Danton's warning came as he allegedly helped Soslow and another secretary sift through medical records and remove incriminating documents at his Northeast Philadelphia office in anticipation of the grand jury probe.
Yesterday, in U.S. District Court in Philadelphia, Soslow took the witness stand for the second day in Danton's federal criminal trial and testified against her former boss. The taped conversation was played for jurors to hear.
Danton, 50, is charged with racketeering, fraud and obstruction of justice. He was indicted in 1995, along with Soslow, two other secretaries, his physical therapist, and a patient. Four of the five, including Soslow, have pleaded guilty. Another secretary, Judi Blank, is on trial along with Danton on a charge of obstructing justice.
Danton, of Huntingdon Valley, is accused of being a key participant in an 11-year scheme to defraud several insurance companies of about $4 million by inflating claims for people injured in accidents.
Authorities allege that he accepted hundreds of referrals from J. Robert Wall, a personal-injury lawyer who masterminded the scheme, then killed himself in November 1991, six days after FBI agents confronted him about accident-insurance claims.
According to FBI Agent Tom Aloan, the chief investigator, Danton and Mark Freeman, 36, a physical therapist, treated the patients and sent the bills to Wall, also of Huntingdon Valley, who used them in negotiating settlements. Between 1980 and 1991, Wall and Danton together defrauded insurance companies of between $10,000 and $25,000 per claim, Aloan said.
During the 1992 taped conversation, Danton warned his secretaries of the hazards of answering investigators' questions, citing the case of convicted Navy spy Jonathan Pollard.
``If he had given them no answers, they would not have had a case,'' he said. Pollard's guilty plea ``taught everybody a lesson,'' Danton said, then issued the warning not to admit to anything.
