I've been thinking about a gaping hole in Donna's expected defense.
It is anticipated that Donna's defense will rely on the argument that even if Charlie's extortion story was false, Donna subjectively believed it. That is, Donna honestly believed that the people who killed DM had also treatened to kill her son and his family members (including DA herself, her husband, her children, and her granchildren) if they were not paid "a third of a million dollars."
This defense lacks credibility for many reasons (e.g., it's inconsistent with the wire tap calls, DA never spoke a word about the potentially imminent threat to her husband or her daughter or counsel, the installment payments coincidentally stopped after the bump). In my view, however, the biggest problem with this defense is that DA and CA did not seek to pay off the extortionists IN FULL AS SOON AS HUMANLY POSSIBLE.
It's one thing if Chuck only had a certain amount of cash in his safe on the day of the murder. But that has nothing to do with whether CA and DA would be able to easily come up with remaining balance to get the target off the family's back as soon as humanly possible. The idea that wealthy DA and CA would choose to prolong their relationship with murderous extortionist by paying a few thousand bucks a month for several YEARS, is laughable.
We're not talking about a 0% APR car loan where it makes sense to stretch out the payments because it's not costing you any extra. We're talking about a debt supposedy owed to cold-blooded murderers who killed someone you know and have threatened to murder you and your loved ones if they don't get paid in full. We're also not talking about a family that lacks the resources to easily pay the amount in full.
To paraphrase Chuck on the Dolce wire: "If someone comes after my family, I don't care what I have to spend." Are we really to believe that mother dearest would opt to live under a threat for years as part of an extortion layaway plan? Of course not, because it's an asinine argument.
