Jury to Begin Deliberations in Brockovich Extortion Case

Jurors heard the “ka-ching” of a cash register and saw a $280,000 check flash on the wall as a Ventura County prosecutor summed up the case against a lawyer accused of trying to extort money from the real-life Erin Brockovich and her boss, Ed Masry.

“This is what this case is all about--money,” Chief Deputy Dist. Atty. Michael Frawley said during closing arguments Tuesday, “getting as much of it as they could get.”

But a defense attorney told jurors that Masry set up their client, Century City lawyer John Reiner, after misinterpreting his intentions. “Ed Masry got the wrong idea and assumed the worst,” defense attorney Michael Nasatir said. “No threat was made.”

The closing arguments, which both included computerized slide presentations and tape recordings, ended a weeklong trial in a Ventura courtroom. Jurors are to begin deliberations this morning. If Reiner is found guilty of attempted extortion and conspiracy to commit a crime, he could face three years in prison.

Prosecutors maintain that Reiner and his clients--Brockovich’s ex-boyfriend Jorg Halaby and ex-husband Shawn Brown--attempted to blackmail the legal investigator and her boss out of $310,000. The men threatened to tell the tabloids that Brockovich--the subject of the hit movie starring Julia Roberts--neglected her three children and that she and Masry had an affair, Frawley said.

Reiner called Masry in April to give the Westlake Village attorney an opportunity to pay and prevent any media interviews, prosecutors argued. “They were enjoying this extortion,” Frawley said. “They were getting great pleasure in bringing down Mr. Masry and Ms. Brockovich this way.”

Defense attorneys contend that Reiner did not try to blackmail anybody but thought he was involved in a legitimate business deal. Reiner was trying to get money from Universal Studios, which produced the film “Erin Brockovich,” they said. He asked for Masry’s help because of his relationship with Universal and his reputation as an effective negotiator.

“We didn’t want money from Ed Masry,” Nasatir said. “What we wanted was for him to go to Universal.”

But Masry took control of the situation and manipulated Reiner into writing an agreement that required Brown and Halaby to deny that Brockovich was a bad mother or that she had an affair with him, defense attorneys said. Reiner, they said, never intended to spread any rumors about affairs and never mentioned sex or sexual relations in his conversations with Masry.

Roberts won an Oscar on Sunday for her role as Brockovich, a twice-divorced mother who helped secure a $333-million verdict against a company that had been polluting the water in a small desert town.

Masry, Brockovich and Halaby were depicted in the film and signed lucrative contracts with Universal Studios agreeing not to malign the movie.

Brown, however, did not have a contract with the movie studio and was angry that he was portrayed in the film as an absent father, attorneys said.

Reiner, Brown and Halaby were arrested in April 2000 after a two-week investigation prompted by an alleged phone call from Reiner to Masry, who has since become a Thousand Oaks city councilman. Prosecutors recorded several phone conversations and videotaped the final meeting among the parties.

On the videotape, Masry is seen handing a check for $30,000 to Halaby and one for $280,000 to Brown. The checks, which were admitted into evidence, were also made out to Reiner. Brown was then shown giving a $100,000 check to Masry, saying it would pay child support for the two children Brown had with Brockovich. At the end of the meeting, investigators stormed into the office and arrested the men.

Prosecutors later dropped charges against Brown and Halaby but did not explain why.

During closing arguments, Frawley said the case was easy because all the evidence is on tape, much of which he played for jurors. Frawley argued that the defendant “lost his moral compass,” and that everything he did during that two weeks in April was geared toward blackmailing and disgracing Brockovich and Masry. “A license to practice law is not a license to practice blackmail,” he said. “He is an embarrassment to the profession.”

But Nasatir urged jurors to consider both sides of the story, and he defended Reiner as an attorney who acted completely within the law. Nasatir accused Masry of controlling the situation and working with district attorney’s investigators to make Reiner look like an extortionist. Reiner simply accepted an offer for money on behalf of his clients, not realizing that he was being trapped, Nasatir said.

“All of a sudden, Ed Masry is offering to pay money himself,” Nasatir said. “But that offer is not in response to a threat.”