times I
wondered if they were doing it on purpose. I learned a lot about the US
judicial system.
After 16 weeks of testimony, I was informed I was first
alternate—so I didn’t even get the chance to join deliberations. We all took notes during the trial, but our books were shredded at the end. The remaining 12 jurors were a motley group, among them a phone company employee, truck driver, a
coach, a bus driver, a computer engineer, a librarian—smart, dedicated people, though no one had ever owned a
business, worked in chemical engineering, or did sales presentations for a
living. In other words, most of us were not remotely "peers" of the
defendants.
In a trial, the only information a juror hears is what’s
presented—so the strength of the case rests on the ability to pick and choose
what to present, and cleverness in countering what the other side has
presented—we’ve learned all this from TV. A lot of evidence is suppressed
before the jury sits down (and sometimes during the trial). In real life, the
government attorneys were eager, earnest, and massively outgunned by the
defense attorneys, who were sharp and well-fortified with cash. The expert
witnesses called by the prosecution (that’s the government, of course) limped
along, second-rate picks by any yardstick. The defense dazzled with top echelon
star witnesses (who were paid between $100K and $250K for their time). In my
next life…
This case would never have come to trial, I believe, if
DuPont hadn’t tried to set up a TiO2 plant in China and failed (supposedly
because DuPont wanted to control the money and/or wanted to dump waste. Those
reasons don’t make sense; if China wanted the trade secrets that went
along with the manufacture of TiO2, they could have easily stolen them after the plant was built, then built their own plant without much danger of
recrimination—something else was going on here). Mandarin-speaking defendant
#1 and his company won the contract instead, claiming that he could duplicate
the famous DuPont process, as he was consulting with former DuPont employees (defendant #2) without the theft of trade secrets—there was another former
DuPont consultant, though the jury was told he died before the trial. Only
after the trial did we learn he committed suicide.
Reminiscent of a two-year-old stomping his foot and shouting, "If I can't have it, nobody can", DuPont presented the FBI
with an anonymous note (?!) claiming defendant #1 and a Chevron employee who
had worked as a minor consultant for him were stealing trade secrets. The
Chevron employee and his wife (close friends of defendant #1's family) lost their jobs and home, but they stayed out of prison—I suspect
because he turned state’s evidence against defendant #1--could he have written the "anonymous" note? Either way, the FBI does
force people to turn on their friends to save their own skins. In fact, if
defendant #2 had turned, he probably wouldn’t be on trial. I honestly believe
he thought he did nothing wrong.
Long story short, the jury convicted both defendants on all
counts. If I were there, I would have fought to clear defendant #2 of
conspiracy at least—I believe he was brought on board strictly for the
dog-and-pony show to get the sale in China, a common business sales practice.
I’ve used it myself.
After learning of the suicide of the other consultant, I
am even more convinced that defendant #2 wasn’t the one who brought in the incriminating
charts and documents. He got painted by the same broad brush as defendant #1,
who, yes, was guilty of income tax evasion and bankruptcy fraud to the tune of
more than eight million bucks.
Justice is a relative term, and I’m not at all sure it was
done in this case. Two families were destroyed, right or wrong. One thing I do know—don’t get on the sticky side of a major
US corporation or the FBI. The former is making pillow talk with the latter,
and the latter is full of eager, earnest, righteous people who can’t wait to
make your life a misery, justified or not.
