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    July 10, 2025 | Season 2  Episode 39

    Maggie Bopp

    Presented by

    Cloudlex Logo Small

    About the Episode

    In Episode 39 of "Celebrating Justice," trial lawyer Maggie Bopp of Rappaport, Glass, Levine, & Zullo LLP Personal Injury Law brings her fierce advocacy and heartfelt integrity to the spotlight.

    From her upbringing in a family rooted deeply in law enforcement and military service, to her decorated tenure in the Suffolk County District Attorney’s Office, Bopp shares an inspiring journey shaped by duty, grit, and compassion.

    Early on, Bopp stood out — playing boys lacrosse with her braid hidden beneath a helmet and taking on the unofficial role of “lawyer” among her four brothers. Her competitiveness, sharpened on the field and honed in courtrooms, became a hallmark of her legal style: “Try me,” she says, is her unspoken message when underestimated.

    Bopp recounts harrowing cases from her time in the Vehicular Crime Bureau. One tragedy still haunts her: an Uber crash that killed four young passengers. The intoxicated driver who caused the accident died before he could be prosecuted, leaving victims’ families with unanswered questions and unfulfilled justice. But another case, involving the fiery deaths of a father and two children, led to a landmark conviction after months of tireless investigation — one that tested Bopp personally and professionally.

    She credits her background in criminal prosecution for preparing her to build strong cases and connect with jurors. “People just want to be heard,” she says. Whether it’s a bartender or a trial attorney, that need for connection and empathy bridges all.

    In her “Closing Argument,” Bopp reflects on a case that tested her instincts: a defendant who faked mental incapacity to delay proceedings in a DUI fatality trial. Her gut told her something was off — and it was right. Pole camera footage captured the defendant walking, talking, and lifting boxes just before donning a wheelchair and acting nonverbal in court. Her persistence exposed the deception, secured a conviction, and brought closure to a grieving widow and her four children.

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      Transcript

      {Theme Song Plays]

      Maggie Bopp: So his advice to me was always don’t look the victims in the eyes… From the time I was able to hold the lacrosse stick until about sixth grade, I played boys lacrosse. I had to have my ponytail or my braid tucked in the helmet so that no one knew I was a girl… A woman who was a Newsday delivery woman that was hit head on by a drunk driver….

      Narrator: Welcome to “Celebrating Justice” presented by the Trial Lawyers Journal at CloudLex, the next-gen legal cloud platform built exclusively for personal injury law. Get inspired by the nation’s top trial lawyers and share in the stories that shape our pursuit of justice. Follow the podcast and join our community a1t https://www.triallawyersjournal.com. Now here’s your host, editor of TLJ and VP of marketing at CloudLex, Chad Sands.

      Chad Sands: Welcome back friends to “Celebrating Justice.” In this episode, we’re joined by trial lawyer and former Suffolk County ADA, Maggie Bopp. Growing up alongside her four brothers, Maggie’s competitive spirit was shaped early on and her passion for advocating on behalf of victims led her from the vehicular crime bureau to her current role pursuing justice for plaintiffs. To get to the stories behind her journey, I asked her, why did you want to become a trial lawyer?

      Maggie Bopp: I come from a family historically of law enforcement. Both of my grandfathers fought in World War II. My grandfather, my paternal grandfather was drafted in 1943 and my maternal grandfather was actually in the British Army and fought against the Nazis. So that kind of started it. And my grandfather was in law enforcement, both as a police officer, which he eventually was promoted to inspector when he retired, but also a detective investigator for the Suffolk County District Attorney’s Office. And that ranged from 1942 until about 1977 when he did retire. My father is a village justice of the town I was, I grew up in, born and raised in, Lindenhurst, since 1990. And he’s also a former assistant district attorney of Suffolk County for about four years. I myself was an assistant district attorney for 13 years. My youngest brother is currently an assistant district attorney for the past almost 10 years. He’s also captain in the US Army for Army JAG. I have four brothers and another one is a He’s in the aviation unit for the Suffolk County Police Department. He’s also a U.S. Marine Corps Lieutenant Colonel who flies helicopters and also small planes. Most recently, he’s taken on a position flying small planes, but he did four tours and has been in since 2002, I believe, is when he went to officer training school. I have another brother who’s a New York State police trooper. He’s been doing that before that. He was Southampton town for a little bit. Police. He also owns him and his wife own and run a brewery in Lindenhurst. And I have another brother who’s a union plumber. So.

      Chad Sands: Okay, so there’s like a tradesman out there. They’re not all army or former military.

      Maggie Bopp: Correct. My great, great grandfather on my dad’s side was a plumber and his family before him. You know, it’s one way or the other, you follow family history. So there’s a very heavy law enforcement and just kind of justice doing the right thing in our family.

      Chad Sands: Yes, it sounds like it. So that’s in the blood. Did you go into law enforcement or how, what was your journey into the courtroom?

      Maggie Bopp: So I considered going into law enforcement through the FBI route, which I, what I wanted to do would have required a JD law degree, no matter what. And then by the time I was ready to do it, I was starting a family and my husband thought I was crazy for taking on something else and having to be away for months at a time for training and then follow up stuff. So I made the decision to just keep doing what I was doing. And at that time I was already in the attorney’s office and loved every single second of it. So I was very happy where I was and I wasn’t any real itch to get out of that.

      Chad Sands: Did you watch “Silence of the Lambs” and you wanted to be Clarice in FBI?

      Maggie Bopp: I think so. Think that was actually my motivation. And you know what it was too, and this is going to sound so silly, but one of my favorite movies is Point Break and Johnny Utah is an FBI agent and it was, it was cool.

      Chad Sands: The quarterback, FBI informant. So real quick, your time as the ADA, this feels very, uh, “Law & Order SVU,” the vehicle crime bureau. Tell me a little bit about the vehicle crime bureau and what you did there.

      Maggie Bopp: In 2015, I was in the case advisory bureau, which is, it’s kind of like the baby felony bureau. It’s your introduction to felony cases, putting them in the grand jury, know, pleading them out, things along those lines, but no real heavy lifting with regard to specific cases. I was asked to jump on an aggravated vehicular homicide with a felony ADA and It had to do with a woman who was a Newsday delivery woman that was hit head on by a drunk driver out in Hampton Bays. And I sat with this ADA and we instantly clicked. We’re both type A. He’s a little crazy. I’m a little crazy. We had a great time prepping the case, you know, getting it ready and just kind of making sure both of us were ready. He held my hand, making sure that I was prepared to handle not only witnesses, but the opening statement on this huge case. So that was kind of my introduction. And next thing I knew, I was promoted to the vehicular crime bureau. And that was kind of the start. And I was there from 2015 until I left the DA’s office in 2023.

      Chad Sands: This dedication to justice that runs in your blood and army, commitment to service, law enforcement. What makes you unique as a trial lawyer compared to all the other guys and girls out there?

      Maggie Bopp: So again, it kind of goes back to my family roots. Having four brothers, as you can imagine, it was a bit of controlled chaos in our house. You followed the rules. And if you didn’t follow the rules, you had to be faster than the next person in line to avoid getting in trouble. But I was essentially being the only girl in the family. I was the unofficial lawyer. I would see when one brother was doing something to the other, you know, and try to mediate the situation or break up a fight. It was always something with them. You know, one of my brothers hit the other brother and his face with a lacrosse shaft that two teeth came out. And, you know, there was a lot going on in our house. So I think I was always because I wasn’t one of the boys. I kind of took on the role of supervising, counseling, mediating between all four of them. So it was one of those things that I realized throughout my childhood and then my adulthood that I can’t necessarily keep my mouth shut with certain things. If I see somebody getting picked on, I’m saying something. If I see someone doing something wrong, I’m certainly judging their actions. One of my best friends since middle school is my best friend because she had an incident where someone was using derogatory slurs against her and I was horrified by it and stuck up for her and From then on out, we were best friends.

      Chad Sands: It sounds like your family and you are the type of people who you know would run into a burning building to save somebody’s life and it’s just kind of ingrained in your DNA and you’ve taken that into the courtroom and advocating for your clients.

      Maggie Bopp: Yeah, but it’s also one of those things too. Growing up in a family, I mean, we’re all athletes, my brothers and I, and my dad actually was a Division I lacrosse player at Rutgers. He started the Boys Lacrosse League in Lindenhurst and there wasn’t a Girls Lacrosse League. So from the time I was able to hold the lacrosse stick until about sixth grade, I played Boys Lacrosse. And the condition that I had to abide by was I had to have my ponytail or my braid tucked in the helmet so that no one knew I was a girl, because my brothers were going to be embarrassed. But You know, that was always one of those things where we were always competing against each other, whether it was who’s the fastest, who’s the strongest, the funniest, who’s the favorite. So, you know, by the time there was a girls league, I was in sixth grade and I fought tooth and nail not to join because I was so used to playing with my brothers and their friends and my dad coaching and the way that he coached gave me an edge. It gave me I played much different than the typical training of girls across at the time, I was more aggressive, I cradled a different way, I just played a different way. And that kind of gave me an edge over everyone else, which led me to a Division I scholarship at Rutgers, which I loved every single second of. So that competitive edge is that definitely gives me an advantage in the courtroom as a female attorney because you walk in and you don’t ever want to be judged as, here comes the dumb blonde. You know, so I go in with the attitude of “Try me.”

      Chad Sands: Are you in the middle then in terms of your brothers in your age? Okay. So second to the oldest, two youngers, three younger, three younger brothers, brothers total. So I’m the youngest of three brothers. Okay. And I definitely can relate to trying to just tag along or keep up and stay competitive. And if you guys are playing basketball, well, I want to play basketball. And ultimately I did think it gave me better skills and

      Maggie Bopp: I’m second. Second oldest. Three young brothers.

      Chad Sands: You had to step up, right? You played up to just because you wanted to be on the court or be involved.

      Maggie Bopp: Absolutely. I mean, I remember trying to convince my parents to let me play on the Little League football team because I could throw a spiral better than my brothers and their compromise was I joined cheerleading.

      Chad Sands: You can be a part of the sport.

      Maggie Bopp: Yeah. But also too, on the same breath of having some type of unique feature. I bartended in the Hamptons for 10 years. Once I graduated law school and got a job with the DA’s office, I obviously couldn’t serve alcohol anymore. But that was an unbelievable jury pool. Yeah, you know, I came across all different people from all different wakes of life. And honestly, a lot of them, they just wanted to be heard. So it took a lot of listening and just speaking to people, understanding who they were and why they were that way and successes they’ve had and losses they’ve had. And based on that, it’s you could deal with anybody if you can handle a high volume bar, nightclub or even just the local small bar where you’re, you know, you’re serving Guinness to the, you know, the local principle, you know, like it’s just kind of one of those things. Like I said, people just want to be heard, whether it’s jurors during voir dire, whether it’s a victim on the stand or an attorney, a trial attorney, you know, delivering a summation, just want to be heard. This is my side. These are the facts that support it. This is why I need you to listen to me.

      Chad Sands: You know, I’ve interviewed former taxi cab drivers. I’ve also seen a lot of advice in terms of young associates, maybe not take an internship at a law firm yet, but go take acting lessons or be a server at a restaurant and build those people skills because that’s what you need as a trial lawyer.

      Maggie Bopp: And you need to find a way to connect to the jurors. You can’t just stand there in a nice suit and expect them to have any empathy or compassion for you or your client if you don’t find that connection, whatever it may be. You have to tear those walls down and get right to the evidence.

      Chad Sands: Yes. So speaking of jurors, let’s discuss, I know it’s hard to choose one, but could you share a story about a case that really had a significant impact on you?

      Maggie Bopp: Yes. So when I was seven months pregnant with my now three year old, I was called out to a scene in the vehicular crime bureau close to my home and it involved I got a call from the sergeant of the police department and he said, we have four dead. And I said, God, okay, I’m on my way. So I get to the scene and it was horrific. One car is upside down the other cars just smashed. It was an Uber. The driver of the Uber was killed, the front seat passenger and two rear seat passengers with another passenger seriously injured. And it was just heartbreaking because think of how many times you’ve taken an Uber out to or from wherever you’re going. And your biggest worry is, well, at least I’m not drinking and driving and whatever it may be. not getting in the car with someone who’s drinking driving. I’m calling an Uber to get to and from where I want to go safely back to my family, to my family, whatever it may be. But in this instance, there was a the other driver had smoked an enormous amount of marijuana and was speeding on a residential roadway when he should not have been speeding. And I’m talking way over the speed limit, lost control of the car and hit the Uber head on. And there were the four passengers were young, successful college graduates that were just starting their lives. And the hardest part for me about that case was the fact that the defendant, you know, who we were in the middle of getting warrants and we had detectives at the hospital monitoring, he ended up passing away. So you can’t charge anybody criminally with that. Who was there to answer for his actions? So that was something where I felt like justice was stolen from those victims and their families. I felt as though they deserved more than that. They deserved answers and they’re never going to get it. Even the officers that responded to the scene, I mean, they’ve never seen anything like that. This was towards the end of my career in vehicular crime. I had seen horrible scenes. And I mean, it certainly shook me, but you could tell that some of these young cops had never seen anything like this. And they were all thinking the same thing. Could have been me. It could have been my family member, a friend, anything. So that one has stuck with me, especially I drive by the area all the time. And it’s just, it can’t help but get a little angry for the decisions that were made that day.

      Chad Sands: What happened with the case? Could you not move forward? I guess there was no recourse.

      Maggie Bopp: Yeah, there was no one to prosecute. He’s dead. I mean, you can move forward civilly, you know, but that’s not — No one’s answering for that individual’s actions and decisions on that night and the consequences that the victim and the victim’s families have to live with for the rest of their lives. Every single holiday, every birthday, everything, just wondering why. And having those answers just out in the ether and never answered is just something that I, as a prosecutor at the time, I just wished I could have given them.

      Chad Sands: As part of your time with the ADA and this vehicle crime bureau, did you have to build up a barrier because you’re showing up on these scenes? Did you slowly build up a system to kind of cope with that?

      Maggie Bopp: So my brother John, who’s in the Marine Corps, who at the time had been to Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, his advice to me was because the victims, they had passed at the scene, they were left there so that the conclusion of the case, the investigation, the medical examiner’s office to come. So his advice to me was always don’t look the victims in the eyes. Don’t look them in the eyes because then it’s real. You know, and that’s where it will get you. So thankfully, I’m not a very emotional person to begin with, but I was able to compartmentalize the horror and the empathy I had for the phone call, the detective visit that the family members were soon going to receive. And I just had to put it aside because the most important thing was building the case. And I treat every single case to this day, as though it is a family member, a friend. I treat the case the way I would want it to be treated. So, you you can’t stand at a crime scene and get emotional and hysterical and you’re going to miss something. So you kind of have to just television, look at what’s going on, focus on that. — And I’m glad that I had started it before kids, because I think once I had my kids, that was There was a bit of a change in me where the first scene that I went to involving the death of a four-year-old child, that was a hard one. And I called my brother John after and just said, don’t know if I can do this. I’ve never had an issue before. And now that I have children of my own, it hits in a different way.

      Chad Sands: Tell me a little bit about where you’re at in your firm right now and how you’ve kind of brought that prosecutorial, uh-oh, I can’t say that word — your background and from the ADA on the prosecutor side into what you do now.

      Maggie Bopp: I came over to my firm in April of 2023. So I’ve been here almost two years and I came over here through an inquest by my bureau chief in the vehicular crime bureau. He had come about a little over a year before me and, you know, had sent me a text inquiring, hey, know, do you know anybody that’s looking hint, hint, wink, wink and I talked to him about it and I talked to my husband and my dad, you know, having made the move before himself. And it was just, I never thought of leaving the DA’s office. I loved it. I had no intentions, but this was an opportunity that I could not turn down both for myself, for my family, the experience, the reputation of the firm and just, it was the right time. So, I mean, I went back and forth for about two weeks driving my husband nuts. Okay, I’m gonna go. No, no, no, I’m not gonna go. I’m gonna stay. No, no, no, I’m gonna go. I’m gonna stay. But once I came in and interviewed and they offered me the job that same right then and there, it was like I almost didn’t hear the words yes come out of my mouth as fast as they did. So I knew it was the right decision and it has been unbelievable. within the first couple of weeks being here, I jumped on a trial with one of the senior partners, Motorcycle Mike, and we ended up getting a $1.4 million verdict in Suffolk County, which is, you know, that’s a pretty conservative jury pool. But our client was really hurt, and she deserved every penny of it. So that was great. And since then, I’ve done numerous trials, I’ve done hearings. Just being in the courtroom and handling civil work, it’s different, but it’s similar because we’re still prosecuting cases. just at the civil level. And the one thing I love is being in the courtroom and being on trial. Sometimes defense attorneys or even adjusters will use that as a tactic, like, you don’t want to go to trial. And I’m like, yes, I do. Come on. Because at that point in time when I’m having those conversations, I’ve already analyzed the case and I know whether it’s a good case to bring to trial or not. I’ve seen real stuff go awry in the courtroom, whether it was myself or other attorneys that I’ve watched over the years. But if you’re prepared, you’re all good. I mean, you can never predict what a jury is going to do. But if you really focus on asking the right questions during voir dire and trying to kind of scope out who the good jurors and bad jurors are. But that was lessons taught to me in the DA’s office. I mean, I can’t tell you how many cases I tried at the misdemeanor and felony level. But big cases where people, they’re serving serious time upstate. So prosecuting something on the civil level to get someone compensation for their injuries and issues, and suffering that they’ve had, it’s a different mindset than putting someone away for an extended period of time.

      Chad Sands: You shared that story about kind of the one that got away where you couldn’t, you know, bring justice or hold accountability. Can you share a story where you were able to bring a verdict on another case? Yes.

      Maggie Bopp: Yes, absolutely. So this one case will stay with me forever. I mean, all of my cases will stay with me, but this one is, it was a lot of firsts for me. So like I had said before, I was in the vehicular crime bureau in April, May of 2014. No, was 2015, sorry. And I was on that trial with my colleague who taught me so much. And then got promoted, I finished the trial, I got my box, I go to the bureau and I’m like, okay, what do I need to do? And they’re like, all right, well now you’re be introduced to on-call. And on-call is every seven to eight weeks, I’m on call for the entire week, which means any calls that come in 24 hours a day involving criminality and either a death or serious injury, I have to put on a suit. I have to get in the car and I have to respond to that scene. So it was my husband’s 35th birthday and I had, it was already planned. I had about, you know, 50 people at the house, hostessing and I’m like, I can’t drink guys. I’m, you know, I’m on call. I have to my phone near me at all times. And I had never gotten a call at this point. I had been on the whole week. It was a Friday into a Saturday night and my phone rings at 3:15 AM and it’s the New York State Police and there is a horrific crash on the Southern State Parkway exit 40. So right before the Robert Moses 41 exit and you need to get here right away. It’s bad. Okay, here we go. You know, I put my suit on, I head out the door. I had a county car. When you’re on call, you get the county car for the week. So I had my little lights and sirens going and got to the scene and I mean, hectic, crazy, chaotic, horrible, doesn’t even come close. It was an incident where there were a bunch of young adults that were leaving a party in Brentwood because the cops came and broke it up, that were all in their cars heading to Queens to go to another party. And there was a family who was leaving a church event with the young adults driving, you know, like — like idiots on the Southern state at two in the morning, whatever it was, they lost the one defendant, lost control of the car and crashed into the rear driver’s side of this family SUV where the gas tank was. So the mom gets out of the car, she can’t wake her husband, and she realizes when she tries to open the doors that the doors were locked and her four year old and eight year old were in the car and she watched her family burn to death. And the defendant, instead of stopping, helping, trying to break the windows like other passerbys did, but it was too late at that point, he got in one of his buddy’s cars and fled. So I got to the scene where the dad and the two children were still in the car. They were being extricated from the car at that point, but they had been burned beyond recognition. It was awful. The eight-year-old boy had taken off his seatbelt to sit next to his four-year-old sister. And the witnesses, the trauma that those witnesses between the mom just screaming for help and everything. And one of the witnesses had third degree burns on his hand from taking a tire iron and trying to smash through the window. — So that one was one, you know, that. When I say it was firsts for me, it was the first scene where there were fatalities. It was the first scene involving children that were killed. It was the first scene with the New York State police. I hadn’t worked with them before. I mostly had worked with Suffolk County. And from there, it was the first with regard to doing what’s called a pen ping to try to find out where the location of the defendant, where he had gone, what he had done. A lot of witnesses were screaming the license plate of the vehicle that took him from the scene. So they had a run on that. The defendant and his buddies had concocted a plan to go to Franklin Hospital. And that was the reason they had to leave the scene, because they had to get their buddy, who had a minor cut on his leg. I took a picture of it, because that’s how minor it was, to get him to Franklin Hospital, which they passed about eight hospitals on the way there. So there was a lot of investigation in this case. There was what’s something that’s called retrograde extrapolation. So when he was finally taken into custody, he ended up consenting to give his blood and it was below the legal limit. But with retrograde extrapolation, you use something called the Widmark formula and we were able to get, I think his blood alcohol was a one four. So. The interesting part about that, once we got, you once we had that information, we knew we had, all right, we can arrest him not just for leaving the scene, but now we have an aggravated vehicular homicide on our hands. And we also have this other driver. Can we charge him with anything knowing he saw what was going on? Can we charge him? And we did. We charged him with leaving the scene of an incident as an e felony. And throughout the process, It was, I mean, it was a huge undertaking, not only for my bureau, for my office, for myself, but the New York State police, months of investigation, cell phones, going to Queens to interview hundreds of people, because again, it was a party that was let out, so there was a ton of people on the roads. Everybody was stopping, taking videos, actually through those random cell phone videos, while the person taking the video is focused on the fire. They don’t realize that they’ve captured unbelievable evidence of the defendant cleaning out the car, including taking a Patron bottle and throwing it in the woods right there and hopping into the other defendant’s vehicle and driving away. So once we were able to get that video in our hands, the Department of Transportation went with the New York State Police and headed right over that location. And sure enough, what did we find? A bottle of Patron. So that went right to the lab for fingerprint testing, DNA analysis. Having that captured on video was so impactful because you have this burning car behind you. You could hear the mom screaming and this is what he’s doing. He’s concerned about himself. His choices, his decisions that led to these consequences, but he’s still thinking, how can I get out of this? So there was really no remorse for him when prosecuting this case. You were You were there. You were one of the first ones there. You know what happened? You could have helped. Maybe nothing could have been done, but you didn’t even try.

      Chad Sands: They were standing there thinking about their next move and what they were going to do to get out of it.

      Maggie Bopp: Exactly, exactly. So, you know, there was a lot that was done. It went to trial. I actually got married during the trial. It was during the prep. I got married on a Saturday. I was back to work on a Monday. I postponed my honeymoon until the trial was over. It was a six week trial, probably about six months of prep because we had over 100 witnesses on our proposed witness list. But yeah, six weeks in front of Judge Camacho. He was fantastic. And he was convicted of all charges. And his co-defendant eventually took a plea to the charge and he was also sentenced.

      Chad Sands: The mom ever able to move forward with the civil case?

      Maggie Bopp: You know, I don’t know if she was able to move forward with the civil case. She testified in the grand jury, which was horrific to the point that we made a very tough decision that she couldn’t testify at trial. She wouldn’t get through it. So the colleague who’s now with us, he read her grand jury testimony into the record. And I don’t know how he got through it because there was not a dry eye in that courtroom. Everyone just felt through the words. Her pain, her anguish, her trauma, the horror. So I don’t know what happened with her civil case, but she’ll never be made whole. She’ll never be the same. How could you?

      Narrator: At CloudLex, we understand the unique demands and opportunities that personal injury law firms face every day. That’s why we’ve built a comprehensive platform designed exclusively for personal injury law. Our seamless case management, AI engine, litigation support, and record retrieval solutions empower you at every stage, from intake through settlement and beyond, helping you stay productive, organized, and focused on achieving successful outcomes for your clients. Explore what’s possible at https://www.cloudlex.com. Now here is this episode’s “Closing Argument.”

      Maggie Bopp: When I was in the district attorney’s office in the vehicular crime bureau, I got called out to a scene where a Subaru was going well over 100 miles an hour on the Long Island Expressway service road. And he just blew a red light that was captured on a red light camera, striking a Ford pickup that had two gentlemen in it. It was approximately four in the morning. They were on their way home from work and were actually making a pit stop to pick up milk because the passenger had four children and his wife had texted him earlier to please pick up milk on his way home. He was killed instantly and the driver of that vehicle was ejected. The defendant was wedged in the vehicle under the steering wheel with fractures to both of his legs. He was taken to the emergency room. We were able to get a blood sample. He was intoxicated. That started a very interesting portion of the case because the defendant, while he did hit his head and he had some head trauma, when he was released from the hospital and reigned on the charges, he appeared in a wheelchair, nonverbal, kind of drooling. And I had an inkling that something was off. So besides the fact that I had a victim who was in the hospital with his entire left side fractured from, you know, shoulder down to his feet, I had a father of four who was dead. I had his widow who was just absolutely beside herself because they were a young couple. They were in their 20s. I had to deal with this defendant and the fact that I just knew something was off. So I spoke to some of the detectives and we made a decision to put a pole camera up on the Lipa pole in front of his house. Sure enough, within seconds of this camera going live, the defendant is walking around his yard. He’s helping set up a yard sale. He’s carrying bins for the yard sale. One of the dates of his court appearance, I happened to be watching that morning, seeing him putting his wheelchair into the back of the car and getting into the car and his wife driving him over to the courthouse. He appeared into the courthouse in his wheelchair, again, nonverbal, drooling on himself. And I showed the video to the defense attorney. I showed the video to the judge, who then reprimanded this individual, showing him the video. He never broke character. He even, during one of his examinations with a doctor to see if he was fit to proceed to trial, urinated himself. He took a full commitment to this invalid status. This was during COVID when the case made its way to trial. He was put in jail on the date that I presented the video to the judge. Miraculously, he came out of his invalid state and was able to speak and make phone calls. We get to trial and the defendant doesn’t show up the first day. We had to pick a jury with masks on. They had shields. And having our victim’s widow in the courtroom, and hearing her wails from the back of the courtroom was just heart-wrenching with those four little babies. And this guy who prolonged the case for almost two years, trying to fake being an invalid. But we got through it. He was convicted. It was brought up on appeal recently because of the masks and it was upheld. But that’s one of those things where as trial attorneys, you have to trust your instincts. You have to trust your gut because in this instance, I just knew something wasn’t right and I needed to get to the bottom of it. And I’m glad that I did because I don’t know where that case would be right now. I don’t know what answers or closure the family of our victims would have. And I don’t know if he would be in upstate prison right now. That’s an extremely important characteristic to have. You gotta trust yourself so that you trust your case.

      Chad Sands: You — That was trial lawyer Maggie Bopp. Thanks for sharing your stories. To learn more about Maggie, visit her firm’s website, RGLZlaw.com. Alright, I’m Chad Sands. Thanks for listening. See you next time.

      Narrator: You’ve been listening to “Celebrating Justice” presented by CloudLex and the Trial Lawyers Journal. Remember, the stories don’t end here. Visit https://www.triallawyersjournal.com to become part of our community and keep the conversation going. And for a deeper dive into the tools that empower personal injury law firms, visit https://www.cloudlex.com/tlj to learn more.