High-powered New York City lawyer Christopher Morvillo described the “electric” moment jurors handed down a rare not-guilty verdict in the federal trial of British tech tycoon Mike Lynch on a legal podcast last week — just days before both men went missing after a luxury yacht capsized off the coast of Italy.
Lynch’s wife Angela Baraces, 57, who escaped before the boat sank, let out a scream and ran over from the courtroom benches to hug her husband after learning that he had been cleared, Morvillo told fellow defense lawyer David Oscar Markus on the “For the Defense” podcast.
The whole defense side of the courtroom “erupted” when the jury foreman read out the “not guilty” verdict on conspiracy and wire fraud charges in San Francisco federal court on June 6, bringing a 12-year-long legal saga to a close.
“It was this electric moment. I’ve never seen anything like it in a courtroom before,” recalled Morvillo, a partner at white-shoe law firm Clifford Chance. “Grown people sobbing, hugging…people clapping, it was remarkable.”
Lynch’s win is extremely unusual in federal criminal cases. Less than 1% of federal criminal cases ended in acquittal in 2022, according to the Pew Research Center.
What to know after a tornado sank the yacht Bayesian off the coast of Sicily, leaving one dead and six missing:
- A superyacht capsized off the coast of Sicily after a tornado hit the area early Monday, killing one passenger and leaving five others missing — including Michael Lynch, a tech tycoon known as “Britain’s Bill Gates,” officials said.
- Lynch had invited guests from the legal firm that represented him, Clifford Chance, and Invoke Capital, his own company, on the voyage, according to the Telegraph.
- Captain James Catfield, who piloted the 184-foot, British-flagged craft, was among the 15 crew members and passengers to survive after the tornado struck Monday before sunrise.
- Security camera footage shot from 650 feet from where the Bayesian sank Monday shows it slowly disappearing.
- Italian authorities have said the chances of the passengers surviving the disaster was very small, but “never say never.”
Morvillo said the day trial ended, they had a big party “that lasted into the small hours of the morning.”
“To have this vindication after all of these years was incredible,” Morvillo said.
Morvillo is also a wine connoisseur who picked out a Pinot Noir from the Santa Barbara vineyard Sea Smoke that Lynch’s superstitious legal team sipped on at dinners at the same San Francisco restaurant every Thursday night during the three-month trial, he said.
(Bottles retail for $100-$125 — or more, depending on vintage.)
“It was a wine that I had discovered just before trial, and I was thrilled to see it on the menu here,” Morvillo said on the podcast.
“In fact, chaos arose one Thursday night when we went and they didn’t have any,” he joked. “‘Oh my goodness, what do we do, next week’s going to be terrible!’”
“The restaurant got to the point where they actually stocked it for us,” he added.
The celebrations continued with Lynch’s Italy trip aboard the 160-foot luxury sailboat — which was carrying 10 crew members and 12 passengers when it sank off the coast of Porticello, Italy, when it was hit by a storm at sunrise Monday.
