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“Mr. Binick, would you please explain to this court what Bio-Sperm does?”
“Bio-Sperm collects human sperm, stores it and makes it available for artificial insemination.”
“Is your business commonly called a sperm bank?”
“Yes.”
“A moment ago you said you were the president of this sperm bank, but aren’t you also the sole owner of Bio-Sperm?”
“Yes.”
“You have no silent partners, no investors? You are totally in control of this private company?”
“Yes.”
“What did you gross last year?”
“Your honor, I object. Irrelevant,” Sato interjected.
The judge turned to Marc. She was an older, gray-haired gal in her sixties. This was her last year before retiring from the bench. Marc had been up before her countless times. She was one of his favorite judges, because he knew he was one of her favorite lawyers. He sent her a small smile.
“Your Honor, this jury must be presented with a clear understanding of all aspects of Bio-Sperm, including its solvency. Only then can they fully appreciate the extent of the improprieties and damages done to my client, Louie Demerchant.”
“Objection overruled,” the judge said. “You may answer the question, Mr. Binick.”
He may, yes, but he was clearly hesitant to do so. He sank lower in his chair as his raspy voice got fainter and his nervous tongue shot out to wet his lips. “A little more than four million.”
“Four million?” Marc said, repeating it loudly, letting his voice rise in surprise; although, of course, he’d already known the answer. A smart attorney had better know the answer to every question he asked of a witness sitting in front of a jury.
“You made four million in one year?”
Binick’s nervousness over the emphasized point caused his eyes to squint as he rubbed his tiny scale of a nose. “Gross, of course. And I work hard for that money. My rules are very stringent for donors. I accept applications only from college graduates. I personally do the interviews to make sure we get good-looking men.”
“So your hard work is to pick out good-looking men?”
“Well, partly...yes.”
“How do you define good-looking?”
“Tall. Physically appealing. Certainly no short men or men with big noses or receding chins. Our clients definitely wouldn’t want to have such a man’s child.”
Marc smiled to himself as he caught the dark looks erupting on the faces of the jury, a group of the shortest men with the biggest noses and most receding chins he had been able to find. So far, this testimony was going exactly as planned.
Binick’s eyes darted to the jury’s expressions, too. Realizing his mistake too late, he sank farther into the witness chair. Marc planned for him to be so low in the witness stand by the time he got through with him that the bailiff would have to get a spatula to flip him out of it.
“Mr. Binick, what procedures do you employ in collecting and storing this sperm?”
“The prospective donor men fill out a comprehensive questionnaire, and then we give them a cup and send them to the cupping room with a Playboy magazine or a videotape and—”
Marc held up his hand to interrupt. “You don’t have to go into that much detail.”
Marc guffawed along with the members of this all-male jury, purposely reminding them that despite the formality of his custom-made suit, beneath it he was just one of the boys.
“Now, Mr. Binick, after the sperm is collected, what do you do with it?”
“The sperm is frozen in liquid nitrogen at approximately three hundred degrees below zero Fahrenheit. It can last for ten years that way.”
“Who receives this preserved sperm?”
“Most of our clients are women married to infertile men. We provide healthy, anonymous donor sperm from men who approximate their husband’s size and coloring in order that they may conceive a child who will resemble them both.”
“Is providing anonymous sperm for women the only service you perform at Bio-Sperm?”
“No. We also store sperm from specific men who don’t wish to start a family right away, but want their sperm to be safeguarded for later use.”
“Why would a man wish to safeguard his sperm—for later use—as you term it?”
“Any number of reasons. An example would be men whose current medical problems require a procedure like chemotherapy that could render them infertile. They are looking for insurance.”
“So you store their sperm in order to ‘insure’ that these men will have the ability to pass on their genes in the future should they so desire?”
“Yes.”
“Mr. Binick, did a man by the name of David Demerchant come to you to avail himself of your sperm bank ‘insurance’ services?”
“Yes.”
“When?”
“November and December, three years ago.”
“And what was his reason?”
“David Demerchant’s family carries a genetic predisposition to become sterile by the age of thirty. Both his grandfather, Louie Demerchant, and his father, Colin Demer- chant, had suffered this fate. David wanted his sperm saved in the event that he became infertile before he could have a family.”
“How old was David at the time he visited your sperm bank?”
“Twenty-eight.”
“Were you aware that David was the only child of his father and the only grandchild of Louie Demerchant, the prominent industrialist?”
“Yes.”
“You knew that David was the last of the Demerchant line?”
“Yes.”
“You knew how important it was to safeguard his sperm?”
“Yes.”
“How did you know these things?”
“When Louie Demerchant called to make the appointment for his grandson, he explained the circumstances.”
“He mentioned them in passing?”
“No. He talked about them at length and in detail to be sure I understood the seriousness of the matter.”
“Did you understand the seriousness of the matter?”
“Of course. I said as much many times to Mr. Demerchant. Still, Louie Demerchant was adamant about making all the arrangements and paying the annual storage fee himself to be sure everything was seen to properly. That’s where all the confusion began, you see. If—”
“Mr. Binick, please just answer my questions without any added comments. The jury needs to hear what happened in an orderly manner. Do you understand?”
“Yes.”
“Mr. Binick, do you know what happened to David Demerchant after he entrusted his sperm to your company?”
“David Demerchant was killed in a plane crash over the Pacific Ocean in June, two years and three months ago.”
Marc let a small space of time pass—like a solemn moment of mourning—before asking his next question.
“He died six months after he deposited his sperm with Bio-Sperm for safekeeping, isn’t that right?”
“Yes.”
“Did Louie Demerchant approach you regarding his grandson’s sperm shortly after his grandson’s death?”
“Yes. Within two weeks he had found a woman who had agreed to be inseminated with his grandson’s sperm and give birth to David’s child.”
“And when Mr. Demerchant brought in this woman for artificial insemination, what happened?”
Binick’s tongue slithered over his lips. “We couldn’t locate David Demerchant’s sperm tube.”
“You lost this sperm you were supposed to be safeguarding?”
“I’ve been in business for more than ten years without a mistake. I’ve set up a very specific procedure. I have a double-numbering system. Color-coded tubes. Cross-system checks.”
“But you still lost David Demerchant’s sperm, yes or no?”
Binick sank farther into the chair. “Yes.”
“Mr. Binick, what did you tell your lab technician to do when you discovered you had lost David’s sperm?”
“I wasn’t serious.”
“Mr. Binick, please answer the question. What did you tell your lab technician to do?”
“I said something about substituting anonymous donor sperm in place of David’s lost sperm. But it was only a joke! I didn’t know she’d take me seriously.”
“Only a joke? Mr. Binick, didn’t you in fact order your lab technician to quickly find an anonymous donor sperm that could pass as David Demerchant’s?”
Binick’s tongue flicked between his thin lips. “She misunderstood me, I tell you. The woman has no sense of humor.”
“Mr. Binick, the surrogate mother was waiting in the receiving room. Louie Demerchant was outside in the waiting room. You had just found out you lost his grandson’s sperm, sperm that could never be replaced. And you felt this was an appropriate time for jokes?”
Binick slithered farther into his chair. “I made an error in judgment. I’m sorry. I meant no harm. I tell you, it was only a joke.”
He was so clearly lying. Marc could see it and he knew the jury could see it, too. He stared at his witness to allow the jury’s full loathing to come to a boil before going on.
“After you made this joke to the lab technician to substitute other sperm for David Demerchant’s, what did the lab technician do?”
“She went into the waiting room and told Louie Demerchant we had lost his grandson’s sperm and that I had told her to substitute someone else’s sperm.”
“So you didn’t get away with your scheme to pass off someone else’s child as Louie Demerchant’s grandchild, did you?”
“There was no scheme! I tell you, it was all an unfortunate misunderstanding!”
“Mr. Binick, did you ever find out what happened to David Demerchant’s missing sperm?”
“Yes, it had been destroyed.”
“You destroyed David’s sperm?”
“Not me, one of my employees!” Binick’s raspy voice protested, a thin line of sweat breaking out on his brow.
Typical Binick. Trying to put the blame on anyone and everyone but himself.
“Mr. Binick, would you please explain to this court how your company destroyed the sperm David Demerchant had entrusted to you for safekeeping?”
Binick’s visibly sweaty hands rubbed the chair’s upholstered arms. “Our computer form has just one space for a client’s name.”
“And what is the significance of your computer form having just one space for a client’s name?”
“Louie Demerchant’s name went on the computer records for sperm preservation instead of David’s, because it was Louie who called to set up the appointments and insisted on paying for the sperm’s storage. He never should have done that!”
“Mr. Binick, are you trying to tell this court that it was Louie Demerchant’s fault that you destroyed his grandson’s sperm because he emphasized the importance of preserving it and paid you to do so?”
Binick sank some more in the witness chair. “No, I...no.”
“So what happened when David Demerchant later came in and left his sperm deposits for safekeeping, his insurance against an unforeseen future?”
“David Demerchant entered his name on our questionnaire along with his background statistics. The technician ran a computer search. When he found nothing under David Demerchant’s name, he set up a new computer file, number-coded his sperm for confidentiality and placed David Demerchant’s sperm in the donor pool storage receptacle.”
“The donor pool? It was doled out?”
“It wasn’t my mistake!”
