Chapter 7 - What Courtney Admitted
Courtney’s proffer lasted six hours.
I was not there.
I learned only what prosecutors later disclosed through lawful process.
She admitted the remote notarization first.
Charles gave her my driver’s license image.
He told her the stock transfer was something I had agreed to but had not “gotten around to signing.”
Courtney asked why I could not sign myself.
Charles said:
“Victoria is emotional. Samantha keeps filling her head with probate nonsense.”
Courtney knew pretending to be me was wrong.
That mattered.
Even if she believed I would eventually agree, she intentionally stated my name to a notary.
She wore the glasses.
The cap.
The sweatshirt.
She signed electronically.
Why?
Charles promised her that once he regained company control, he would place twenty percent of Baldwin-Gallagher into a marital trust for her.
A promise he likely could not lawfully fulfill without acquiring shares.
Courtney wanted status.
Money.
Security.
She participated.
Then the house deed.
Courtney prepared the electronic packet the morning Charles came to my house.
She did not complete the notary session because the first platform rejected the uploaded certificate.
Charles told her:
“Submit what we have. We’ll fix it later.”
She did.
Then she came with him.
Why?
She wanted to watch me leave.
Her words.
Not prosecutors’.
“I hated her.”
Why?
Because Charles constantly compared us.
Victoria went to graduate school.
Victoria married Lucas.
Victoria inherited shares.
Victoria never needed Charles.
Courtney had grown up with little money and had worked as an assistant.
Charles told her I was spoiled.
Ungrateful.
Cold.
According to Courtney:
“He made hating Victoria feel like loyalty to him.”
Context.
Not excuse.
Then the porch.
She admitted filming because she thought Charles “finally scared me.”
She laughed when my water broke because she believed I was exaggerating.
When police arrived, she deleted nothing.
Her phone was seized and the video recovered.
Then the hidden room.
Courtney knew it existed.
She stored Northstar files there.
She did not know about the COURTNEY folder.
That was the betrayal that changed her cooperation.
She found out after arrest.
Then prosecutors asked about Lucas.
Had Charles ever discussed harming him?
Courtney said no.
Had Charles celebrated his death?
Her answer was more disturbing.
“He said the accident solved a timing problem.”
My stomach turned when Samantha told me.
“What timing problem?”
Lucas had scheduled an emergency board meeting for the Friday after he died.
He intended to present the Northstar findings.
Charles said after the crash:
“Now we have breathing room.”
That was cruel.
Not murder.
Then private investigator.
Courtney hired him at Charles’s instruction.
Purpose:
Find out which attorneys and regulators Lucas had contacted.
No instructions to interfere physically.
The investigator confirmed.
Then Lucas’s vehicle.
Courtney said Charles never had access to it in the week before crash.
State police service records and home camera footage supported no unexplained tampering.
The murder fear weakened.
Good.
Then Northstar.
Courtney admitted signing invoices for services that never occurred.
At first, Charles told her they were accounting allocations.
Later she understood money was moving to conceal cost overruns.
She continued.
Why?
Money.
Marriage.
Fear of losing lifestyle.
She did not claim innocence.
That made her more credible.
Then the biggest admission.
Charles had drafted the “grief incapacity” letter himself.
He planned to present it to me after Samuel was born.
Not as a legal declaration of incompetence.
As emotional pressure.
He intended to say Lucas had wanted him to help manage things.
He expected me to sign a twelve-month proxy.
If I refused, he would use the house.
“Tell her Lucas’s estate owes Northstar and the house may have to be sold.”
The lie he used in my kitchen.
The house pressure was planned.
The assault was not.
At least Courtney said she had never heard him discuss physically forcing me out.
That morning, Charles lost control when I told him to leave.
Then Courtney said something prosecutors did not expect.
Charles had another document.
Not in the hidden room.
A handwritten notebook he carried in his briefcase.
She had seen it once.
Inside were lists of people.
Lucas.
Marjorie.
Samantha.
Me.
Next to each, one word or phrase.
Lucas: audit.
Marjorie: employee vote.
Samantha: trust.
Victoria: 20%.
Courtney: liability.
When she saw that last word, she asked Charles.
He laughed.
“Insurance language.”
She believed him.
Now she thought it meant exactly what the hidden draft showed.
If Northstar collapsed, Courtney would be left holding shell-company liabilities.
Charles had categorized his wife not as partner.
As liability container.
Then prosecutors asked where the notebook was.
Courtney said:
“His car.”
Police had impounded Charles’s SUV after his arrest because it contained documents relevant to the forged deed.
A warrant extension followed.
The notebook was found beneath the driver’s seat.
May you like
And under Victoria: 20%, Charles had written another line.
Before baby.
