The Trial | Episode 5

0:15Speaker 1:Pushkin previously on Deep Cover.

0:27Speaker 2:I went back to my house and I told my mother to come outside, and I told her that she had to leave and that she was never welcome back there ever again until she figures her stuff out. Me and my sister, our relationship ended up being strained because of my drug use and partying, and she ended up going to live with her boyfriend and I ended up being in this house with no electric and no water.

0:55Speaker 3:She told me, I'm addicted to heroin. She was like, I'm in trouble. I'm addicted. I can't kick this, and that particular moment, of course, I was just absolutely helpless.

1:19Speaker 1:After Keith Giamanco was arrested and put in jail, a federal grand jury indicted him for robbing twelve banks. Soon he began meeting with lawyers who might represent him. His strategy initially was pretty straightforward.

1:35Speaker 3:I'm thinking, Okay, I tell the truth and explain my circumstances and anything that might be mitigating might be helpful. Then this may not turn out too bad.

1:51Speaker 1:Here was Keith once again manifesting success. What he knew for sure was that there was no fighting these federal charges. Keith had already confessed, and there was surveillance footage from the banks, so Keith told his lawyers he wanted to take a plea on the understanding that if he did this, he'd likely serve a shorter sentence. With any luck, he'd get out when his daughters were still in their twenties. At sentencing, Keith apologized to all the people that he'd hurt.

2:26Speaker 1:The judge said she felt that Keith had taken responsibility for his actions, and she sentenced him to six years and four months, which was more or less what Keith had been hoping for since he'd been facing up to twenty years in prison. For Keith's daughters, this sentence, it wasn't exactly good news, but it wasn't a worst case scenario either. Here's a lease.

2:56Speaker 2:At that point in time, I'm like, it didn't feel as crushing. That feels doable.

3:01Speaker 1:Keith's sentencing occurred at the end of the summer of two thousand and nine, right as Elise was leaving for college in Wisconsin, where he'd been given close to a full ride. For Elise, college had always been the light at the end of the tunnel, something to hold on to, a way forward. She hoped to study psychology and maybe even have a little fun. When she left for school, like actually hit the road, Elise took her father's old Mercury Grand Marquis, the Dadmobile. The very vehicle that had once been his getaway car now seemed like it would be her getaway car, her means of escaping to a new life.

3:44Speaker 2:As soon as I got into the car and got on the highway and the sun was rising and I was playing my music, I was free as a bird, free as a bird. Soon as I got on the highway, I had the relief that I needed. I was screaming joyfully at the top of my lungs. All of my stuff in the back of this Grand Mercury and I just was. I was. I was lucky I didn't get a ticket through the state of Illinois.

4:13Speaker 1:What Elise didn't know at the time was that Keith's legal problems they were far from over. Not everyone was satisfied with his apology and his six year sentence. There were those who felt that justice had not been served, that Keith had robbed too many banks, threatened too many people to get off so lightly, and so something bigger was coming. A more public and brutal reckoning. I'm Jay Calburn and this is Deep Cover The Family Man, Episode five.

4:57Speaker 1:The trial. Keith's legal challenges, they were complicated. Part of the issue was when he robbed those banks, he broke both federal and state laws. So even though he pled guilty to the federal charges and he already got his six year sentence, state prosecutors were still going after him. Keith had hoped that the state might drop its charges, but this, it turns out, was wishful thinking.

5:43Speaker 4:There was no way on earth, let me put it that way, that I was just going to ignore twelve bank robberies. That's just not in me. To me, I'd be ignoring the obvious. This guy's a serial bank robber and I'm doing nothing about it.

5:59Speaker 1:That's Bob McCullough. He was the chief prosecutor for Saint Louis County at the time. Bob made a name for himself as being tough on crime, someone who wasn't afraid to push hard on a case.

6:12Speaker 4:My position from the day I took office till the day I left is that a crime occurring in Saint Louis County was in our Baileywick and we were going to handle the case.

6:25Speaker 1:Back in the nineties, Bob made national news when he went after Axel Rose, the lead singer of the band Guns n' Roses, at a concert in Saint Louis. Axel assaulted a fan and then left the stage. A riot ensued. Bob issued a warrant and pursued Axel for a year until he was eventually arrested. This little bit of history, it helped me understand two things. One that Bob was not a Guns n' Roses fan, and two, Bob was the type of prosecutor who relished a high profile fight.

7:02Speaker 1:Bob knew that the States charges against Keith, including seven counts of first degree robbery, would carry a heavier sentence than what Keith got in federal court. Potentially, Keith could be spending the rest of his life in prison.

7:18Speaker 4:I don't think there's any question but that had he not been caught on this one, he would have robbed another bank, and another one after that, and another one after that until he did get caught. But he never thought he would get caught, and so yes, so you pay a price for that. You can't put that many people in that much fear and not expect to pay a heavy price for it.

7:47Speaker 1:Keith had retained two lawyers who took his case pro bono, and according to Keith, they encouraged him to take a plea on the state charges like he did in federal court, promising him that the state judge would give him no more than twenty years and that if he didn't like this, he should really just think about his kids anduture, because if there was a trial, they said, he could lose and potentially get hit with a much stiffer penalty. Keith disagreed, you're taking a chance at trial, and my feeling was is that myself and my kids testifying in this and any character witnesses that I had would have a lot better chance with twelve jurors than one angry judge. Ultimately, he decided to go to trial so he could plead his case before a jury, hoping this might get him a lighter sentence. Keith also believed that the state's prosecution violated the double jeopardy clause of the US Constitution that basically says someone can't be prosecuted twice for the same crime.

9:09Speaker 1:Keith's lawyers were like, no, that doesn't apply here, but Keith stubbornly believed that he was right and that this might even be grounds for an appeal. In so many ways, this was deja vus. Here was Keith, the systems guy, believing that he understood the complicated mechanics of how things worked, first the stock market, then bank robberies, and now the criminal justice system, and once again Keith was prepared to gamble on his instincts. Let's be clear, this trial would not be a who done it. Everybody understood from the jump Keith had done it, he'd confessed. This would really be a trial about the punishment that Keith deserved. The timing of the state's trial wasn't ideal for either of Keith's daughters. Elise was away at college in Wisconsin, and Marissa was struggling with addiction and homelessness. At this point, the sisters were nineteen years old and living very separate lives.

10:30Speaker 1:Keith's actions and the chaos he created had helped drive them apart, but now, oddly it was Keith bringing them back together. Elise flew in from Wisconsin, and she arrived at the courthouse early before her sister. She was dressed in one of her favorite navy blue Banana Republic dresses with matching shoes, doing her best to look sharp.

10:55Speaker 2:I remember going and getting myself breakfast from a cafe and I was alone. I was shaking in that cafe. I was so nervous beforehand, eating this little croissant like shaking.

11:11Speaker 1:She finishes up for breakfast and heads over to the courthouse, where she meets up with Marissa, and together they enter the courtroom and find a seat.

11:21Speaker 2:We sit down in the courtroom and my dad comes out, and this is, you know, the first time I've seen my dad in a while, and it was incredibly emotional and crushing. He looked very tired, very weary, And as soon as we see each other, we start crying, and he says, I love you guys so much, and just starts breaking down.

11:50Speaker 1:And Elise just does her best to hold herself together. Keith's belief that he could win sympathy from a jury hinged on a strategy that he and both of his daughters would testify at trial. In some ways, it'd be like the Good Morning America segment all over again, a chance to tell their side of the story, only this time. Keith felt it had to work because decades of his life depended on it.

12:19Speaker 2:I knew I had to be brave because I wanted to give a good character witness for my father, because I wanted him to serve the least amount of time possible for what he did.

12:34Speaker 1:This trial would have two parts or phases. First, the jury would decide if Keith was guilty and of which charges. Then the penalty phase would happen, and that's when Alesea and Marissa would testify. Finally, the jury would make a recommendation for how long Keith should serve, but ultimately the judge would have final say. As things got to a start in the courtroom, the judge asked Keith's lawyers if they were ready to press seed. His lead lawyer said yes, your honor, and then Keith interjected, no, we're not, your honor.

13:17Speaker 1:Keith then explained to the judge that he and his lawyers were still at odds. In fact, in pre trial, Keith had even asked the judge if he could change lawyers.

13:28Speaker 3:We had a disagreement on strategy, and when you come an in pass on a disagreement agreement in strategy, you should be afforded the opportunity to change counsel and my life is on the line right, not theirs.

13:44Speaker 1:Ultimately, the judge did not let Keith change lawyers, and Keith was making it clear he still didn't feel ready. He told the judge quote, this trial is going to be a complete sham. It was a hot mess. The judge noted that Keith was still dressed in his prison uniform and asked him if he wants to be provided with civilian clothing. Defendants are usually given that option so that the jury isn't biased. Keith replied, if and when there is a trial, I would like to be provided with civilian clothes, yes, to which the judge replied. The trial will proceed today, and that is how it began.

14:31Speaker 1:In their opening arguments, the prosecution laid out its case Keith didn't just take the money from these banks. He created fear to get it. He handed over notes with variations of the same message, give me the money and we'll all go home safe. All the while, the prosecution noted that he kept his hand tucked into his jacket. They said that Keith's hand gesture, paired with this note was meant to make bank tellers believe that he had a gun, and the jury would see this for themselves when they watched the bank's surveillance videos. This detail about a possible weapon was key for the prosecution. If it even seemed like he had a gun, it didn't mean that Keith had committed first degree robbery. The alternative was second degree robbery, meaning no weapon or appearance of a weapon, and that carried a much lesser sentence. Prosecutors made it clear they wanted a first degree conviction for each of the robberies that Keith was accused of, and they told the jury that anything short of that would be a win for Keith. To really drive home their case, the prosecutors promised the bank tellers themselves would testify. We managed

15:50Speaker 1:to track down several of the tellers who testify to Keith's trial. For many of them, the whole experience just wasn't something they wanted to revisit. One teller, a guy named Mark, was willing to be interviewed. We're just going to use his first name. Mark told us that prior to the trial, state prosecutors approached him about testifying. I was like, do I have to?

16:16Speaker 5:I was already busy with my life and such, and thought that this was already gone and passed, and then bringing it back just felt like a intrusion, you know. The prosecution was like, well, we don't want to have to necessarily subpoena you to make you come in. We just want to want you to come in. It's like, okay, fine, I'll come in. You don't need to go that far.

16:36Speaker 1:Did you feel pressured?

16:38Speaker 4:Yes.

16:39Speaker 1:In the end, Mark shows up in court and takes the stand. He testified that he'd been working as a teller for less than a year when the boony hat bandit walked into his bank.

16:55Speaker 5:He had a coat on, and he had like his hair was slicked back, and he had glasses on. And when he came up, he put the slip of paper towards me and then proceeded to take his hand and put it into his it like he had a weapon.

17:12Speaker 1:That was your assumption correct. Mark told prosecutors that when he read Keith's demand note, he had this visceral reaction.

17:23Speaker 5:At that point, like adrenaline kicks in and it makes it very difficult to read. It felt like it took like twenty minutes and I'm just trying to push myself through it.

17:35Speaker 1:Mark says. The note warned that as long as no alarms went off, no one would get hurt. As he tried to process what this meant and what was happening, he says, time seemed to slow down.

17:48Speaker 5:And it felt like I was just standing still. And then it's like he's going to get tired or fed up with me, and he's going to do something. I need to start moving, like. I don't want to make him agitated or anything like that to make things worse.

18:03Speaker 1:So Mark empties out his two drawers, hands over the cash, and then after what seems like an eternity but was really only a few minutes, it's all over, and he watches Keith exit the bank.

18:19Speaker 5:After he walks out the door, I proceeded to go to my supervisor and inform her that we were just dropped by that gentleman. Other tellers were freaking out for me. Essentially, they were like, are you serious that really happened, And oh my god, that could have been me and stuff like that.

18:35Speaker 1:Mark recalls. One of his colleagues was so shook up they didn't come back to work for a few days, and Mark understood. He figured it was like having a serious car accident and not wanting to get back behind the wheel, cause you can't help but think what if it happens again, or, in the case of working at a bank, what if the next customer is a robber or the one after that. I want to tell you about one of the other tellers who testified, a woman, Valerie.

19:10Speaker 1:When she took the stand, the prosecutor had her walk through what happened, how Keith had handed her a demand note and then tucked a hand into his jacket. And I want to read you a bit from the transcript the prosecutor's questions and Valerie's answers. Prosecutor, did it appear to you and did you believe that he had a gun? Valerie, yes, prosecutor. What did you think he would do with the gun if he didn't comply with his wishes? Valerie, I fully believed he would use it. The prosecutor pressed on, prosecutor, Were you in any fear? Valerie, very much so, Prosecutor.

19:53Speaker 1:Were you in fear for your life Valerie mine and my child's prosecutor. Were you pregnant at the time, Valerie, yes, prosecutor. How many months Valerie, nine months, Prosecutor. Was that the last day you were ever a teller? Valerie, Yes, Prosecutor, you couldn't go back. Valerie shook her head. Prosecutor, you were done, Valerie, I'm done. We sometimes think of a traumatic event as a singular moment in time, a horrible day, a shit show of an afternoon. But sometimes the insidious nature of trauma is that it never really ends, that this horrible day lives within us, repeating itself, spinning in our minds with alternate possibilities and permutations, in Valerie's case, perhaps forever. When it came time for the defense to make its case, it was tough going, and part of the reason was that Keith and his own lawyers weren't on the same page from the start. They disagreed about a bunch of things. Keith felt that they hadn't adequately prepared for trial. This was part of what motivated Keith to make an unusual decision, a decision defense lawyers typically advise against, to take the witness stand himself and help

21:35Speaker 1:mount his own defense. Two days into the trial, Keith took the stand. By that point, the prosecution had made a pretty strong argument that Keith had created a threat of violence with one his demand notes and to his hand gestures Keith was still hoping for second degree robbery. He saw this as a nonviolent crime, but within the context of Missouri law, Keith was facing an uphill battle because Missouri courts are clear if you even act like you have a weapon with a hand in your pocket or a hand under your shirt, and the victim believes you're armed, that's enough. That's first degree robbery, regardless of whether you actually have a weapon on you. When he took the stand, Keith talked about the demand notes, the ones that promised that nobody would get hurt or everyone would go home safely. He said they were not meant to be a threat.

23:03Speaker 3:The main reason that I said that was not to put great fear in anybody. But I read stories where there were security people or off duty police officers in banks that were being robbed, and they are the ones who started spraying bullets around. I didn't want anyone trying to play hero and somebody innocently or myself to get hurt. I could see how that could be misconstrued as something different easily in hindsight.

23:39Speaker 1:So basically he's saying his note wasn't a threat exactly. It was more like a warning, intimating don't hit the alarm, don't make a big scene, because that might cause a panic and then someone not me, a guard or a would be hero, might start shooting. As for the hand gesture keeping his hand tucked into his jacket, Keith explained a trial that he sometimes collected so much cash and a given robbery that it just wouldn't all fit into a single envelope, so he kept a second envelope tucked away in his jacket. He wanted to have that backup envelope at the ready, literally at his fingertips, so that's why he kept his hand there. And he said he kept his hand tucked away for another reason, to.

24:32Speaker 3:Not leave fingerprints on anything. If you have your hands in your pockets, you're not going to inadvertently touch anything on the counter and leave fingerprints.

24:44Speaker 1:Why not wear gloves?

24:46Speaker 3:I just think wearing gloves, especially on the robberies that took place on warm days, would draw attention to you.

24:54Speaker 1:Keith says that by this point in the trial he could see things weren't going very well and that a first degree conviction was looming. The jury took less than two hours to reach a verdict about the charges they found Keith guilty of robbery in the first degree. Now it was all a question of punishment. One of the main reasons that Keith had insisted on a jury trial was to make his case for clemency in the penalty phase. That's where the jury would make their recommendations, but first they would hear from Keith's daughters. It would fall largely on their shoulders to help create a favorable impression of their father and explain that they needed him in their lives.

25:53Speaker 1:Marissa testified first. When she took the witness stand, she talked about how her mother was addicted to heroine and how, in Keith's absence, she too had struggled with drug use. Marissa said she still needed her dad that quote, He's the only one of my family that's given me support through my addiction. When Elise took the stand, she talked about her life in steady practical terms, how she was now in college with the double major in Russian language and psychology, How she paid for college with a mix of scholarships, grants, and jobs. How she'd been working since the age of sixteen, How at times she supported not just herself but her sister too, but she couldn't keep doing this all alone, she said. She described her relationship with Keith as the most important one in her life, saying, quote, I don't want the relationship that I have with him now.

26:54Speaker 1:I want one where I can be with him and touch him and spend time with him. When she was done with all of this, it was time for the prosecution to cross examine Elise, and I'm going to read to you from their exchange because for me, this was one of the most revealing and heartbreaking moments in the trial. The prosecutor confirms that Elise is now living on her own, and then he starts to ask her questions. Prosecutor, you will be a success in life, won't you, Elise? Of course, I'm going to be a success no matter what, if everyone dies, I'm going to be a success because that's who I am. But I mean, I don't see how this has to do with my relationship with my father. Prosecutor, With or without your father being there every day with you.

27:48Speaker 1:You will be a success, won't you, Elise. I can be a success and be extremely sad at the same time. Yes, I can have all the money and all the best jobs in the world and a gorgeous husband, But so what, prosecutor. I guess your father should have considered that before he did those crimes, don't you think, Alise, I do think yes. After her testimony, police recalls exiting the courtroom in kind of a daze.

28:32Speaker 2:I remember waiting outside, lying down on the carpet in the hallway outside the courtroom, just exhausted, full of anticipation, in tension and anxiety that comes with being in a sort of purgatory. I was enraged at the way that I was treated by the prosecutor in that line of questioning. I was shaken and already philosophically asking myself what the fuck just happened, and really just wishing I had more support there for Marissa and I like, we did not have an adult there supporting us, which feels an incredibly insane.

29:25Speaker 1:To me, as far as I can tell. For Elise, it was like everything she'd done to survive this debacle, all the willpower that she'd mustered to save herself and her family, was now being used against her as the final and most damning piece of proof in the prosecution's argument that Keith Giamanco was not really needed and thus should be shown no mercy Alise lies there on the carpet for a while, and then word comes back the jury has returned with its recommendation for sentencing. Alise gets up, follows everyone back into the courtroom, makes a seat beside her sister. The judge reads the recommendations, fifteen years on each count. At this point, it's still not clear what the final sentence will be, whether the terms will run concurrently or consecutively. The judge would make that determination in another few weeks, but the shape of this sentence was clear.

30:32Speaker 1:The pure size of it, Keith would be going away for at least fifteen years, and perhaps a lot more than that.

30:41Speaker 2:I was pretty distraught. I then started realizing that this could be a couple decades, and I started thinking about all the implications of that and everything that was going to happen in my life. That he was going to miss my college graduation I already knew. I thought maybe he could be there if I got a PhD. I thought, I am I going to have to way to get married if I want him to be at my wedding, and just you know, not being there for my twenties.

31:22Speaker 1:For his part, Keith was trying to stay positive. He believed there was a chance he could file an appeal, and he reminded himself that the jury could have recommended a much longer sentence, up to life in prison.

31:38Speaker 3:So I gained some more confidence that it could have been a lot worse.

31:46Speaker 1:Still, the impact on his daughters wasn't lost on him.

31:51Speaker 3:I was concerned for the issues that Marissa had going on with addiction, but I was also concerned with that and other responsibilities on Elise's.

32:07Speaker 1:Shoulders, because he would need Alisa's support to keep his spirits up and to cover even small expenses like the prison commissary. He didn't want to be a burden to her, but he knew he would have to rely on his daughter. Initially, Elise's mind wasn't even going to all this. She was just thinking about how long it would be until she'd be able to spend time with her dad outside of prison.

32:43Speaker 2:I was even thinking about it in sports terms, like day when he gets out, or are we even going to be able to play tennis together? We're going to be old, you know, And like I really was starting to freak out at that amount of time because it felt mathematically insane to me. It was so unfathomable. The amount of days that we would be separated would be thousands and thousands of days, and it just felt like an albatross.

33:42Speaker 1:Coming up on the season finale of deep Cover The Family Man, it was.

33:48Speaker 3:A dosa reality to be in a place where there was a lot of fear. You could cut the tension in the air. It's a good place to learn to keep to yourself and not make comments.

34:09Speaker 6:Honestly, I don't know where his head was, like if he was even in any type of reality, or if it was all just like like a game. And I still wonder to this day, you know, like why would you keep going?

34:24Speaker 2:People are like, how are you preparing? I was probably over prepared at some point. Just ready, you know, I've been ready since the day he went.

34:32Speaker 7:In and my head was spinning. This was absolutely nothing that I had ever envisioned in life. I didn't want to be involved with anybody, let alone say oh yeah, hey, a maximum security inmate. You sound like my guy. But I knew he was, and because he's more than an inmate, he's key.

35:09Speaker 1:We'd cover. The Family Man is produced by Isaac Carter and Amy Gains mcquaide. Our show is edited by Karen Chakerjee. Our executive producer is Jacob Smith. Sound designed by Jake Gorsky. Original scoring and our theme were composed by Luis Gara. Our show art was designed by Sean Carney, fact checking by Anica Robbins. Our story consultant was James Foreman Jr. Production support by Sarah Fenton. Special thanks to Daphney chen Sonya gerwitd Morgan Rattner, Kira Posey, Jake Flanagan, Corinn Gilliard Fisher, Eric Sandler, Christina Sullivan, and Greta Cone. Additional thanks to Mark Hamilton Junior. I'm Jake Halpern. Hear episodes of Deep Cover The Family Man early and AD free by subscribing to Pushkin Plus. Sign up on the show page on Apple Podcasts or at pushkin dot fm slash Plus. Pushkin Plus subscribers can access ad free episodes, full audiobooks, and exclusive binges of others true crime podcasts throughout the year.