'Dust, sweat and blood' pay off for lawyer, client
As Paul Mark Sandler tells the story, it was late on a Los Angeles night when he got a knock on the door from a client.
The client was David F. Rosen, former national finance director for Hillary Rodham Clinton’s Senate campaign. Rosen was about to take the stand in a high-profile criminal trial, in which prosecutors charged that he knowingly caused false reports to be filed with the Federal Election Commission and willfully under-reported contributions to the campaign.
Rosen handed his defense lawyer a copy of a speech made by Theodore Roosevelt in 1910.
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It is not the critic who counts, not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles," Sandler said, quoting from the speech. "The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood...who does actually strive to do the deeds"
"He was telling me he understood the problems I had and he was giving his support," Sandler explained. "It was in the midst of all this overwhelming challenge, and I just hoped I would be worthy of it."
Sandler is back from the arena — and he has emerged the victor. After six hours of deliberation on Friday, a jury of 12 in federal court in Los Angeles acquitted Rosen of charges that he attempted to conceal the actual costs of a Hollywood gala fundraiser for Clinton in August 2000.
Sandler, a Baltimore attorney, was referred to Rosen through his cousin Joseph E. Sandler, a Washington, D.C. election law lawyer. Joseph Sandler assisted in the case, as did Michael Doyen of the Los Angeles firm of Munger Tolles & Olson, Sandler said.
"This is one of the few times where I represented someone who I truly believed was innocent," said Sandler, who has represented many prominent and public figures in his 30 years of trying cases. "I don’t mean that others weren’t, but I was ever so conscious that Mr. Rosen was wrongfully accused and was the victim of other people’s motives. It was more acute here for some reason."
And Rosen’s two and a half weeks of trial, Sandler said, were extremely taxing. The lawyers barely slept for three straight weeks, spending many hours with Rosen in order to advise him of what he could expect by testifying.
"That challenge to him was my challenge," Sandler said.
Testimony and 20/20
Having the defendant testify in this type of case is admittedly risky; other opportunities for persuasion are lost if the jury believes the client is lying. But Sandler traces the victory, at least partially, to Rosen’s credibility on the stand. He also credits a tape of the television show "20/20" which was shown to the jury.
"Peter Paul, one of the individuals who we claim concealed the true cost of the event, spoke to one of the program hosts and laid out for the public how much money he spent on this gala," which was $2 million, Sandler said.
"He claimed that he [was interested] in getting the president of the United States to work for him on one of his businesses — the Stan Lee media business — once he was out of office."
Paul also was interested in getting a presidential pardon for his past criminal activities, Sandler explained. (Prosecutors did not charge the Clintons with any knowledge or wrongdoing in the matter.)
“I had mentioned to the jury in opening statements that the reason the true costs of the event were concealed was because Peter Paul and Aaron Tonkin had their own agenda,” Sandler said. “I think [the 20/20 tape] dovetailed very properly with my opening statement."
Rosen, who was indicted in December 2003, maintained that he did not know the true cost of the fundraiser and that the costs were hidden by Paul and Tonken, who participated with Stan Lee Media in underwriting and paying for the costs of the event. Prosecutors, who claimed the event cost $1.2 million, alleged that Rosen falsely reported only about $400,000 in contributions to the FEC.
"I thought he truly, honestly, from the heart and the mind, gave the jury the full truth," Sandler said of Rosen.
Charles S. Fax of Sandler’s firm, Shapiro Sher Guinot & Sandler, said during the trial that his colleague’s skills were uniquely situated to a complicated case like Rosen’s.
"He has a ravenous appetite for details and hard work," Fax said, adding that it was a complicated case with a lot of witnesses and a lot of stories. "They [needed] someone who knows what to look for, who pays attention to detail."
Though Sandler’s firm will undoubtedly bask in the win, both Sandler and Fax insisted that it is the client that counts.
"This young man’s life was at stake," Sandler said, noting that Rosen, if convicted, would undoubtedly have had to serve time, though probably not the five or 10 years reported by the press. "He’s 38 years old, just married, he has a career goal of public life and he’s a very dedicated person to this country, I think his life certainly would have been damaged."