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Marks, the Department of Justice lawyer prosecuting the case, ex- hibited no intention of calling Le Roux as a witness much less making him available to Oz’s attorneys for a deposition.

At first, their attempts to gain access to Le Roux amounted to legal filings mocking the government’s absurd level of secrecy. When they’d asked to speak to Le Roux’s attorney, the prosecutor told them that “counsel for Le Roux has requested anonymity be- cause he fears for his safety from ‘international associates of Mr. Le Roux,’ ” Richman and Friedman wrote in a brief. “Given that Mr. Le Roux is more dangerous than any of his associates, one wonders whether the masked attorney has identified himself to his own client. Perhaps even Mr. Le Roux does not know the identity of his attorney, with all meetings conducted in a confessional, per- haps, or with a curtain separating the two, voice disguised.” When they’d suggested that they might subpoena Le Roux, Marks had replied that they could do so “only if he is in the United States,” and then refused to indicate whether he was. “We feel reasonably confident that Mr. Le Roux is somewhere on planet Earth, but that is only an inference,” Richman and Friedman wrote. Wherever he was, they argued that it should be Le Roux who was facing a jury, not underlings like Oz. “The government’s use of Mr. Le Roux as an informant is even more egregious here because the government has cut a deal with the principal architect and leader of the alleged criminal enterprise, while prosecuting his employees,” they con- cluded. “It is as if Microsoft was a criminal enterprise, and the government cuts a deal with Bill Gates to take down the entire shipping department.”

Mockery aside, the filings were part of a serious legal gambit that Richman and Friedman thought might force the government’s hand. The case against Oz was based in part on calls between Le Roux, in U.S. custody, and Oz, in Israel. Digging through the evi- dence, Richman realized that the U.S. Attorney’s Office had re- corded them without a warrant. So he filed a motion to have the material suppressed, arguing that U.S. federal law required at least one party consent to a recorded phone call. Richman knew that