"It's going down," Andrew Glick says in one recorded conversation with Ferdinand Augello.
He is talking, according to his testimony, about the killing of Dr. James Kauffman inside the Atlantic County Justice Facility.
The two were worried that the doctor would "flip" on them since his June 13, 2016, arrest after he brandished a gun when investigators came to his Egg Harbor Township practice with a warrant for patient files.
"I appreciate you doing this," Augello is heard saying in the recording, made Jan. 6, at Augello's home.
Three days later, Augello and the doctor would be charged with murder, in the killing of Kauffman's wife. They and six others would also be charged with racketeering in the alleged drug ring that the prosecution says sparked the hit on April Kauffman.
“I just think this guy could put me away for 20 years,” Glick tells Augello of the doctor. “He’s the only guy who can.”
But Glick wouldn't face charges in the case, even though he's admitted to being part of both the drug enterprise and knowing about a plan to kill the local veterans advocate.
Instead, he wore a wire and recorded his friend and former brother in the Pagans Motorcycle Club in an effort to get enough evidence to charge him in the killing.
"I’ve lost every friend I ever had,” Glick told Chief Assistant Prosecutor Seth Levy as he wrapped up nearly three full days of direct testimony that included hours of taped conversations.
In many of the talks, Augello denied knowledge of the killing or anything related to the Kauffmans. In one recording played Wednesday, Augello had the radio in the truck where the two were speaking up so loud that little could be heard outside of radio host Rush Limbaugh.
Glick lost his job and now worries for his safety, he told Levy.
He's seen what happens when you go against people in his world. And what he's done is a sin beyond those he's seen before.
“I times what I’ve seen by about two or three," he said of what he could face. "And that’s not good.”
Augello attorney Mary Linehan got a few minutes of cross-examination in Wednesday afternoon, asking about a jacket Glick wore to one of the meetings. It was an Eagles jacket given to him by Augello. It had belonged to Augello's late father.
"Is that what you used to cover up the wire?" she asked Glick.
Linehan also asked how the recordings were done, and how a conversation with Joseph Drinhouser was recorded.
Drinhouser just happened to show up at Glick's Egg Harbor Township home the day Atlantic County Prosecutor's Office Sgt. James Scoppa and FBI Special Agent Dan Garrabrant were there setting things up. They asked if he might know anything, Glick said.
When he said he could, they had him get Drinhouser to return later in the day. Before he came back, the investigators gave Glick a recording device.
Drinhouser told Glick about Augello telling him that a local doctor wanted his wife killed. Glick said he and Drinhouser had never spoken about it before.
Cross-examination will continue Thursday, although that could be interrupted by a state witness.
Dr. Kauffman's former attorney, Ed Jacobs, is expected to testify about a letter he wrote to the Atlantic County Prosecutor's Office indicating they should check out Augello and Francis Mulholland, the alleged shooter who died of a drug overdose 18 months after April Kauffman's killing.
Linehan has argued that the full letter should be put into evidence, since she said Glick misrepresented it in the recordings.
So far, Judge Bernard DeLury is allowing a redacted copy to be given to the jurors, but Linehan said they need to see the whole thing.
Levy said Glick admits in the recordings that he has not seen the letter and that anything he says about it is obviously conjecture.
Linehan disagreed.
DeLury said he will allow more argument and that he will look at the full letter to see if he changes his mind.
The aim to link him to the murder of a doctor's wife is "bizarre," Ferdinand Augello says in a recorded conversation played at the second day of his murder trial.
Augello is accused of running a prescription drug ring with Dr. James Kauffman, and then helping hire someone to kill Kauffman's wife to keep her quiet about their illegal enterprise.
"I don't see how this connects to a murder," Augello tells Andrew Glick in a Nov. 11, 2017 conversation.
But Glick indicates the money from the alleged drug ring would be a motive. At one point doing math that leads to a $1.5 million endeavor.
It was the third recording jurors heard as Glick spent what is expected to be a full second day on the stand. Hours of recordings could mean the defense won't get to cross-examine the state's star witness until Wednesday.
"They could possibly get an indictment for a drug conspiracy," Augello allows in the conversation.
But Glick said his attorney told him there was enoug to indict on the murder-for-hire and that that would keep anyone charged in jail without bail "until you're found innocent."
The discussions are sparked by the so-called "Jacob's letter."
The letter updates an earlier message sent by Dr. Kauffman's attorney, Ed Jacobs.
In it, he names Augello and now-dead shooter, Francis Mulholland, as people to look at in April Kauffman's killing.
"I didn't murder this woman and I don't even know why my name's on this f***ing thing," Augello says in the recording. "And you're telling me you didn't kill her."
Before a second recording is being played, Judge Bernard DeLury gave instruction to jurors about the Jacob's letter, which hasn't officially been put into evidence.
He explained to them that it answered an earlier inquiry by the Atlantic County Prosecutor's Office if they knew of anyone who might want to hurt April Kauffman.
The state has pushed for a redacted version of the letter. The defense wants both letters, in full, to be given to the jury.
Ferdinand Augello seemed shocked to hear his name brought up in the investigation into April Kauffman’s killing.
“Where did they get my name?” he asks Andrew Glick in a recording played at his murder trial Monday. “Do you think this is a legitimate letter?”
Glick knows it is. It was given to him, unbeknownst to Augello, by the lead investigator in the case.
The letter was written by the attorney for Kauffman’s husband, Dr. James Kauffman, who allegedly planned the killing to protect his $5 million worth from being halved by divorce and to keep him out of jail after his wife threatened to out his illegal Oxycontin enterprise if he didn’t set her free from their marriage.
Attorney Ed Jacobs told investigators they should look at Francis Mulholland and Ferdinand Augello in the case.
Mulholland was allegedly the man who shot April Kauffman inside the bedroom of her Linwood home. He died of an apparent overdose 18 months later.
Augello is now the sole person still alive charged in her May 10, 2012 killing, after Dr. Kauffman committed suicide in his Hudson County Jail cell.
Glick was state’s first witness in the case against Augello. Two recorded conversations he had, including one with Augello, were played in court Monday.
Augello told those involved in the case that without DNA, a shooter or a murder weapon, the state would have no case, Glick testified before the tapes were played.
But that wouldn’t keep a grand jury from indicting them, Joseph Drinhouser tells Glick in another recording.
Drinhouser said Augello first asked him to kill the doctor’s wife, but he turned him down.
He said with $100,000 for his defense, he could likely beat the case, but would need others to point to. He was not charged in the case, and is expected to testify for the state as well.
But in the recording with Augello, Glick uses the letter Sgt. James Scoppa gave him to try to get Augello to talk of the killing and his part in it.
Glick originally was not going to help the state. Then last November, Glick was arrested with guns and drugs.
A few days later, he wore a wire and met with Augello, who asked him about the arrest. Augello said he didn’t want to talk about anything that had happened before, and to act like they just met.
They were saying Augello wanted April Kauffman dead because he had made her signs for her restaurant and she didn’t pay. Augello laughed that off, saying he never made signs for her and that the two had just talked about it but she didn’t want to spend the money.
He also said he never went to Dr. Kauffman and had no connection to him.
“That’s some bizarro, scapegoat fantasy,” Augello tells Glick.
Glick had not completed his testimony for the state by the end of the trial’s first day. His testimony will continue Tuesday, with cross-examination expected to come either in the afternoon or perhaps not until Wednesday.
