Chapter 8: The House of Cards Falls
Chapter 8: The House of Cards Falls
The trial lasted only four days. It was a slaughter.
The prosecutor didn't need to do much. They brought the banquet manager to the stand, the responding paramedics, and Detective Miller. But the star witness was the HD security footage.
When the video was played on the massive monitors in the courtroom, the jury gasped in unison. They watched Preston plant the phone. They watched him retrieve it. And they watched the brutal, unprovoked strike with the wooden board.
Preston’s defense—that he was in an alcohol-induced state of temporary psychosis—crumbled immediately.
On the fourth day, the jury deliberated for exactly forty-five minutes.
We stood in the silent courtroom as the foreman read the verdict.
"On the charge of Aggravated Battery of a Child, we find the defendant... Guilty. On the charge of Filing a False Police Report, we find the defendant... Guilty."
Preston collapsed into his chair, sobbing uncontrollably. The bailiff stepped forward with a pair of heavy steel handcuffs. As they clicked into place, Preston looked back at the gallery. My mother was weeping into her hands. My father stared straight ahead, rigid and pale.
The judge sentenced Preston to seven years in state prison, with no possibility of parole for the first four.
As they led him away, he didn't look at me. He didn't have the courage.
But the criminal trial was only the first domino.
The next morning, Marcus filed the financial fraud evidence with the SEC and the FBI. Federal agents raided my father's law firm before noon. His remaining partners voted to oust him by 1:00 PM.
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To avoid federal prison, my father was forced to liquidate his assets to pay back the millions he had stolen from my trust fund, plus the massive settlement we won in the civil suit. The grand Bennett estate in the wealthy suburbs was sold to a developer. His luxury cars were auctioned.
In the span of six months, the people who had treated me like dirt my entire life had been reduced to nothing.
