Randy Singer: By reason of insanity

Quinn picked up his recorder, turned it off, and took his seat. "We can all win, Mr. Hofstetter, or we can all lose. If I walk out of here without a deal, I'll amend the estate filing to include the Oasis Limited Partnership interest. Annie will go to trial and, if she loses, Tanner gets custody of Sierra and voting rights for the Oasis asset. But I'll raise so much stink about the impropriety of him selling that casino to your business partners, and my suspicions that you put him up to it, that he'll never be able to pull the trigger. You lose. Annie loses. And Sierra loses.

"Or we can all win. You call off Tanner-he doesn't really care about Sierra anyway. You get your casino; Annie and I get custody of Sierra without interference."

Quinn looked at his watch. "It's 6:15, Mr. Hofstetter. You have fifteen minutes."

Hofstetter called in his security guards and asked them to escort Quinn outside. He told Quinn to take his digital recorder with him. Five minutes later, Quinn was allowed to return.

"If you propose your deal to Mr. Tanner tonight, I am reasonably confident he will accept," Hofstetter said matter-of-factly. Quinn could tell the man was choosing his words carefully. "It's only idle speculation, of course. And, just to be clear, I didn't even know that my son owned this limited partnership interest in the Oasis until you told me about it tonight. But still, I have to agree with your perspective that Sierra's real father seems to be in this just for the money. Given that perspective, I see no reason he wouldn't take the deal."

Quinn stared across the desk at Hofstetter. He despised the man. Hated the doublespeak. But Hofstetter was a pro; Quinn had to give him that much. There was a reason he had never been caught with his hand in the cookie jar. "Does that mean we have a deal?" Quinn asked.

Hofstetter smiled, spreading his palms. "It sounds like a good deal to me," he said. "But of course, I don't have any financial interest in it one way or the other. Only Mr. Tanner can tell you whether the deal makes sense to him."

"It's 6:25," Quinn said.

"So call Mr. Tanner right now," countered Hofstetter. "I'm sure you have his cell phone number."

Instead, Quinn dialed the Las Vegas jail. He explained that he was an attorney and had an emergency need to speak with his client. The deputies could call Carla Duncan if they needed verification.

A few minutes later, Annie came on the phone. "We have a deal," said Quinn, staring at Richard Hofstetter. The old man said nothing in return.

When Quinn got in his car, he called his consultant. "What did you get?" he asked, breathless.

"He called Claude Tanner when you left the office."

"And?" Quinn asked.

Quinn knew that Hofstetter would check for recording devices, but he had guessed that the casino owner would do so just once, at the beginning of the meeting. Accordingly, Quinn had his consultant attach a small magnetic transmitter to the underside of the digital recorder. With his pinky-a move Quinn had practiced for fifteen minutes before leaving for Hofstetter's office-Quinn had flipped on the tiny transmitter when he turned on the digital recorder to play back his phone call with Annie. When Quinn had picked up the recorder from the desk just before leaving the office the first time, he'd flicked the transmitter into a crack in the padding of his chair.

"It picked up every word of Hofstetter's phone call with Tanner," said the consultant. "Every incriminating word."

Quinn called Carla Duncan and agreed to meet at her office at eight.

"Where's your sense of the dramatic?" she asked. "You still have four more hours."

At the meeting, Quinn explained his sting operation on Hofstetter and gave Carla a copy of the recording that his consultant had made of Hofstetter's phone call with Tanner.

"Taping somebody's phone call without their consent is illegal," Carla said. "You know that."

"But as long as the government didn't direct it or participate in it, the tape's admissible in court."

Carla nodded. "I can use it against Hofstetter. But it might cost you your law license."

"That's the least of my worries," said Quinn. He trusted Carla Duncan. She was a tough prosecutor, but she was fair. "That confession I signed in Virginia Beach is true, Carla. I came to talk about a deal."

Catherine O'Rourke found out about Quinn's ploy while watching the news on Wednesday morning, her first full day of freedom. The euphoria of sleeping in her own bed and watching the sun rise over the ocean was swept away by the despair of seeing Quinn torn apart on national television. He didn't deserve this; he was a good man. Watching the coverage literally made her sick, yet she couldn't pull herself away from it.

She had thought about him a lot during the first few months of her incarceration, even before the trial started. Dreamed about him, really. He was part of a fairy-tale ending she knew could never happen: being found innocent by the jury, starting a normal relationship with Quinn outside the pressure cooker of the case, falling in love. She allowed herself to dream this dream even though she had pled insanity, even though a not-guilty verdict would lead to institutional treatment, not a relationship with Quinn Newberg.

During the trial, she had felt a deep bond develop, more than a lawyer-client relationship-way more. They had leaned on each other. Needed one another. Quinn had stood with her when others had run away. Not to mention that her vision Monday evening had saved Quinn's life.

And now she was free, just like in her dreams. But Quinn was gone. And Carla Duncan was holding a press conference, announcing a plea bargain that would send Quinn to jail for three years.

He would essentially serve the same length of time that had been offered to his sister, Duncan said. The prosecutor had taken into account the fact that Quinn was trying to protect his sister and had probably saved her life. But the shooting wasn't technically defense of others, because Hofstetter had already dropped the knife when Quinn shot him. And Quinn was also a lawyer, Duncan argued, an officer of the court. He had committed a massive fraud on the system and could not go unpunished. Moreover, he had committed other crimes that were wrapped up in this plea deal as well, including the unauthorized tape-recording of others without their consent.

In a related matter, Duncan announced the indictment and arrest of Richard Hofstetter Sr. and several of his associates on racketeering, fraud, and assault charges. Networks showed Hofstetter's "perp walk"-his trademark scowl, hands cuffed behind his back. Duncan said she intended to prosecute Hofstetter and his cohorts, including Claude Tanner, to the fullest extent of the law.

There were some who rallied to Quinn's defense. His law partners, personified by a man named Robert Espinoza, defended Quinn's overall integrity, while admitting some lapses of judgment on this one case that was so personal to him. Abuse groups still hailed Quinn as a hero. Annie staunchly defended him, telling the world through tears that her brother should not have to spend a single day behind bars.

Catherine would join the cause-it was the least she could do. Though she had sworn off media interviews after her acquittal, she decided to make an exception for Quinn. She would write an op-ed piece and send it to all the major newspapers. And she would make herself available to the local news stations. What he had done was not right, but she still cared about the man too much to sit this one out.

Some were comparing Quinn to Marc Boland, noting that both lawyers had taken justice into their own hands and then allowed others to take the blame. Vigilante justice with a scapegoat, they said. But Catherine saw the two situations as totally different. Boland had hunted people down and murdered them in cold blood. Quinn had protected a sister whose life had been threatened. Who among us wouldn't have been tempted to do the same?