RETRIAL OF JUDGE ROBERT AGUILAR BY PUBLIC INTEGRITY SECTION GETS NEW TRIAL GRAPHICS.

TUESDAY, AUGUST 21, 1990

Aguilar Retrial Gets High-Gloss Graphics

What did the retrial of U.S. District Judge Robert Aguilar, the Iran-Contra Senate hearings, the Oliver North trial and the prosecution of Mafia boss John Gotti all have in common?

The graphic designs of Lanny Aronoff, now President of Legal Ease Litigation Exhibits, Inc., located in Montclair, New Jersey.

In retrying Aguilar on obstruction of justice charges, the Justice Department retained Lanny Aronoff to prepare nine high-definition, multi-color, magnetic-strip charts depicting the bulk of the evidence in the case — telephone toll records, a chronology of events and enlargements of transcribed, tape-recorded conversations.

In the first Aguilar trial, the government used charts not designed by Aronoff that were barely readable to the jurors, poorly designed and done in black and white. They lacked impact and communication value.

The Justice Department also has used Lanny Aronoff and his company for the trials of Admiral John Poindexter, Congressman Mario Biaggi, auto magnate John DeLorean and the prosecution of the heads of the five Mafia families in New York.

Lanny Aronoff said the company specializes solely in the preparation of demonstrative exhibits for trials. He has prepared between 35,000 und 40,000 graphic exhibits (or nearly 1,400 trials since the company was formed in 1978).

Aronoff declined to say what the Justice Department paid for the exhibits in the Aguilar retrial, but said they charge the government less than the private sector.

Defense attorneys sneer at the expense and complain routinely that the government is trying to overwhelm their clients with such charts, but jurors don't buy it, Aronoff said, and many of them become our clients.

"Jurors don't see graphic presentations as being slick," he said. "They care that the information is displayed in an informative and interesting way. They see it as part of what they see every day in print and the media — good, clear, sophisticated graphics being used to educate."