How much cash can you stuff in a 10” X 13” manila envelope? Jurors got a graphic display today, when defense lawyer Michael Kim stacked bricks of banknotes on the edge of the witness stand, handed cooperating government witness Samir Vincent an envelope, and invited him to start stuffing.

Kim has begun his cross-examination of self-confessed former Iraqi agent Vincent, alleging that Vincent has been telling “half-truths” and fabricating stories of passing cash to Tongsun Park during 1996, a crucial year in which the U.N. and Iraq dickered their way toward getting Oil-for-Food up and running. Today, Kim homed in on two episodes described by Vincent under direct questioning: one occasion on which, Vincent testified, he picked up from Iraq’s U.N. ambassador in N.Y. an envelope filled with $500,000 in cash, which he said he then repacked and gave to Park in a grocery bag; and another occasion on which, Vincent testified, he met Park in a Manhattan coffee shop and gave him $100,000, plus an Iraqi contract for millions more to come once Oil-for-Food began, all in a large white envelope. Asked by Kim about the size of the envelope, Vincent gestured to show dimensions of very roughly 10” X 14”.

Suggesting Vincent’s version never could have happened that way because the cash simply wouldn’t fit, Kim brought a big cardboard file box over to the witness stand, opened it and handed Vincent a 10” X 13” manila envelope, to approximate the dimensions Vincent had described. Then, using $1 bills in place of the $100s that were apparently standard in Iraqi backdoor deals, Kim began unpacking from the box, one after another, neatly wrapped bundles of 100 banknotes apiece, 50 cash bricks in all, the same approximate volume as half a million bucks in $100 bills — stacking them in a small wall in front of Vincent on the edge of the witness stand.

“It was a much bigger envelope than this,” said Vincent, apparently alluding to the $500,000, and surveying the envelope and the stacks of money next to him. “It was $100,000” — the lesser sum — “enclosed in a envelope like this,” — holding up the one Kim had given him.

“Please put the money in the envelope and close it,” Kim told Vincent.

There followed a moment with eerie echoes of the O. J. glove scene, in which Vincent struggled to pack into the envelope the volume-equivalent of $100,000, finally saying, “I can’t close it.”

 

In the interest of fairness, Kim then offered a slightly larger envelope, 10” X 15”, with the same challenge. That turned out to be big enough. Vincent neatly packed it with the volume equivalent of $100,000 in banknotes, and closed it.

Undaunted, Kim turned to the pile of cash still stacked on the witness stand, and challenged Vincent: “Sir, isn’t it true that you’ve never even seen $4-or-$500,000 in cash before?”

Vincent protested that indeed he had, citing $450,000 he said he had received on one occasion in Baghdad.

In that surreal vein, with Vincent sitting next to piles of banknotes and protesting he was indeed acquainted with large stacks of cash, Kim continued his questioning. Finally Judge Chin finally jumped in, asking the defense, ”Are you done with the cash?... Why don’t you have one of your colleagues box it up.”

So, we now know that you can cram $100,000 into a 10”X15” envelope, but if it’s $500,000 we’re talking about, you need either a much, much bigger envelope or a grocery bag. And we are hearing all this thanks to what was supposed to be a United Nations relief program to bring food and medicine to the people of U.N.-sanctioned Iraq.