Castillo and Bledsoe couldn’t have been happier with my performance on the stand.
“You were brilliant,” Castillo said afterward.
“Outstanding,” Bledsoe added.
There wasn’t a single thing they had a problem with. That marked my final appearance in the courtroom, so I wasn’t there when Rich Vaughn took the stand. But I knew he would make for a great witness who wouldn’t give defense counsel any quarter at all. I later learned that he had corroborated everything I said, which must have ruined that day of the trial for Rush and Wilson, not to mention their clients, who by this point were probably wishing they had copped a plea like Thomas Driver had.
The following day, though, my testimony would face its biggest test when my father-in-law testified. Rusty was the last hope the defense had to punch holes in my credibility, which was the only way Newcomb and Moran were going to avoid significant jail time. I knew what was coming because many of the questions Rush and Wilson had posed in their cross-examinations were based on inaccurate information Rusty had provided them and outright lies he had told, all of which he repeated under direct examination by the defense. Then Cass Castillo got to cross-examine him, and Rusty revealed his true nature and his reasons for testifying for the defense, those being his antipathy for the United States government in general and me in particular.
“Mr. Seaton,” Castillo began, “you have some very intense feelings of resentment and hostility toward Rich Vaughn, don’t you?”
“No.”
“You don’t? Haven’t you called him a piece of shit in the past?”
“That’s not hostility.”
“That’s not hostility?”
Rusty shook his head.
“Why did you use that reference then against him or in reference to him?”
“Just a figure of speech.”
“It wasn’t meant to describe how you feel about him?”
“No, just for the moment.”
At this point, I knew Castillo must have felt like a hunter who had successfully cornered his prey.
“Do you consider it a compliment, Mr. Seaton?”
“No.”
“Isn’t it true that you thought or you believed that Rich Vaughn is responsible for the separation of you from your stepdaughter and grandchildren?”
“That’s what I believe, yeah.”
“That’s what you believe,” Castillo echoed. “And you don’t like that, do you?”
“Not a bit.”
“Because you have gone to the extreme of contacting Pam Bondi, the FBI, Nick Cox, the statewide prosecutor, the U.S. Attorney’s Office, Alachua Police Department, the Columbia Sheriff’s Office, anyone that would help you get your daughter back from the FBI?”
“To tell us where she was.”
“And have you gotten, at least in your judgment, no cooperation, isn’t that true?”
“None at all.”
“And you have very intense dislike for Mr. Moore, don’t you, Mr. Seaton?”
“No, not dislike. No.”
“Didn’t you call him a turd and a piece of shit before as well?”
“Figure of speech.”
“And that, again, was not designed to be a compliment, was it?”
“Not at the time it wasn’t.”
“And isn’t it true, Mr. Seaton, that you feel that Mr. Moore is the one that is responsible for you not having any contact with your daughter and with—along with the FBI, but he’s responsible for the separation of you and—”
“Along with the FBI, yes, sir.”
“Both of them?”
“All of them.”
“All of them together?”
“All of them.”
“And you don’t like that at all, do you?”
“No.”
“And how would you describe, Mr. Seaton, how the FBI and Marshals Office responded to your request for assistance? How would you describe that?”
“I didn’t get nowhere. We don’t know where she’s at.”
“Did the response make you angry?”
“Not angry. We just—we don’t know where she’s at.”
“Have you said, Mr. Seaton, that they all told you to fuck off?”
“Pretty much. Yep.”
“And again, Mr. Seaton, that response really indicates how angry you are at Mr. Moore and the FBI and everyone else in this case?”
“No, not angry, we’re just—we don’t understand where she’s at. We don’t know where her and the babies are.”
“And in [a Facebook] post you used some very insulting language when referring to the different agencies you contacted for help, didn’t you?”
“I could have.”
“Did you not post it?”
“Yeah, I posted it.”
“It was very insulting language that you used about all of them.”
“Saucy.”
“Saucy? Would you consider calling them sons of bitches to be insulting?”
“No, salty.”
“Salty,” Castillo repeated. “Again, does that language really convey, Mr. Seaton, how intense your hatred is for everyone that’s connected with this case?”
Everyone meaning the United States government. Rusty had shown his true colors, exposing himself as the man I had judged him to be from the very first time I met him. The damage had been done, and instead of destroying my credibility, he left the stand having destroyed his own. For all intents and purposes, the trial was over.
The following day, I received a call from an FBI agent named Sean, who oversaw all confidential human sources for the Jacksonville field office.
“Hey, Joe, the verdict’s in.”
I waved Shannon over and put the phone on speaker so she could hear the result.
Sean went on to say that the jury, composed of all whites, two of whom were military veterans, had taken all of thirty minutes to come back with a verdict, less time than it took for the judge to give the jury its final charging instructions.
“Moran and Newcomb were both found guilty of conspiracy to commit first-degree murder,” Sean continued. “They were each sentenced to twelve years in prison.”
The sentence would have been twenty-five years, but a Florida statute automatically cut in half any sentence doled out to law-enforcement officials within the state. Pleading out had left Thomas Driver with a sentence of only seven years, the same handed down to Jamie Ward for the federal crimes he had pled to.
I felt an enormous sense of relief wash over me and nearly dropped the phone.
I looked at Shannon and said, “It’s finally over.” I barely recognized my own voice. It was like an out-of-body experience.
She broke down and cried, and I hugged her so tight and close our happy tears mixed together. All those false summits we’d experienced had finally resulted in one that was real. Even though we knew this would never be completely over, knew that we would be looking over our shoulders for the rest of our lives no matter where we went, at least we could move on.