THE GREAT AMERICAN MAIL-FRAUD TRIAL: United States of America vs, Glenn W. Turner, F. Lee Bailey, Dare To Be Great, Koscot Interplanetary Incorporated, et al.

by Kenneth Michael Robinson ‧ RELEASE DATE: June 17, 1976

Wheresoever the carcass is, there will the lawyers be gathered together--carving it up in print. The Turner case has already figured in F. Lee Bailey's For the Defense (1975); another of the defense lawyers now gives us a fuller account. To sum up a wilderness of complexities: Turner, a self-made millionaire, ran afoul of the law in 1968 with a ""pyramid""-style organization called Koscot, based on the sale of cosmetics distributorships. Robinson takes up the tangled thread in 1973, when the Justice Department wound up years of evidence-gathering and what he calls shameless trap-baiting by issuing a deluge of indictments. Among the ten (later nine) defendants were Turner, Bailey, and Koscot itself. Robinson, fresh from the U.S. Attorney's Office in D.C., was originally picked to represent Turner but was at Bailey's instigation demoted to the defense of Koscot. Got all that? It's about the last thing you'll get straight in this muddled, bitchy, clumsily written work of self-glorification. Robinson flails out at Bailey's grandstanding (he defended himself), Judge Gerald Tjoflat (""master of deceit,"" ""overgrown spoiled-brat declaration,"" and ""That insecure judge"" are among ""Ken's' parting bouquets to His Honor), and the sinister machinations of the Justice Department--which he claims deliberately refused to help Turner achieve the full compliance with the law which he so piously sought. Self-serving courtroom replays can make very good books, but not when they stumble off in all directions with so embarrassingly little sense of narrative purpose or legal proportion.

Pub Date: June 17, 1976

ISBN: N/A

Page Count: -

Publisher: Nash Publishing (1 Dupont Street, Plainview, New York 11803)

Review Posted Online: N/A

Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 1976

Categories: NONFICTION