Aba Journal: Modern Law Library

When Michael Segal first approached longtime Chicago journalist Maurice Possley about writing about his case, Possley was not interested. Segal's 2002 arrest and subsequent federal trial had been big news in the city, and Segal had been accused of the looting about $30 million from his Chicago company, Near North Insurance Brokerage. Possley had won the Pulitzer Prize for previous stories about wrongful convictions, but never about someone of Segal's profile: a wealthy, powerful and educated owner of the fifth largest insurance brokerage in the country. But the more Possley looked into the case, the more convinced he became that prosecutorial misconduct and vengeful former employees had unjustly cost the Segal family their company, some 1,000 employees their jobs, and Segal himself eight years in prison–for a crime that Possley doesn't believe was ever a crime in the first place. In Conviction at Any Cost: Prosecutorial Misconduct and the Pursuit of Michael Segal, Possely delves into the motives of the vario