By Dan Herbeck, The Buffalo News, N.Y.
Oct. 22–The racketeering case against David Cain Jr. is not the kind of trial that Americans have gotten used to watching on TV. The players bear little resemblance to the characters in the Tony Soprano gang. They aren’t from New York City or New Jersey. They haven’t bumped off their rivals over bookmaking or trash-hauling profits.
But, according to police, Cain and his associates were a backwoods version of “The Sopranos.” Extortion, arson and other crimes are alleged in court papers.
Their goal: intimidate rivals in the tree-trimming and logging businesses of Orleans and Niagara counties.
Federal agents allege that the Cains spent at least 11 years terrorizing rival business owners and “anyone else who got in their way” under the blue skies of farming communities such as Newfane, Yates, Medina, Barker and Hartland.
“David Cain Jr., Chris Cain and Jamie Soha were all members of a criminal association,” Assistant U.S. Attorney Anthony M. Bruce told jurors in his opening statement last week. “The theme was, ‘Make money, and see to it we don’t get caught.’ “
David Cain, 37, and his brother, Christopher Cain, 34, both of Somerset, face felony racketeering charges with their cousin, James Soha, 31, of Lockport.
Their trial began last week, and all three defendants deny the charges. Among the allegations:
–Gang members torched the private car of a Niagara County sheriff’s deputy who had filed traffic charges against David Cain. The car was set on fire while parked in the driveway of the deputy’s Newfane home.
–They tried to run a bulldozer into the Orleans County home of a man who owned a competing logging business. The bulldozer ran out of gas before it struck the home. They later caused more than $30,000 damage to the man’s equipment and his business property.
–Gang members started a fire that destroyed a 1949 vintage airplane, valued at $75,000. Federal agents say the plane was owned by a Lockport tree-trimmer who had several disagreements with David Cain.
–Christopher Cain arranged an arson fire at a woman’s River Road home in Wheatfield. Police say that it was a bizarre plot to make the woman homeless, forcing her to move in with an associate of Cain who was in love with her.
Twenty-one incidents of extortion, arson and other crimes are alleged in court papers.
Huge arson fire in ’02
David Cain, the group’s alleged leader, operated a tree-trimming business in Gasport and a junkyard in Middleport before he was jailed after his grand jury indictment in May 2006.
The government contends that his henchmen — including several men who worked for him trimming trees — tried to put rivals out of business by burning their buildings and stealing or destroying their equipment.
In one of the arson fires, at a tree-trimming business in Newfane, prosecutors contend that David Cain, Soha and others ignited 100 cords of firewood and 30 tons of wood pellets. The February 2002 fire destroyed two dump trucks and caused flames that soared so high into the night that they could be seen in Buffalo, 40 miles away.
The government alleges that David Cain later told an associate that he destroyed the Newfane business because its owner was “so competitive.”
The trial before U.S. District Judge Richard J. Arcara is expected to last at least two months.
Despite its rural setting, the case has many of the elements of a television mobster drama — including strained family relationships, a touch of romance and rough, earthy characters with explosive tempers.
His court-appointed lawyers, Joel L. Daniels and Daniel J. Henry Jr., call David Cain a hardworking businessman who is the victim of lying witnesses. They predicted that much of the trial evidence will come from criminals who made advantageous plea deals with the government.
Daniels said the real criminals in the case are those witnesses, whom he described as “liars,””dopers” and “bums.” He said one of the witnesses is a child rapist.
“[David Cain] never told anybody to smash up anything,” Daniels told the jury. “Believe me, these career criminals, they didn’t need any encouragement.”
Daniels’ statements got under the skin of the prosecutor, Bruce, who repeatedly rose to his feet to object.
More criticism of the witnesses came from Leigh E. Anderson, who represents Christopher Cain with co-counsel David J. Seeger, and James P. Harrington, attorney for Soha.
Prosecutors Bruce and Charles B. Wydysh allege that the Cain brothers had no reluctance to recruit such criminals as their henchmen.
A government list of 75 potential witnesses includes at least 10 criminals who made plea deals. It also includes police officers and businesspeople who were alleged victims of the Cains. Members of the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms & Explosives, the Niagara County Sheriff’s Office and the Niagara County district attorney’s office worked on the case.
The first full day of witness testimony was Friday, and jurors heard several hours of testimony from Paul Rutherford Jr., 34, an Orleans County hoodlum who is a cousin of the Cain brothers.
Rutherford, who used to cut trees for David Cain, is serving a 12-year federal prison term for an October 2003 home-invasion robbery in the Town of Yates. A 70-year-old woman was tied up with electrical cord and threatened at gunpoint.
Credibility attacked
Christopher Cain told him to rob the house after learning that the woman’s husband had won tens of thousands of dollars at a casino in Ontario, Rutherford said.
He and a partner, Nathan Stanley, stole more than $30,000 cash from the home and gave Christopher Cain $5,000, Rutherford said. He also testified that he sold marijuana with Christopher Cain and pulled off other crimes — including thefts and arson fires — at the Cains’ direction.
At one time, Rutherford said, he was grossing up to $500 a day selling marijuana. Bruce asked him what he did with the money.
“I gave it to Chris,” Rutherford testified.
But defense attorneys contend that Rutherford is a liar who did not need anyone to tell him when or where to commit crimes. Daniels called him “a degenerate who never made an honest dollar in his life.”
Repeatedly attacking Rutherford’s credibility, Daniels got Rutherford to acknowledge that he got “an adrenaline rush” from pointing guns at people, that he once had a $500-a-day cocaine habit and that he committed at least 190 burglaries that police never linked to him.
“You’ve been a thief your whole adult life?” Daniels asked the witness. “Yep,” Rutherford responded.
The defense was to continue its questioning of Rutherford today.
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