- Title: PERSONAL: The NYC tuba player who attended Trump trials, with a smile
- Date: 1st February 2024
- Summary: NEW YORK, NEW YORK, UNITED STATES (JANUARY 30, 2024) (REUTERS) (SOUNDBITE) (English) JAZZ MUSICIAN AND BANDLEADER, DAVID OSTWALD, SAYING: “When he was assigned the Trump trial. I asked him like, 'So when the trial happens, I know it's not going to be until October of 2023, but can I can you can you get me in?' He's like, 'Yeah, I have some seats reserved for friends, so we'll let you know when the time comes.' And sure enough, there I was.”
- Embargoed: 15th February 2024 17:29
- Keywords: ARTHUR ENGORON LETITIA JAMES TRUMP CIVIL FRAUD TRIAL
- Location: VARIOUS
- City: VARIOUS
- Country: US
- Topics: Crime/Law/Justice,Judicial Process/Court Cases/Court Decisions,North America
- Reuters ID: LVA00G531725012024RP1
- Aspect Ratio: 16:9
- Story Text: David Ostwald is a lifelong professional jazz musician from New York City’s Upper West Side. But in recent months, when not playing tuba at the Birdland Jazz Club with his group the “David Ostwald’s Louis Armstrong Eternity Band,” he has become a fixture in the pews of former U.S. President Donald Trump’s civil fraud trial.
“Days I wasn't in the front row, I was further in the back, but I made sure that I smiled and got in the picture,” Ostwald told Reuters, referring to the press photos taken before proceedings began.
A retired co-op and condo board attorney, Ostwald, 68, has loved attending trials since he was a kid in Swarthmore, Pennsylvania.
“I like the drama of it," he said. "And with the legal training, sometimes there are interesting legal issues too.”
Ostwald is a long-time acquaintance of Judge Arthur Engoron, who he met over 30 years ago in his local political club. When Ostwald learned he would be presiding over Trump’s civil fraud trial, he asked:
“‘Can you get me in?’ He's like, ‘Yeah, I have some seats reserved for friends, so we'll let you know when the time comes.’ And sure enough, there I was,” Ostwald recounted.
On the first day of the trial in early October 2023, Ostwald found himself seated in the front row, overwhelmed by the theater of it all. Before proceeding began, press photographers came in to snap a few photos and he felt an urge:
“I suddenly had this desire to smile and to make sure I got in the photograph,” he said. “It was almost like an instinct.”
Ostwald attributes some of that instinct to his parents, both Holocaust survivors. His late father, Martin, in particular, was an eternal optimist, who would sing songs Nazi soldiers used to sing.
“It was his way of saying, 'I'm here and you're not. I'm singing your song. You were defeated,'” Ostwald said. "When I was smiling it was like, it's hope, it's hopeful, it's accountability. It's the beginning of accountability."
That smile became a theme throughout the remaining months of the trial, which lasted through mid-January 2024. Ostwald would show up in an array of dapper suits, and during the couple minutes allowed for press photos, he would make his best effort for that smile to be seen and captured.
Friends, family, and even strangers, contacted Ostwald to tell him they had started watching the news, to look for his grin. For Ostwald, being there for these moments felt historic.
"You could see on his (Trump's) face that there seemed to be a feeling that his day of reckoning may be around the corner, no matter what happens."
The verdict for the civil fraud trial is expected any day. New York Attorney General Letitia James is seeking nearly $370 million and a lifetime ban on Trump from the state's real-estate industry.
Just last week, Trump was handed a stinging defeat by a Manhattan jury that ordered him to pay $83.3 million to the writer E. Jean Carroll, who said he destroyed her reputation as a trustworthy journalist by denying he raped her.
The current frontrunner for the Republican nomination for U.S. president, Trump separately has pleaded not guilty in four criminal prosecutions, including two charging him with unlawfully trying to overturn his 2020 election loss to Biden. All could go to trial before the election.
Ostwald thinks this barrage of court proceedings will come down to why he will not win the election this November.
"What I think is that the accountability is going to play into the election. I think he's going to be the nominee. I think he's going to lose. “
(Production: Madeleine Stix, Hussein Al Waaile, Joan Soley) - Copyright Holder: REUTERS
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