“I don't really believe in people trying to slow me down,” Spiro told me over lunch in Miami recently, Visin in his pocket and legs shaking under the table. Told. “Some people I know describe me as 'irreverent,' and I think that's accurate. I'm probably difficult to manage.” Spiro's friend and law school classmate Yared・Allura told me this about Spiro. “He sees any system, any regulation, as just the opening salvo in a negotiation.”
Spiro's mother, Cynthia Kaplan, a clinical psychologist who specializes in child and adolescent trauma, noticed that her son was a debater from the beginning. “When he was 18 months old, he talked the same way he does now,” she said. “I remember him saying this.”actually, Mom, at that age. He is the eldest of four children and spent his childhood in Manhattan, where his father, a dentist and athlete, often took Spiro to weeknight basketball games.
Shortly before Spiro started kindergarten, his family moved to Wellesley, Massachusetts. After a few years, Spiro's comfortable suburban life began to crumble. His parents were divorced and his mother worked long hours at a hospital. His father was diagnosed with a degenerative neurological disease that eventually left him blind and unable to walk without aids. assistance. Spiro suddenly started spending most of his time alone. “I think he had to keep a lot to himself,” his mother told me. “He became more competitive and more determined back then.”
When Spiro was in high school, his mother helped him get a job at McLean, the psychiatric hospital where he currently works. There, Spiro spent time with young people diagnosed with spectrum disorders and was mentored by Sherbert Frazier, a prominent psychiatrist specializing in schizophrenia. Spiro decided to major in psychology at Tufts University, where he continued his studies with Frazier. One day, he recalls, Spiro was told by Frasier's assistant: You should go to law school. ”
The idea took hold, and Spiro enrolled at Harvard Law School in 2005. While he was in school he accepted a CIA fellowship and after graduation joined the Manhattan Prosecutor's Office as a deputy prosecutor. His fellow prosecutors recall that Spiro was not the type of person to write expert briefs, but he stood out in the agency for his willingness to take on cases that went to trial. Elliott Fellig, who overlapped with Spiro as a prosecutor, said, “He loved the courtroom. He would go door to door and ask, 'Is this going to be a trial?' He will be happy to take on cases from his colleagues who are ready for trial. ” He lost some cases, but won many more.
In 2010, Cyrus Vance Jr. became district attorney and created a unit to review cold cases. Eventually, Spiro begins helping two senior colleagues revive a cold case against notorious serial killer Rodney Alcala. Alcala was often referred to as the Dating Game Killer since he was a cast member on a TV show decades ago. Alcala was already on death row in California for the murders of four women and a 12-year-old girl. But back in the 1970s, he was also a suspect in the brutal murders of two women in New York.
“I wouldn't call myself an indoor person or an outdoors person. I'm more of a person who is watched on the porch.”
Cartoon by Barbara Small
Spiro seized the opportunity to take part in a high-profile murder case. He re-examined old witnesses and ultimately helped secure Alcala's indictment for both murders. In 2012, Alcala pleaded guilty.
One of the lead prosecutors, Martha Bashford, acknowledged that Spiro was not the most political employee in the company, but credited him with pushing the case forward. “Alex reminded me of when she got her new puppy,” she said. “They're very excited. They run around, wag their tails, and sometimes knock things over.”
Spiro also worked on the prosecution of another notorious murderer, Travis Woods, known around his home base of Harlem as Travis Woods. Woods had been tried three times for murder. Each time, the jury failed to reach a verdict. Spiro cooperated with the fourth trial in the case, the firm won a conviction, and Spiro decided it was time to move on.
“Becoming a defense attorney was very natural for me,” he told me. “I'm drawn to helping people, solving their problems, and righting wrongs. As corny as it may sound.”
Spiro thought he wouldn't fit in at a big company because it was “too corporate for me, too many blocks and barriers, too many bureaucratic rules,” and in 2013 he joined a specialist team led by legendary defender Benjamin Brafman. I got a job at a company. Brafman, a self-described “short Jew” who once performed on a comedy stage in the Catskills during his college days, has a reputation for being ferocious and self-consciously flamboyant. His client list included hip-hop producer Sean (Diddy) Combs, who was acquitted of gun possession and bribery charges after a nightclub shootout. hedge fund manager Martin Shkreli (convicted of stealing millions of dollars from investors); And then, Harvey Weinstein (convicted on countless sexual assault charges). Under Brahman, Spiro avidly sought clients and networked at parties and sporting events.
A trader at a major bank who was indicted on fraud charges told me that Spiro said, “You're not going to get anything by playing softball. You've got to push the boundaries a little bit and be aggressive.'' ” he advised. Spiro persuaded traders to hire private investigators to interview potential witnesses before the government launched an investigation. “Spiro was so confident that you tended to believe in him, even when he didn't necessarily have the track record to back it up,” the trader said. In the end, the businessman was acquitted.
around 2 o'clock morning On April 8, 2015, an Indiana Pacers forward was stabbed outside 1 OAK nightclub in Manhattan, and Atlanta Hawks forward Thabo Sefolosha was on the street outside as NYPD tried to clear a restricted area. . Sefolosha, who is black, got into an argument with a white police officer, John Paul Giacona. He told the police officer, whom Sefolosha called a “dwarf,” that his badge allows him to act like a “tough guy.” Sefolosha said Giacona responded, “Badge or no badge, I'm going to fuck you.”
As Sefolosha and his teammates tried to leave, Sefolosha began walking back toward the officer and later said he tried to give $20 to the man who was begging. The video shows a group of officers surrounding Sefolosha and forcing him to the ground.
Sefolosha was arrested, taken to jail, and charged with resisting arrest. His legs pulsed. He later learned that he had fractured his fibula at the time of his arrest. This injury will end his season and eliminate the Hawks' chances of making the playoffs. Around dawn that morning, Spiro received a call from Hawks' lawyer and showed up at the police station to represent him.
Sefolosha said the first thing she thought of when she saw Spiro was how young he looked. “But then he came in and took charge of the whole situation,” Sefolosha said.
After a number of meetings at his former workplace, the Manhattan prosecutor's office, Spiro received an offer from prosecutors. The agreement stipulated that the charges would be dropped within six months, but that the police would not be found to have been at fault. For Sefolosha, any agreement to exonerate the officers was unacceptable. “It was a no-brainer for me,” he said. “We had to go to trial.”
Spiro reenacted one of Giacona's cross-examination moments during an evening walk in Coconut Grove, near the luxury residential tower where he lives. Spiro asked Giacona if she remembered telling Sefolosha that she would “fuck her up.” “She doesn't remember anything like that,” Giacona replied. Spiro rolled his eyes, remembering that moment. “Don't you remember the most important day of your life?” he yelled, jabbing his finger at an imaginary police officer. “You were in New York. post. Don't remember looking into the eyes of the Atlanta Hawks' starting forward? ”
On October 9, 2015, the jury acquitted Sefolosha after deliberating for approximately 45 minutes. She then filed a civil lawsuit against the officers and the city and received a $4 million settlement.
Spiro's combative style is much in Brahman's mold, but people close to Brahman say the senior lawyer now says he regrets hiring Spiro. David Jaroslawicz, a civil lawyer who worked with both men, said of Spiro: he He was the No. 1 guy. ”
Shortly after Sefolosha's acquittal, Spiro began considering the next step in his career when he experienced what he considers one of the biggest disappointments of his career. He represented Thomas Gilbert Jr., who murdered his father, hedge fund founder Thomas Gilbert Sr., in Midtown. At the time of the murder, Spiro had known Thomas Jr., a Princeton graduate, for many years. His mother, Sherry, originally hired Spiro to defuse the situation when her son was expelled from the family-run Hamptons Country Club for threatening an employee. Thomas Jr. was 30 years old and had been diagnosed with severe obsessive-compulsive disorder, depressive disorder, delusional disorder, and psychosis.
The patricide was reported in horrifying detail in the press. Thomas Sr. had just reduced his son's weekly allowance. Thomas Jr. came to his parents' apartment, sent his mother to buy a sandwich, shot his father in the head, placed the gun in his dead father's hand, and fled. Her mother, who returned to her apartment, discovered the gruesome scene and called 911, telling her dispatcher that her son had gone “crazy” and killed her father.
Shelley told me that Spiro's experience at MacLean gave him confidence that he understood mental illness, which “much of society doesn't understand.” Spiro's goal was to transfer Thomas Jr. to inpatient psychiatric treatment rather than try him for murder, but two court-appointed psychiatrists determined that his client was too young to stand trial. When Spiro determined it was serious, he was elated. (“I gave the case my all,'' Spiro said.) But a forensic psychologist hired by prosecutors convinced the judge that Gilbert was sane enough to stand trial. With a conviction looming, Spiro removed Thomas Jr. as his client. Shelley's legal costs were mounting, and Spiro was planning to accept a partnership with Quinn Emanuel. He was reluctant to take the murder case to his new firm. There he would soon become the star that his most famous partner, the Brahman store, had never been.
