from both of those locations. so once the ghanma brothers were in the clear, cops do what they always do in cases like this. it s practically police work 101. they took a closer look at the victim s boyfriend paul. and there was a curious moment in that police interview the day of the fire when paul admitted he wasn t always the best sort of boyfriend. me and my girlfriend were broke up, and thanks to palo alto pd, put a restraining order on me because they said paul threatened me, blah, blah, blah. i said, no, she came to the cafe and broke the door. we always have problems like this. i never touched a girl in my life. you can see the police reports. suspicious? sure. but as they asked around among the couple s friends, police learned a few things that put paul s behavior into context. maybe he wasn t any more to blame than she was. their relationship was chaotic. there s no disputing that, absolutely. but he was no more violent in the relationship than she was. whether it be
who might have been unduly swayed by angry text messages or stories about zumot s temper. what jurors do or what you want to get a jury to do is to want to help your client and to kind of walk in the shoes of your client. and then when he presented his case, geragos set out to reframe the events after that infamous party the night before the fire. the party was at a place and it was for paul s birthday. and it was planned by jennifer and the and maybe 14 to 18 of their close friends that were there. and by all accounts at the party, everything was great. and the argument later, the angry texts? that was just a way that paul and jennifer always were, said geragos. his proof? after those angry text message exchanges, here s what happened, as zumot described in his police interview. we talked, we smoked hookah. everything is fine. we did what we did, you know. and we slept together and we took two xanaxes. she took two more before me and we went to bed. so you slept together
on zumot s clothes, those clothes were sent to the bureau of alcohol, tobacco and firearms, and they showed no evidence of gasoline at all. the atf has a protocol and the atf also put out a protocol that said they put out a protocol that said you never take a dog alert, a single dog alert and draw a conclusion. and, in fact, if the atf says negative, you should not allow in the dog alert. so why would people believe the dog over the atf? i think once again you get into this idea that people have dogs, they kind of ascribe supernatural powers to dogs. i have two large dogs and one having been through a couple of cases with dog evidence, as much as i love my dogs, i m certainly not going to want to convict somebody and put their liberty at stake based on dog evidence. still, as he presented his case, geragos had a problem. and he knew it. what it came down to was the character assassination block of the case. the first two blocks of this
got together, paul took jennifer sometimes i feel like i m too cynical, but it was universally to new york city. and i remember he was like a kid in a candy store, just planning all of these elaborate, wonderful things that they were held opinion, i think. going to do together. the entire jury believed that it they were passionate, these was a manufactured moment. beautiful people. they both had strong what was the problem with his personalities. their love burned hot. testimony? jennifer was a strong, independent woman, and she would not accept anyone disrespecting her or even looking at her inappropriately. one was when he broke down on the stand and to me it didn t seem genuine. and the other portion of his and she was very strong-willed. me, like i always did, told him you need to be careful because girls can be evil. testimony was when he had the so he said, no, she s different. i love her. opportunity to tell us where he was and what he was doing, he chose to basicall
who loved jennifer. it hurt. it hurt a lot. unrequited partly because for some reason, even though he d been arrested, paul wasn t entering a plea, which is what this was all about. candlelight vigils outside of paul s hookah lounge by jennifer s friends and family. we decided to stand in front of his establishment every night until he made his plea. eventually, no surprise, paul did plead not guilty. and prosecutor chuck gillingham found himself sifting through the records of a two-year romance studded with restraining orders, bitter quarrels, scratches, bruises, 911 calls. these are two people who had makeups and breakups and she gave verbally as good as she got. after one of their flare-ups, paul was ordered to attend anger management classes. went to one the day of the fire, as a matter of fact. so why did people who fought so much stay together for so long. there was an audio recording of jennifer herself. gillingham got hold of it. listen to her explanation. he wins