Shadowed by the murder, Michael’s federal trial in the grape-switching case begins. Anonymous letters and mismanaged funds deepen the mystery of who killed a prized witness. Suspicious of each other, Michael and Robert decide to meet and settle their differences… when something goes terribly wrong.Listen to Blood Vines on the Wondery app or wherever you listen to your podcasts. You can listen to all episodes ad-free on Wondery+. Join Wondery+ in the Wondery App, Apple Podcasts or Spotify. Start your free trial today by visiting www.wondery.com/links/blood-vines.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.
Chapter 1: What happened in the previous episode?
Hey listeners, a note of caution that this episode contains mentions of suicide. Please listen with care. Previously on Blood Vines.
Seven o'clock every night.
Just heavy breathing on the other end of the line. He saw this person open the door and he woke up and he said he saw somebody lean in and set something down.
He was in our backyard playing with a dog. He felt a bullet go by. It hit the house.
I was, at the time, I was paranoid. You know, who do you trust?
In March of 1991, exactly two months after Jack's murder, two typewritten letters arrived at Stockton's main courthouse. Both were addressed to the county's assistant district attorney and might as well have been yanked from the pages of a pulpy crime novel. They were creepy. Unhinged. The first letter, which was anonymous, read...
Ask Steve Lapham, federal prosecutor, what kind of a guy Mike is. Look at the charges and see why he was thrown out of the family. He embezzled $200,000 from the company. Go see his trial on April or May 7th. Ask him these questions and get his reaction.
12 exclamation points punctuated that last sentence. As for the other letter, it contained only a single typewritten line.
Michael was being thrown out. Focus on him.
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Chapter 2: Who received the anonymous letters after Jack's murder?
Robert's motives weren't as clear, but they'd both miscalculated in thinking their dad wouldn't notice, which reminded me of something Joanna told me.
It's just the way that my brothers think. They are totally different personality-wise, but one thing that is about the both of them is they're in it for themselves. They didn't want to wait for the gravy train to come into the station.
And according to her sister Jacqueline, this betrayal was actually the breaking point for Jack. That's when he decided to restructure the family business, and there were rumblings that he might even rewrite his will. But while Michael got cut out of the company completely, Robert survived the shakeup by convincing his father that he'd be able to pay off the debt if Jack made him a 50-50 partner.
Investigators realized that this was the embezzlement that the creepy courthouse letters had mentioned. And in light of this new information, which only family members would have known, they couldn't help but wonder. If Robert had double-crossed his dad again, and Jack had found out, could that be a motive for murder? And what about Michael?
If both brothers were capable of such deception, could either of them be trusted? At the same time the police were rifling through Robert's records, Michael was under pressure of his own. He was still shaken by the shooting at his house, and his federal grape mislabeling trial was fast approaching. He now faced 12 criminal charges thanks to a superseding indictment.
And although Lapham and his team had offered Michael reduced jail time if he cooperated as a witness, Michael refused to plea bargain. He felt that he was being blamed for way too much of the grape mislabeling activity when he was really just one small part of an industry-wide problem.
What about the wineries that turned their heads, that practically begged for grapes labeled Zinfandel so that they could fulfill their quotas? According to Michael's wife, Norma, He just couldn't.
You couldn't get away. You couldn't get out of it. You know, how can you, when you're kind of in the middle, because you've got the winery doing it, you've got the other broker doing it.
As Michael saw it, everything had been done with a wink and a nod. The least he could do was set the record straight. Rather than take a deal, he'd take his chances. He'd fight his 12 charges in front of a jury of 12 peers. And maybe he'd redeem both his name and his family's. Of course, here's where we get into the realities of America's criminal justice system.
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