1138 DCHAKUR1ps 1 UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT 1 SOUTHERN DISTRICT OF NEW YORK 2 ------------------------------x 2 3 UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, 3 4 v. S1 12 Cr. 376 (RMB) 4 5 RUDY KURNIAWAN, a/k/a "Dr. Conti," 5 a/k/a "Mr. 47," 6 6 Defendant. 7 7 ------------------------------x 8 December 17, 2013 8 9:15 a.m. 9 9 Before: 10 10 HON. RICHARD M. BERMAN, 11 11 District Judge 12 13 APPEARANCES 13 14 PREET BHARARA, 14 United States Attorney for the 15 Southern District of New York 15 JASON HERNANDEZ, 16 JOSEPH FACCIPONTI, 16 Assistant United States Attorneys 17 17 WESTON, GARROU & MOONEY 18 Attorneys for defendant 18 BY: JEROME MOONEY 19 19 VERDIRAMO & VERDIRAMO, P.A. 20 Attorneys for defendant 20 BY: VINCENT S. VERDIRAMO 21 21 - also present - 22 22 Ariel Platt, Government paralegal 23 Bibi Hayakawa, Government paralegal 23 24 SA James Wynne, FBI 24 SA Adam Roeser, FBI 25 SOUTHERN DISTRICT REPORTERS, P.C. (212) 805-0300 1139 DCHAKUR1ps 1 (Trial resumed; jury present) 2 THE COURT: Good morning, everyone. I believe, and 3 I'll hear from the lawyers in a minute, that the government has 4 no further testimony at this time. Is that correct, 5 Mr. Hernandez? 6 MR. HERNANDEZ: That's correct, your Honor. The 7 government rests. 8 THE COURT: The government rests. OK. And so we'll 9 turn to the defense and ask if the defense has witnesses to 10 call. 11 MR. MOONEY: Yes, your Honor. The defense calls C. 12 Robert Collins. 13 CORNELIUS ROBERT COLLINS, 14 called as a witness by the defendant, 15 having been duly sworn, testified as follows: 16 DIRECT EXAMINATION 17 BY MR. MOONEY: 18 Q. Mr. Collins, how are you employed? 19 A. I am involved in the wine business. I have an importing 20 company. And I have private clients worldwide that I obtain 21 wine for. 22 THE COURT: That what? I didn't hear the last part. 23 THE WITNESS: Oh, that I obtain wine for. 24 THE COURT: That you obtain wine for. OK. 25 Q. Let's pull up to the mike. The acoustics are not as good SOUTHERN DISTRICT REPORTERS, P.C. (212) 805-0300 1140 DCHAKUR1ps Collins - direct 1 as we would otherwise like here. 2 How long have you been involved in the wine business? 3 A. Since 1976, 35 years. 4 Q. How did you first get involved in the wine business? 5 A. I went to work for a large retail company in San Francisco. 6 Q. What company was that? 7 A. The Ernie's Wine Warehouse. 8 Q. And then what did you -- 9 THE COURT: That was -- could you spell that for the 10 court reporter. 11 THE WITNESS: Oh, sure. E-r-n-i-e-s Wine Warehouse. 12 Q. What did you do for Ernie's Wine Warehouse? 13 A. I became their imported and domestic wine buyer for a chain 14 of 78 liquor stores. 15 Q. And did that involve buying imported wines? 16 A. Yes. 17 Q. Did it involve buying wines from Europe? 18 A. Yes. 19 Q. Did it involve buying Bordeaux and Burgundies? 20 A. Yes. 21 Q. And this was back in the '70s? 22 A. Yes. 23 Q. How long did you work for Ernie's in that capacity? 24 A. I worked there for a little over a year. 25 Q. And then where did you go from there? SOUTHERN DISTRICT REPORTERS, P.C. (212) 805-0300 1141 DCHAKUR1ps Collins - direct 1 A. I went to work for a company called Draper & Esquin. 2 THE COURT: If you could spell that for -- 3 THE WITNESS: Yeah. D-r-a-p-e-r & E-s-q-u-i-n. 4 Q. What is Draper & Esquin? 5 A. Draper & Esquin was a large retail store in San Francisco 6 that also had an importing and wholesale license. 7 Q. Did it have an import relationship with any Burgundy or 8 Bordeaux vineyards? 9 A. Yes. 10 Q. And what are some of the vineyards that it had import 11 relationships with? 12 A. It had import relationships with Comte De Vogue in Musigny, 13 Domaine Roumier. It had a relationship with Louis Latour in 14 Beaune. 15 Q. So you were buying wines directly from those vineyards. 16 A. Yes. 17 Q. And selling those in the United States? 18 A. Yes. 19 Q. And how long did you stay as an employee of Draper & 20 Esquin? 21 A. I was there for a little over two years. Then I set up a 22 wine consultation business in downtown San Francisco, where I 23 worked a broader clientele than just Draper & Esquin. 24 Q. Did you continue to do work with Draper & Esquin? 25 A. Yes. SOUTHERN DISTRICT REPORTERS, P.C. (212) 805-0300 1142 DCHAKUR1ps Collins - direct 1 Q. Did you then start working with other clients? 2 A. Yes. 3 Q. What services did you start providing at that point? 4 A. Wine procurement for clients such as Tiffany's in San 5 Francisco, and we did -- continued investigating and supplying 6 imported wine from, from Burgundy for them. 7 Q. Did you become involved in wine auctions at that point? 8 A. Yes. 9 Q. And about when are we talking? What time frame now are we? 10 A. Extensively from 1976 on. 11 Q. And you've continued to be in this trade from 1976 to the 12 present? 13 A. Yes. Extensively until 2009. I'm -- and now I do a 14 minimal amount of auction work. 15 Q. What sort of things, what sort of activities were you 16 performing on behalf of the clients during this period of time? 17 A. Well, for example, with Draper & Esquin in the '70s, they 18 would -- they would pay me to go and attend auctions in London, 19 which is where most of the fine and rare wine auctions were. 20 They also paid me to go to the Heublin Auctions in the United 21 States. My capacity there was to select the wines that they 22 would purchase. 23 Q. And was authenticating the wines a part of the duty you 24 that performed? 25 A. That's correct. SOUTHERN DISTRICT REPORTERS, P.C. (212) 805-0300 1143 DCHAKUR1ps Collins - direct 1 Q. Why was authenticating the wines important? 2 A. Well, we -- a good example is, a typical London auction, 3 there might be lots, there might be many lots of Bordeaux wines 4 and Burgundy wines that there was incomplete information 5 supplied by the auction house, and we were -- we were looking 6 both for provenance and we were looking for wines that would, 7 would resell very well in California. 8 Q. So we've heard a little bit about provenance. So why was 9 provenance important to you? 10 A. Well, it's the end link in buying and selling these wines, 11 because where it's been stored for most of its life is 12 tantamount to how good the wine will be. 13 Q. Does provenance play any role in determination of 14 authenticity? 15 A. Yes. 16 Q. And what role does it play in the determination of 17 authenticity? 18 A. Well, if you don't -- if you have, if you have what I call 19 a clean slate where you can identify where the wine has been 20 all its life, it considerably increases the value of it. 21 Q. And if provenance is missing, what do you do then? 22 A. Then you have to do a much more extensive investigation of 23 the individual bottles of the wine. 24 Q. And if there is not -- if there is no available provenance 25 on a wine, does that rule the wine out as being merchantable? SOUTHERN DISTRICT REPORTERS, P.C. (212) 805-0300 1144 DCHAKUR1ps Collins - direct 1 A. No, it doesn't necessarily rule it out. But it does 2 require further investigation. 3 Q. Did you conduct those kinds of investigations? 4 A. Yes. 5 Q. How many years have you been doing that? 6 A. Since 1976. 7 Q. And since 1976, in the course of doing that, did you come 8 across wines that you've rejected? 9 A. Yes. 10 Q. What would cause you to reject a wine? 11 A. Well, a good example, in terms of wines that we're going to 12 speak about today, would be a Montrachet that was available for 13 sale in Beverly Hills in 1976 from Domaine Romanee-Conti, and 14 that wine we inspected and rejected because the label was -- 15 had an improper appellation controlee name on it. It didn't 16 match the wine. So it obviously was not authentic. 17 Q. And that was clear back in 1976? 18 A. That was in 1976. 19 Q. So counterfeit wines have existed to -- have they existed 20 throughout the period of time that you've been involved in this 21 business? 22 A. Yes. 23 Q. And when you authenticate a bottle of wine, could you tell 24 us what you do. 25 A. Well, I have a procedure that I follow. I start out by, SOUTHERN DISTRICT REPORTERS, P.C. (212) 805-0300 1145 DCHAKUR1ps Collins - direct 1 first off, I start out by setting the bottle of wine down and 2 looking at it. What I'm looking for initially is the label and 3 the placement.