ORLANDO -- Everything looks great on paper in drawing up conspiracy theories in a high-profile trial, especially when it involves the feds who like to use descriptive terms like "mastermind," "raid" and "ring leader."
You've seen know, those middle-aged Clint Eastwood-looking guys like the blue button jackets with the yellow acronym "FBI" letters on the backs, as they walk by TV cameras and newspaper photographers, pretending like they don't see them as they carry boxes of documents and computers from some office complex or warehouse they've raided.
And with all of the officialdom and secrecy, just how is it that the media always seems to be already in place for the front page photo op or the lead to the 6 o'clock news on scorn and scandal?
It's bad enough to hear the growling stomachs among the light smattering of court watchers with the judge's schedule the jury seated and the attorneys ready to go at 9 a.m. sharp and the jury dismissed and court recessed for the day at 3 p.m. sharp. There is no lunch sandwiched in between. Though during two 20-minute breaks, the first at 11 a.m. and the second at 1 p.m., the government and defense teams will offer each other peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, Nilla cookies, apples and an assortment of chocolate and oatmeal bars. Some even manage to bring in cans of Coke.
Or better yet, how about a juror trying to stop herself from sneezing and instead shocking her colleagues into a sudden awareness of consciousness with a sound that could have registered on a richter scale, pro,mating to judge to tell there's no need to try and block the inevitable eruption of sound. The same juror also had a coughing fit which prompted the judge to call for a 10-minute recess.
Oh, and with the minute hand touching the 12 and the hour hand at 3, the first four days of the high profile Volusia mortgage fraud ring ending right on the button at 3, bringing a merciful close to the first week with the government's case in shambles. If there is a case to be made against the alleged mastermind of a conspiracy ring in Jim Sotolongo, his live-in girlfriend and mother of their 11-month-old baby girl in Ramara Garrett, a former realtor, and title insurance partner, Stephanie Musselwhite, are looking more and more, the sneeze had far more impact than the governments case in a Good Friday -- as in the religious day and a successful one for the accused and their power attorneys.
It's not except for one nagging question: Did the government put the wrong man on trial as the alleged mastermind of a conspiracy ring that preyed on banks and lending institutions?