Shadow Empire

Chapter 858 Storm, Guilt, and Accusation
Ms. Debbie’s words have hit home with these people, and now they are having trouble finding work while also being burdened with huge debts.

When talking about this, everyone's mood became depressed.

"It's all caused by the labor union!" When she said this, everyone had already guessed it in their hearts. In an instant, they seemed to have found a... target?!

It's not that they hadn't considered this before, but the Labor Federation was too large, and they also sent staff to deal with the aftermath.

Helped them solve some problems, except the most important one of money.

This also made them feel embarrassed to embarrass the United Labor Union, which led to them having to bear the "damage" in the end.

Now that Ms. Debbie has directly stated that all this was caused by the labor union, everyone's emotions have become a little excited.

"You're right, Ms. Debbie. If the Labor Federation hadn't planned and asked us to participate in this strike, we wouldn't have been injured, we wouldn't have lost our jobs, and we wouldn't have been burdened with heavy loans!"

A worker complained loudly, which attracted more workers to join in, and soon they reached a consensus on the issue, blaming the Federation of Labor!

This is the "interview assignment" that Lance gave to Ms. Debbie. She needs to use her identity as a former official of the Labor Federation and bring these injured people to directly challenge the Labor Federation!
If a worker, or someone who has some connection with the incident but not a very deep connection, comes along at this time and blames the bad outcome on the labor union.

There's a high probability that this won't turn into a storm, and the labor federation will deal with these issues as quickly as the federal government covers up people's mouths, which is a bit ridiculous.

But if a former mid-level AFL official stood up with a large group of people whose lives and jobs were becoming unsustainable because of the failed strike and challenged the AFL, someone would definitely pay attention to them.

This is not an easy thing to do.

Because once she makes a decision, she will have to face the largest political group in the federation, the Federation of Labor, which claims to be the great unity of 20 million working brothers!
This kind of pressure also made Ms. Debbie feel tremendous pressure.

But she still chose to do it. Her husband was one of the main inducements. She would make herself look stronger and she would prove that the man did a stupid thing!

She looked at the people whose emotions had been pushed to a suitable position, and then she said, "We have to tell the truth. This money should not be borne by us. This money should be paid by the Federation of Labor, and the latter union will pay you."

"They asked you to go on strike, you did it, but you got injured, shouldn't they be responsible for the medical expenses?"

"They always say they are our brothers and sisters, but they are always deceiving us and using us as pawns."

"I can't stand it. I want to stand up and tell the truth to the media and the public. What about you?"

She looked at these people and said, "I will hire a professional lawyer to fight the case for us, but I will only do it for 'us'."

This sentence makes it very clear. She emphasized the word "we", making people realize that if they want to seek justice with her, they must stand with her.

"I'll join." Immediately, someone raised his hand to express his willingness to be "we". He owed the hospital more than 1,700 yuan because of the complexity of the operation and the difficulty of recovery.

Not only did he empty the savings of several families, he also mortgaged his own house to barely pay the money.

Now he can't find any job. If he can't pay back the interest on the loan shark at least within a year, the financial company will change his property certificate and take away his house!
The people here are just like Oger. More than ten years of hard work were all gone just because they participated in a strike and were hospitalized!
They had no outlet before, but now they have!

Soon all six people chose to participate, but Ms. Debbie shook her head again and said, "It's not enough just for us. We need more people to stand by us. We need to expand our momentum."

"This is not a responsibility we should bear ourselves. The factory hired us to work. If we are injured, the factory will bear our medical expenses. This is a work-related injury."

"Now the labor federation and the union hired us to strike. If we get injured, it is also a work-related injury. The union and the AFL should pay for the medical expenses."

"But there are too few of us. Let's contact more people and unite all the forces we can!"

Ms. Debbie's tone gradually became a little excited. "Working class unity, brothers, we can unite to fight against the capitalists, and we can also unite to fight against all injustices!"

"I will arrange for a lawyer to help you register and collect evidence. Now all you need to do is find those injured people who are willing to stand up like you. We are going to sue the Federation of Labor and the trade union!"

"It's not fair that we have to pay for other people's mistakes!"

After saying these words, Ms. Debbie felt her body filled with power!
She can now kill a cow with one punch!

Infected by her emotions, the six people soon left her villa. They were going to contact their brothers and sisters who were facing the same fate as them. They wanted to unite everyone, as Ms. Debbie said, to fight against all injustice!
Lance quickly arranged a team of lawyers to cooperate with Ms. Debbie. Although the lawyers did not find any legal provisions to support holding the organizers responsible for injuries during the march, they also did not find any provisions or precedents that did not support doing so!
One characteristic of law is lag.

To put it simply, the law will only be updated after a specific incident occurs.

For example, primitive society did not define the crime of murder. Only when people in the tribe killed each other did the crime of murder, its explanation, and how to deal with it appear.

Just like now, federal law does not explicitly mention the legal solidarity between parade organizers and parade participants, so this case will not necessarily be lost. On the contrary, it has a great chance of winning, and it may even promote amendments and updates to laws related to parades!
Of course, the final result is also related to wealth and connections. If you want to promote legislation in the Ministry of Justice and make judicial interpretations at appropriate times, you must have connections in the Ministry of Justice.

Those who believe that federal officials gain their status through their skills and abilities certainly don’t know that several major federal law firms have people in the Ministry of Justice, and some of them are in high-ranking and powerful positions.

Otherwise, why would they help those wealthy people win lawsuits that they are bound to lose?

Based on business ability?
In terms of business ability, they may not be the strongest, but their relationship skills are definitely top-notch.

The victory or defeat of justice always takes place outside the court!
This case involves the Labor Federation, so Lance doesn't need to smooth things over at the Department of Justice himself; Senator Cleveland will arrange for someone to take care of it.

So all he needs to do is pay the money.

This case will have wide-ranging implications and may require people who were injured in previous marches, demonstrations and conflicts to testify in court, so it will require a lot of investigation work.

The lead attorney of the legal team told Lance that the case might take one to two years.

Because they are facing the Labor Federation, and the Labor Federation will not give up easily.

Lance didn't have any big ideas about this. Not to mention one or two years, three to five years would be fine. Anyway, he didn't have to keep an eye on this matter personally.

In mid-May, a case involving refugees attacking protesters went to trial in the Jingangcheng Court.

Originally, the Labor Federation wanted to move the trial to the circuit court, but the circuit court said that this was a local case.

Only after the local court trial is over and one party disagrees with the result, can the trial be held in the circuit court.

On the day of the trial, the courtroom was full of people, all wanting to know what the outcome of the trial would be, although most people already had an accurate prediction of the result.

Lance also came to watch the court session. As a Jingang native, he also has the nature of watching the fun.

What’s interesting is that Carl’s position is right in front of him, and around him are people from the Lance family.

What Lance found interesting was that he also saw Director Derek (Director of the FBI's Golden Harbor Branch), and the two of them nodded and greeted each other.

Looking at the smiling Chief Derek, Lance knew that this guy had no good intentions and he must be here to collect evidence.

FBI... Lance has already asked someone to inquire. They have updated the officer deployment in many important cities across the country. Jingang City is not the only one, or even one of the few cases.

It seemed like this was indeed a collective plan, but Lance always felt that at least Chief Derek was targeting him.

He had this premonition, and at the same time, the name of the FBI department also made him feel uncomfortable.

They will definitely clash in the future. Although Director Derek has hidden himself very well now, he believes that there is a chance that they will become rivals in the future.

Many people also came to the scene, including some reporters and a small number of refugees.

This should actually be considered a public prosecution case, but the Labor Federation wanted to intervene more in the case and influence its direction, so they reasonably passed the judicial process and became one of the co-litigants. With the co-litigants, the Labor Federation sent its own team of lawyers, and after discussing with the prosecutor, the prosecutor no longer participated in the trial as a public prosecutor.

So the lawyer appearing on the plaintiff's side now is arranged by the Labor Federation.

The defendant has a free lawyer.

The purpose of this trial is to make them accept legal sanctions, not to let these attackers escape legal sanctions, so the more ordinary their lawyers are, the better.

As for whether an ordinary lawyer can turn defeat into victory, the possibility can be said to be absolutely zero.

With the arrival of the judge, everyone stood up and then sat down again, and the trial officially began.

Because this trial involves a criminal case, there are jury members present.

As the lawyers from the Labor Union began to take action, everyone could clearly feel that the defendant's free lawyer could no longer speak clearly.

This is actually quite normal.

The legal profession is also a talent-scarce industry. Once a good lawyer is discovered, he or she will soon be recruited by a large law firm.

These free lawyers are basically those who cannot find suitable jobs after graduation and can only come to the court to make a living.

They have no desire to win or lose, they just want to keep it a secret for the rest of their lives.

After a series of "attacks", the free lawyer's health bar finally dropped to zero and he died suddenly.

Next is the plaintiff's lawyer's free time. Apart from occasionally shouting "I protest", there is basically nothing else the free lawyer can do.

Anyone with a discerning eye knows that the case has basically been concluded and these refugee attackers will definitely not escape the result of being found guilty.

At this time, the plaintiff's lawyer suddenly asked, "Such a well-organized attack does not seem to be spontaneous at all. There must be someone behind the scenes who organized the whole case. Am I right?"

Without waiting for the defendant's lawyer to shout "I protest" again, or for the judge to call a halt, he looked directly at one of the defendants, "...Am I right?"

The defendant he was greeting had met his "defense lawyer" and his family before the trial.

His family told him that they were doing well now and had moved to a state in the central part of the federation. Both family members were given decent jobs, earning a combined salary of about ninety dollars a month.

They also have legal status.

The labor federation has great power, otherwise it would not be regarded as "a huge trouble" by Congress. They have a big say in "attracting talent".

They commissioned a company with which they had a very good relationship to hire the attacker's two family members in the name of "talent introduction", and applied for "talent immigration" from the federal government, which was approved.

Whether this person is talented or not, the Labor Federation itself is one of the organizations that assesses this. They directly gave these two ordinary people a senior professional title, and the federal government approved it.

Suddenly the whole family became federal citizens and had high-paying, respectable jobs. The Federation of Labor had kept their promise.

So at this moment, he did not hesitate, nor did he have room for hesitation, he just nodded, "Yes."

There was an uproar in the courtroom, and the ones who were in uproar were mainly ordinary people.

During the trial just now, the defendants said that they attacked the demonstrators because they felt threatened.

The main targets of this strike and demonstration were refugees and illegal immigrants. They were afraid that the pressure of the demonstration would lead to them losing hope of survival, so they spontaneously began to attack the marching team, leading to the final tragedy.

But now some people admit that they were organized, which made many people who heard the story exclaim that there is actually a fucking twist!
Karl was sitting in the audience with his eyes narrowed slightly. The refugee who had taken refuge in the Labor Union also saw Karl, but he was not very scared. Instead, he pointed in Karl's direction and said, "It's him! He is the one who organized us!"

People's eyes passed over Carl and fell on Lance. Lance seemed very calm, but people were surprised, or even horrified!

Is this something they can fucking listen to?

Just when they were wondering if they would be killed as witnesses because they heard something they shouldn't have heard, Carl, who was sitting in front of him, suddenly stood up and said, "This is slander!"

His voice was loud and inexplicably loud, and people were relieved. They looked at Carl with friendly eyes, hoping that he would say more.

Carl also felt puzzled. What was going on with these people’s looks?

But he quickly came to his senses, "What evidence do you have that I organized you?"

The defendant was about to say something else, but the judge had come to his senses and pounded the gavel in his hand, "Silence!"

The courtroom suddenly became quiet. His gaze lingered on the defendant for a moment. Just as he was about to say something, the plaintiff's lawyer stood up.

"Your Honor, I suggest that the defendant's confession be used as additional evidence and the case be handled together!"

His appeal was to drag Carl into this case. From the perspective of the legal team, having Carl be the one being interrogated and being held with these prisoners would help some of the stubborn ones among them to start reconsidering their choices.

The easiest way to suppress a person's authority is to tie him up with a dog. It is simple and rough, but effective!

What they wanted to do was to lock up and interrogate Carl, who was so high and mighty in their eyes. This would change their attitude and standpoint, which would help them take down Carl and more likely influence Lance.

It’s a pity that this is Jingang City.

The judge banged the gavel again. "We cannot tell whether the defendant's testimony contained lies or whether there is sufficient evidence to prove his accusation is valid. Therefore, the question of whether Carl is the organizer will be investigated separately."

"We will now continue the court work that has been completed."

He lowered his head and glanced at the documents in front of him. "Plaintiff and defendant, please make your closing statements."

The plaintiff's lawyers discussed it and agreed that they had time to prepare their closing statement, which was allowed by law.

They also communicated with the people Mr. Walter arranged to be at the scene and decided not to protest the judge's decision.

Although they were very unwilling, it was not easy for them to do this on someone else's territory!

Want to arrest Carl in court?
Totally impossible!
After a brief discussion, both sides made closing arguments and then the jury began deliberations.

A few minutes later, the jury unanimously found the defendants guilty.

Next, it will be up to the judge to determine their sentence.

Because the facts of the case were clear, the evidence was sufficient, and the defendant pleaded guilty directly, there was no disagreement and the judge was very quick in sentencing, which was generally more than ten years.

With the final fall of the gavel, the trial came to an end.

A reporter took a photo when the game was over, and the winner didn't seem to have the smile on his face that a winner should have.

Carl, and Lance behind him, as losers who might be related to the case, kept a smile on their faces.

(End of this chapter)