Chapter 10 - The Fall of the Sterling Empire
Within forty-eight hours of Julian's arrest, the dominoes fell with terrifying velocity.
The Department of Justice held a live, televised press conference announcing the total freeze of the Sterling Group’s domestic and international holdings. Over four hundred million dollars in laundered municipal funds were recovered from accounts in Zurich, the Cayman Islands, and Singapore.
In a separate indictment, Eleanor Sterling was formally arrested at her country club in East Hampton. Television cameras captured the moment the elegant sixty-year-old matriarch was led away in handcuffs, wearing a silk scarf to hide her face from the swarm of press photographers.
In his high-security holding cell at the Federal Detention Center, Julian sat on a narrow metal cot, staring at the concrete wall.
His high-priced corporate attorneys had tried three times to apply for emergency bail. Each request was flatly denied by a federal magistrate who deemed Julian an extreme flight risk and a dangerous, unpredictable individual based on his erratic behavior during his initial arrest.
The prison door slid open with a heavy mechanical clunk. A guard knocked on the steel frame.
"Sterling. You have an authorized legal visitor."
Julian snapped his head up, a surge of desperate hope flashing through his chest. "Is it Sterling Senior? Did my father hire the appellate team?"
"No," the guard said dryly. "Step out. Hands behind your back."
Julian was cuffed and led down a long, sterile corridor to a private visitor consultation room equipped with a thick plexiglass partition.
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Sitting on the other side of the glass was not a lawyer.
It was Arthur Vance.
