SIDEBAR: (Moskovitz) All he had to do was say 'I'm sorry'

William Kunstler had only one thing to say to Alexander Moskovits as he sat down at the defense table -- repent. "Tell him you want to start over," the wild-haired attorney whispered in the ear of the convicted cocaine trafficker. "Just talk about your remorse and how sorry you are . . . it was a sin of the '80s . . . " And as Moskovits rose to plead for leniency from U.S. District Court Judge Louis Pollak, it seemed that he was about to do just that. "I've waited for this moment for almost five years," the former Wharton student began. But as the burly 29-year-old, clad in a prison-issue beige jump suit and horn-rimmed glasses, continued his testimony, he seemed to change his mind. Instead of repentance, he decided to assail the judge and his former lawyers for the handling of the case. Gripping a small wooden cross in his left hand, Moskovits gave his interpretation of the federal legal code and criminal precedents in other districts. He gave his assessment of the Fifth Amendment and how it should be applied to his case. He moved on to cite letters and exhibits already entered into the record. Kunstler was stunned. He tried to rein in his client. "It's already in the record," he pleaded in a barely audible mumble. "It's already in the record." And when Judge Pollak asked Moskovits to wait a minute while he talked to a clerk, Kunstler gave a brief glance over to prosecutor Kristin Hayes and flipped. "Hayes is smiling," he pleaded with his client in a whispered but adamant voice. "She loves for you to do what you're doing." Indeed, Assistant U.S. Attorney Hayes had already asserted that Moskovits -- despite all the "good time" in prison he spent teaching English to Hispanic inmates, despite all the legal advice he had provided fellow convicts, despite all the effort he put into helping prison officials implement a recreation program at the Taladega Federal Corrections Institution -- had never shown that he was sorry for what he did. "In his five years in jail, he still hasn't realized what he's done wrong," Hayes asserted in front of the judge. "This is someone who was a large-scale, long-term, very violent drug dealer. In September 1988 he didn't realize that. In March of 1992 he still can't realize that." But after a short break, Moskovits continued citing more case law. Kunstler started shaking his head. The man who defended Martin Luther King, Jr., Abbie Hoffman, Malcolm X and Lenny Bruce was becoming desperate. In a last ditch effort, he pulled out a yellow legal pad and wrote out the letters R-E-M-O-R-S-E. He put the pad in front of Moskovits and underlined the word three times. Finally Moskovits gave in. "It's very difficult for me to have a heart-to-heart in a public forum," Moskovits said. "I can only say that I'm terribly sorry, not only because Mr. Kunstler says that's what a defendant should say, but because that is what I feel." And he sat down. Kunstler breathed a sigh of relief and gave his client a congratulatory pat on the head. But for the judge, one line at the end of a lengthy discourse did not seem enough. "I have not seen or heard evidence of remorse," Pollak said as he handed down the new 15-year sentence. "Mr. Mosokovits did tell me he was sorry, but I didn't quite find out what he was sorry for." But both Kunstler and Moskovits seemed relatively happy. After all, with the restructuring of the sentence, the man who ran an operation that imported at least 50 kilograms of cocaine into Philadelphia through the University, the man who allegedly threatened to kill anyone who testified against him, would be eligible for parole in three months. And Kunstler seemed relieved to have it all over with. "He's a tough client," Kunstler said running to the elevator. "Alex is just too intellectual for his own good."

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