SALEM - Christopher Ortega came to Salem Superior Court yesterday to evidence about setting up phony accidents and providing clients for an Andover lawyer and North Andover chiropractor charged with filing fraudulent insurance claims.
But Ortega, 32, of Lawrence, wound up being questioned without the panel present about his jailhouse conversation in Florida four days ago with a Lawrence police detective who arrested him.
The seven-day-old auto insurance fraud trial took an unusual turn when one of the defense lawyers raised questions around the want of evidence made available by the prosecution regarding Ortega's March 5, 2007 conversation with Sgt. Michael Simard, who was so the principal investigator on the Lawrence Police Department's auto insurance fraud task force.
Boston attorney David E. Meier,who is representing Andover attorney James C. Hyde, sought to get admittance to a videotape recording of the interview, which he called "critical evidence."
Hyde, 59, of Boxford. is one of three area men on trial for car insurance fraud. A spouse of the law firm of Berger & Hyde, he is charged with knowingly filing phony claims in connection with alleged accidents on Oct. 1 and Dec. 20, 2002. His codefendants are:
North Andover chiropractic clinic operator Michael H. Kaplan, 49, of Hampstead, N.H. He is aerated in connexion with three "paper accidents" - Oct. 1, 2002, Oct. 10, 2002 and Dec. 20, 2002.
Omar Castillo, 38, of Methuen, a former van driver for Kaplan Chiropractic Office. He is accused of setting up a bogus crash on Dec. 20.
"At minimum, the defence should be provided data on what occurred," attorney Meier said yesterday.
Judge Howard Whitehead agreed "there's no question, it's material evidence," assuming a tape-recording did exist.
The judge delayed the testimonial of Ortega, a key prosecution witness, pending the result of a listening to find whether a videotape recording existed and what happened to it if it did exist.
Judge Whitehead expressed dissatisfaction with Simard's testimony, calling it "a defence of duty" while also noting that "Sgt. Simard's memory failed him." Simard said no tape-recording was done, but recalls very short of the conversation.
Ortega also recalled very short of the conversation and said he couldn't remember whether the conversation was tape-recorded or not.
Meier requested that the judge call another witness, Lawrence Police Officer Ryan Guthrie, a former detective and labor force member who accompanied Simard on the March 2007 trip to Tampa, Fla. to arrest Ortega with the assistance of the U.S. Marshals and Hillsborough County Sheriff deputies.
Guthrie couldn't be reached yesterday. But the label continued the audience to early Monday, when he will be available to testify. Judge Whitehead said he will wait until after Guthrie's testimony before allowing Ortega to make the stand.
Assistant State Attorney General William R. Freeman told the label that Ortega initially signed a law department form agreeing to an electronically recorded interview on March 5, 2007. There are also two other undated forms that rescinded that permission. Simard said he couldn't explain why there are two denial forms.
"Before the audience actually started, he (Ortega) declined to get the interview recorded," Simard said, when questioned by prosecutor Freeman.
Simard recalled that Ortega "pretty much denied wrongdoing" and called his friend, Leo Lopez, "the brain" of insurance fraud scams.
When questioning Simard, Meier expressed surprise and alarm about how little Simard recalled of the question and of the plane ride back to Massachusetts. Simard called it "casual conversation."
"If it was important, it would have been memorialized," Simard said, explaining why there was no note of the conversation with Ortega at the airport or during flight.
Meier wanted to live if he discussed the criminal charges Ortega faced.
"We wanted Mr. Ortega to cooperate, so we treated him like a gentleman. He probably talked about his family," Simard said.
Meier later expressed his disappointment with the label after Simard left the courtroom.
"Isn't the defendant entitled to know prior statements, whether they are taped or not," Meier asked.
"This is a quite extraordinary situation," he said.
Ortega was a Lawrence High School classmate and admirer of Leo Lopez - the prosecution's star witness, who has been dubbed by fraud investigators to be the most prolific organizer of phony crashes. But Ortega has been considered a striking "case runner" too.
In May 2004, then-state Attorney General Thomas F. Reilly announced Ortega's arrest and identified him as "the veteran" of a phony accident that led to the indictment of eight other people - including the manipulator of a Methuen auto body shop.
Ortega was accused of recruiting participants for the two-car crash faked in November 2002 at Interstate 495 and Route 110 in Haverhill. Investigators said he also written the stories told later by those who claimed to have been injured in the accident. But he later bolted to avoid prosecution.