Ferrari Trial Gets Off to Slow Start After Plea Deal Is Turned Down

Photo credit, KTLA Press Pool
DEFENDANT—A TV crew captured a low resolution image of Stefan Eriksson’s trial attire of dark gray suit, blue dress shirt and tie and new military-style haircut before all cameras were banned from the courtroom by Superior Court Judge Patricia Schnegg.

Photo credit, MSN/Frank Lamonea
DEFENSE TEAM—Jim Parkman and Bill White of the Cochran Firm get ready to return to the courtroom for jury selection in the trial of alleged Ferrari crash driver Stefan Eriksson on multiple counts of fraud and embezzlement.

• Jury Is Sworn in Tuesday and Opening Statements Are Scheduled to Begin on Wednesday

BY ANNE SOBLE

The Swedish businessman and racing car aficionado who allegedly crashed a $1.5 million Enzo Ferrari on Pacific Coast Highway in February while driving under the influence turned down a plea deal related to multiple charges of fraud and embezzlement that followed the investigation of the spectacular car accident that created a worldwide media stir.

Judge Patricia Schnegg described as “very generous” plea terms that would have had Eriksson serve a 28-month prison term versus the 11-plus years he might have to serve if he is convicted on the now-reduced number of felony counts he faces in the courtroom.

Eriksson would have had to plead no contest to two felony counts of embezzlement, one count of possession of a firearm by a felon (he spent five years in a Swedish prison in the 1990s for counterfeiting, extortion and other crimes), and a misdemeanor charge of driving under the influence and pay a $25,000 fine.

The prosecution deal was put on the table last week and Eriksson’s defense team has indicated that the decision to turn down the deal was the defendant's.

Groomed for Monday’s plea hearing minus the orange jumpsuit and wrist and waist chains he was required to wear at all earlier hearings, the former Gizmondo computer game company executive, a millionaire with a Bel-Air estate, said through an interpreter that he refused to state that “I stole the cars because I didn’t.”

Eriksson is now facing fewer counts than he was first charged with because the title holder of the crashed red 2003 Enzo Ferrari now has the vehicle back and has elected not to meet with the prosecution. The car is reported to be repairable and its worth has increased.

The charges that lead prosecutor Tamara Hall is still pursuing include theft and embezzlement counts related to the possession and illegal importing into the United States of a black 2003 Enzo Ferrari and a 2005 Mercedes McLaren SLR that were subsequently impounded. The value of these vehicles exceeds $3 million.

The felony gun possession charge will be tried separately.

With the turn down of the plea, jury selection began Monday afternoon and continued through Tuesday, delayed in classic Los Angeles fashion because numerous traffic accidents and freeway tie-ups made members of the jury pool late for their assignment.

Eriksson’s defense team, including lead counsel Jim Parkman and William White and Martin Adams of the Alabama office of The Cochran Firm founded by the late Johnnie Cochran, have repeatedly stressed that they look forward to dispelling many of the so-called rumors that have been circulated in the international media blitz that following the Enzo crash.

Parkman and his law firm partners successfully represented former HealthSouth CEO Richard Scrushy in his high-profile multi-billion accounting fraud case last year in Alabama, winning a surprise acquittal on all charges.

On Tuesday, Parkman grilled prospective jurors about their biases against wealth and luxury lifestyles, whether jurors always read the fine print in automobile contracts, have ever been charged with a DUI, trust the media, think law enforcement personnel are always correct or are biased against immigrants.

Prosecutor Hall’s jury pool in -queries included whether the wealthy are above the law, do the prospective jurors read the fine print in contracts, have would-be jurors ever bought or leased a car and what would happen to them if they didn’t make payments and whether they had heard of the case before.

Judge Schnegg added another dimension when she raised the issue of whether officials always tell the truth, including law enforcement officers, pastors and others in positions of trust.

The jury of six men and six women was sworn in Tuesday afternoon and opening statements were scheduled to begin Wednesday after The News goes to press.

Schnegg, in keeping with media restraints she has imposed in other high-profile trials, is allowing no cameras or audio equipment in the courtroom during the trial.

Schnegg was on the bench during the Courtney Love substance abuse prosecution and the Catherine Zeta-Jones stalking case, both of which generated publicity on a par with the media frenzy that occurred after the first reports of the Ferrari crash on Feb. 21.

Part exotic sports car traveling at a speed approaching 200 mph, part international financial and criminal intrigue and a Damon-Runyonesque cast of characters who are stranger than fiction make for a compelling story, except perhaps for Eriksson, who has been in custody under a hold at Men’s Central Jail since May. For the most part, he sits stoically through courtroom proceedings.

Parkman, an openly effusive Alabaman with a well-honed drawl and a penchant for down-home philosophy sprinkled with extensive legal citations continues to reiterate past statements that the trial will be the time to bring out facts and circumstances that are different than the official allegations and media accounts.

The lead counsel wasted no time testing his accent and his sense of humor on the judge, courtroom personnel and members of the media during the plea bargain and jury selection process. His hometown press describes Parkman’s first foray into Southern California as “grits and biscuits meet Hollywood.”

Parkman is expected to handle the opening and closing arguments as well as most of the witness cross-examination. Accounts of the HealthSouth and other Parkman performances indicate that the trial of the man that many of the Superior Court employees refer to as the “Ferrari Guy” will be anything but dull.

The defense team and the District Attorney’s office are indicating that they both expect the trial to last 10 days.