The Famous Mafioso Hired Me to Hear Him, and the Man in the Cell Is Not Who They Convicted novel · Chapter 23 of 24
Chapter 23: The Plea
The plea took forty minutes, and it cost him seven years.
I stood beside him through every minute of it and signed what the board and the judge asked.
I said aloud what he answered, and I did not look at anyone but his hands.
The prosecutor had worked it out in the corridor before the hearing.
Teodoro Brancato would not be asked to answer for the Palermo ferry, because he had never been in Palermo.
He would answer for what his own hands had done.
"Conspiracy to launder the proceeds of an unlawful enterprise," the judge read.
"Do you understand the charge?"
I put it into sign.
YES, Teo signed.
I said it aloud.
"How do you plead?" the judge asked.
Teo looked at me.
I had stopped being afraid of that look.
He lifted his hands, and they did not shake.
GUILTY. THE BOOKS WERE MINE.
I KEPT THEM FOR TWENTY-TWO YEARS BEFORE I EVER WENT TO A CELL.
I said it exactly, with my voice level, and a murmur moved through the gallery.
It was not a clean plea.
I knew that, and so did Teo.
He had taken a dead man's cell to save a family, and he had also kept that family's accounts.
The first was a theft of his life.
The second was his own doing.
He had never asked me to forgive the second, and I had not said I did.
The judge sentenced him to seven years.
Nineteen years in his brother's name would be credited against it, and the rest would be served as supervised release, with weekly reports to an officer in Rochester.
The rest of this chapter is part of the paid portion of the series. Chapters 1–6 of The Famous Mafioso Hired Me to Hear Him, and the Man in the Cell Is Not Who They Convicted are free to read — start from the beginning, then unlock the rest with coins in the app.
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