Roux access to his money so he could keep it operating, just to let them catch lower-level employees.

“Overruled,” the judge said.

“No, we were in the process of having him wind it down,” Stouch said. “It was still operating and he was paying salaries. Whether the U.S. government was operating the pharmacy, I—we were in the process of shutting it down.”

After Stouch, Marks called Travis Ocken, a DEA agent from Minneapolis who had helped Brill in the later stages of the RX Limited case, and had been by Le Roux’s side when he communi- cated with Moran Oz. Ocken also testified to the fact the Le Roux had made the calls voluntarily.

Now it was Richman’s turn. “Your honor,” he said. “We call Paul Calder Le Roux.”

Le Roux entered the courtroom through a side door, escorted by two plainclothes United States marshals. He had a slightly unruly beard that was a darker shade than his silver hair, but otherwise looked surprisingly tropical in a billowy, lemon-yellow T-shirt and orange correctional pants. He was still a fat man—his fake arrest record listed him at six feet, 280 pounds—but he’d lost some weight in his three and a half years in custody.

The marshals unshackled his arms and pointed him to the ele- vated witness stand. He scanned the courtroom intently as he set- tled into the chair, as if puzzled by the people who had shown up to see him. For a moment we locked eyes, or at least I thought we did. But his gaze quickly moved on, with an expression of be- mused curiosity.

If Le Roux’s anonymous lawyer was in attendance, he didn’t make his presence known. So, in what amounted to a contorted legal setup, Le Roux—a potential defense witness—was function- ally represented by Marks, who offered periodic objections that were indistinguishable from those she might have made for her own witness.