It was the perfect storm. A group of executives with the support of a Fortune 500 rival plotting corporate espionage to destroy a leading insurance brokerage firm. A new U.S. Attorney out to cement his professional status. An FBI team needing a collar. A prosecutor trying to fix his tarnished reputation. A judge looking to solidify his reputation on the bench. A defense attorney worried more about the bottom line than winning his case. And the self-made CEO who didn't see it coming--until the tsunami hit and Michael Segal was drowned in a flood of greed, avarice, deception, self-interest, and an unbridled climb to power. Pulitzer Prize-winning author Maurice Possley tells how the case against Michael Segal was laid, brick by brick, defying justice, evidence and even common sense after he refused to wear an FBI wire to entrap colleagues. As gripping as a legal thriller by Scott Turow or John Grisham, this nonfiction account of how an innocent man was used as a tool by a few unscrupulous people to bolster their own ambitions should raise alarms about how easily the U.S. criminal justice system, at times, can be used and abused for personal gain. Long before facts lost their meaning, Segal's story stood as a terrifying testament to how far manipulating the truth can go and how badly it can hurt the innocent. The United States v. Segal should never have been a case at all. The evidence against Segal was flimsy at best, there were no victims, no misrepresentations, no one lost any money, and it was an accounting crime without any government forensics and incomplete and inaccurate evidence. So why did a man who had no record and was known for his business and philanthropic pursuits receive a prison sentence of 10 years? As Possley takes us down the wormhole into the case, he reveals: The FBI tried to coerce Segal to secretly tape colleagues and business and political acquaintances. Former trusted, top-level employees conspired with a Fortune 500 competitor for months to take Segal's company--or take him down. Segal's personal attorney was bugged and attorney-client privilege went ignored. A former employee hacked into confidential files and delivered hundreds of documents to the group that wanted to seize or destroy his company--and was never even arrested. The stolen files contents were shared with the FBI and prosecutor. The prosecutor never used a government-sanctioned analysis of the supposed accounting crime. No qualified government or independent forensic accounting of his business was ever presented to the court by the government. Hundreds of stolen, company emails, including those with attorney protected, were found on a rival's server. The chief prosecutor had a record of past prosecutorial misconduct allegations. Key witnesses changed their testimonies after being contacted by the FBI. After Segal's lawyers made pretrial motions for his constitutional rights, prosecutors filed superseding indictments. At a time when criminal justice reform is being discussed by all the presidential candidates, Segal's case takes on a new meaning. What is the cost of prosecution for its own sake--and what happens when there is a code of silence and few checks and balances on those who are sworn to uphold the law?

It was the perfect storm. A group of executives with the support of a Fortune 500 rival plotting corporate espionage to destroy a leading insurance brokerage firm. A new U.S. Attorney out to cement his professional status. An FBI team needing a collar. A prosecutor trying to fix his tarnished reputation. A judge looking to solidify his reputation on the bench. A defense attorney worried more about the bottom line than winning his case. And the self-made CEO who didn't see it coming--until the tsunami hit and Michael Segal was drowned in a flood of greed, avarice, deception, self-interest, and an unbridled climb to power. Pulitzer Prize-winning author Maurice Possley tells how the case against Michael Segal was laid, brick by brick, defying justice, evidence and even common sense after he refused to wear an FBI wire to entrap colleagues. As gripping as a legal thriller by Scott Turow or John Grisham, this nonfiction account of how an innocent man was used as a tool by a few unscrupulous people to bolster their own ambitions should raise alarms about how easily the U.S. criminal justice system, at times, can be used and abused for personal gain. Long before facts lost their meaning, Segal's story stood as a terrifying testament to how far manipulating the truth can go and how badly it can hurt the innocent. The United States v. Segal should never have been a case at all. The evidence against Segal was flimsy at best, there were no victims, no misrepresentations, no one lost any money, and it was an accounting crime without any government forensics and incomplete and inaccurate evidence. So why did a man who had no record and was known for his business and philanthropic pursuits receive a prison sentence of 10 years? As Possley takes us down the wormhole into the case, he reveals: The FBI tried to coerce Segal to secretly tape colleagues and business and political acquaintances. Former trusted, top-level employees conspired with a Fortune 500 competitor for months to take Segal's company--or take him down. Segal's personal attorney was bugged and attorney-client privilege went ignored. A former employee hacked into confidential files and delivered hundreds of documents to the group that wanted to seize or destroy his company--and was never even arrested. The stolen files contents were shared with the FBI and prosecutor. The prosecutor never used a government-sanctioned analysis of the supposed accounting crime. No qualified government or independent forensic accounting of his business was ever presented to the court by the government. Hundreds of stolen, company emails, including those with attorney protected, were found on a rival's server. The chief prosecutor had a record of past prosecutorial misconduct allegations. Key witnesses changed their testimonies after being contacted by the FBI. After Segal's lawyers made pretrial motions for his constitutional rights, prosecutors filed superseding indictments. At a time when criminal justice reform is being discussed by all the presidential candidates, Segal's case takes on a new meaning. What is the cost of prosecution for its own sake--and what happens when there is a code of silence and few checks and balances on those who are sworn to uphold the law?

Timothy Masters was a lonely, troubled teenager with a penchant for gory artwork when he first saw Peggy Lee Hettrick… …her dead, mutilated body nearly frozen in the early morning of Fort Collins, Colorado. Not believing it could really be a dead body, thinking he was the victim of yet another prank by his abusive classmates, the fifteen-year-old didn’t go to the police—but they came to him. So began a decade-long investigation led by a relentless detective who was sure that Masters was the killer, even without a shred of physical evidence. Against all reason, a conspiracy of silence and circumstantial evidence eventually put Masters behind bars. Only the determination of a lone investigator who believed the young man was innocent would reveal the shocking truth, and free Masters after ten years in prison. This is the compelling true story of one life ended in blood and murder, one life ruined by coincidence and prejudice, and justice long denied but finally found.

A powerful argument for adopting a model of restorative justice as part of the Innocence Movement—so exonerees, crime victims, and their communities can come together to heal In Rectify, a former Innocence Project director and journalist Lara Bazelon puts a face to the growing number of men and women exonerated from crimes that kept them behind bars for years—sometimes decades—and that devastate not only the exonerees but also their families, the crime victims who mistakenly identified them as perpetrators, the jurors who convicted them, and the prosecutors who realized too late that they helped convict an innocent person. Bazelon focuses on Thomas Haynesworth, a teenager arrested for multiple rapes in Virginia, and Janet Burke, a rape victim who mistakenly IDed him. It took over two decades before he was exonerated. Conventional wisdom points to an exoneration as a happy ending to tragic tales of injustice, such as Haynesworth’s. However, even when the physical shackles are left behind, invisible ones can be profoundly more difficult to unlock. In the midst of Bazelon’s frustration over the blatant limitations of courts and advocates, her hope is renewed by the fledgling but growing movement to apply the centuries-old practice of restorative justice to wrongful conviction cases. Using the stories of Thomas Haynesworth, Janet Burke, and other crime victims and exonerees, she demonstrates how the transformative experience of connecting isolated individuals around mutual trauma and a shared purpose of repairing harm unite unlikely allies. Movingly written and vigorously researched, Rectify takes to task the far-reaching failures of our criminal justice system and offers a window into a future where the power it yields can be used in pursuit of healing and unity rather than punishment and blame.

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • “A legal thriller that’s comparable to classics such as Scott Turow’s Presumed Innocent . . . tragic and shocking.”—Associated Press NOW AN EMMY-NOMINATED ORIGINAL STREAMING SERIES • NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY Entertainment Weekly • Boston Globe • Kansas City Star Andy Barber has been an assistant district attorney for two decades. He is respected. Admired in the courtroom. Happy at home with the loves of his life: his wife, Laurie, and their teenage son, Jacob. Then Andy’s quiet suburb is stunned by a shocking crime: a young boy stabbed to death in a leafy park. And an even greater shock: The accused is Andy’s own son—shy, awkward, mysterious Jacob. Andy believes in Jacob’s innocence. Any parent would. But the pressure mounts. Damning evidence. Doubt. A faltering marriage. The neighbors’ contempt. A murder trial that threatens to obliterate Andy’s family. It is the ultimate test for any parent: How far would you go to protect your child? It is a test of devotion. A test of how well a parent can know a child. For Andy Barber, a man with an iron will and a dark secret, it is a test of guilt and innocence in the deepest sense. How far would you go? Praise for Defending Jacob “A novel like this comes along maybe once a decade . . . a tour de force, a full-blooded legal thriller about a murder trial and the way it shatters a family. With its relentless suspense, its mesmerizing prose, and a shocking twist at the end, it’s every bit as good as Scott Turow’s great Presumed Innocent. But it’s also something more: an indelible domestic drama that calls to mind Ordinary People and We Need to Talk About Kevin. A spellbinding and unforgettable literary crime novel.”—Joseph Finder “Defending Jacob is smart, sophisticated, and suspenseful—capturing both the complexity and stunning fragility of family life.”—Lee Child “Powerful . . . leaves you gasping breathlessly at each shocking revelation.”—Lisa Gardner “Disturbing, complex, and gripping, Defending Jacob is impossible to put down. William Landay is a stunning talent.”—Carla Neggers “Riveting, suspenseful, and emotionally searing.”—Linwood Barclay