Solomon "Sol" Bregman is a real estate tycoon and a friend of D.A. Adam Schiff, whose son Jason staged his own kidnapping to extort Sol.
History[]
Sol didn’t intervene in Jason’s playboy lifestyle, but although he wasn’t more persistent about it, he was hopeful Jason could one day live on his own. Sol, nevertheless, covered for Jason when pulling schemes for easy money when refused to grow up. When Sol found out Jason bought a painting from petty criminal Shep Watson, only to use it for insurance fraud, Sol wrote a letter to the insurance company to stop the investigation in the hopes of sparing Jason a criminal record. Jason was frustrated Sol got in the way and decided to up the stakes, soliciting Watson and his girlfriend, Helena Navarro, to stage his ransom kidnapping.
Jason played tape recordings of fake ransom demands to extort $5 million from Sol. Even after Sol secured the remaining funds from loan shark James Ameche, the plan was messed up when police pulled Sol over on grounds of suspicious activity and took him in with the money, which Jason interpreted as him calling the cops instead of being caught by them. The police made Sol go along with them, but when Jason called Sol’s lawyer, Sol switched cars and left the money at the drop point, slipping past the police presence. He didn’t see the accomplices, who took the money.
After Jason was rescued when Watson shot him over some argument over dividing the cuts, Sol and Schiff pushed for strong prosecutions. The case was shaky when Jason refused to identify Watson and Navarro, but their uses of aliases made the case. It was then when the couple’s attorney gave the prosecution Jason’s draft tapes. Sol pretended to not believe it, but he recognized Watson from the insurance scam. When the prosecution discovered that, Schiff personally confronted Sol and told him to convince Jason to take a plea. Jason refused, but his lawyer agreed to a second-degree grant larceny plea for him. Sol couldn’t reason with Jason, as Jason put the blame on Sol, assuming Sol didn’t think more of him, driving Sol to leave the negotiations.
After Jason’s testimony secured guilty verdicts for Watson and Navarro, he jumped bail, resulting in a bench warrant for his arrest. When Sol was revealed to have assisted his escape, as huff ordered his arrest for hindering prosecution. Sol’s legal fate is left unknown. (L&O: "Snathced")