Not surprisingly, Robert Johnston, the Guilford County district attorney, was unimpressed with this line of argument. Kripplebauer, he claimed, was a wily scam artist as well as a burglar. And Mickie “wasn’t a woman blindly following her husband. She was an integral part of the robbery team and didn’t deserve any leniency.”
The DA’s aggressiveness toward Mickie really burned Kripplebauer. “On more than one occasion,” recalls Junior, “I wanted to throw that little weasel right out the courthouse window.”
Junior’s strategy sessions with Frankie Brewer were slightly different. Brewer, a no-nonsense Philly boy who decked more than one overbearing redneck while celled in North Carolina, wanted to fight it out and make the state prove everything in court if they wanted to get him. Junior considered such a conventional game plan the legal equivalent of suicide. He knew that the prosecution had them over a barrel, and North Carolina’s draconian criminal sanctions would bury them under 50-year sentences.
“I told Frank he was fuckin’ nuts,” he recalls. “I told him you got Teddy [Wigerman] and Tommy [Seher] testifying against you. You got no chance playing the game straight up. They’ll give you a life sentence down here.
“I must have argued with him a couple days. We chased guys out of the dayroom on a number of occasions so we could talk. I said, ‘Frank, this ain’t the time to be a tough guy. They’ll knock you out of the box. Plead guilty and cut the best deal you can.’”
Curiously, however, Junior wasn’t going to follow his own advice. He knew that the cards were stacked in favor of the house, but he was no novice when it came to a tactic fundamental to both the gambling den and the halls of justice: the bluff. Well versed in the law and the nuances of the criminal justice process, and maintaining a cantankerous disposition toward the sentencing authorities, Kripplebauer wasn’t going to give up without a fight. Though the evidence and the incriminating statements of former partners made for a solid case against him, Kripplebauer was going to try to thwart the state of North Carolina by any means possible. He’d marshal what few resources he had and somehow try to make a contest out of it and then cut the best deal he could. He was horrified at the sentences that had been handed out to other K&A men who had proven uncooperative. Pete Logue, for instance, had been given 40 to 60 years. Since Pete was 50 at the time, Junior saw his friend shackled to a death sentence; he was therefore willing to try any legal maneuver that might save him from a similar fate. The North Carolina criminal justice system might eventually bang him with a big number, but they were gonna know they were in a fight. And if he was lucky, he just might pull off a sentence he could live with.
Junior and some friends who formed the backbone of the Lewisburg Penitentiary Law Clinic came up with a battle plan that Clarence Darrow would have been proud of. He’d force them to deal by burying them under an avalanche of legal gimmicks, constitutional technicalities, and courtroom gymnastics. Essentially, he hoped to crush them with prosecutorial costs and public safety concerns.
Junior designed a defense based on an endless supply of witnesses—almost three dozen—who would testify to his presence in other locales when the crimes were supposedly committed. In addition, many of them would swear to the boundless mendacity of the prosecution’s chief witness, Tommy Seher. “They’d testify I was with them in Philly or New York or Boston and couldn’t possibly have been in North Carolina at the time of the burglaries,” says Kripplebauer. “They’d also swear to Tommy’s repeated comments that he’d say and do anything to stay out of jail.”
What made the tactical maneuver so interesting—and so appalling to North Carolina authorities—was that the vast majority of the witnesses Kripplebauer was requesting were presently incarcerated in state and federal prisons across the country.
Kripplebauer’s friends, men with serious reputations like bank robbers Joe Dougherty and Joe Havel and prison escape artists John Dickel and Franny Tomlinson, were currently under lock and key at such tough maximum-security institutions as Marion in Illinois, Leavenworth in Kansas, Atlanta, and Lewisburg. There were even a few aging Puerto Rican lifers on the witness list, nationalists who decades earlier had tried to take out President Truman in a celebrated assassination attempt. Junior had incorporated a pantheon of infamous criminal talent into his legal defense. Buried under unbelievably long sentences, Kripplebauer’s buddies would have enjoyed nothing better than long, scenic road trips that provided numerous opportunities to escape—not to mention the prospect of being housed in a relatively small and unsophisticated county jail during the course of the trial.
When the Guilford County sheriff saw Kripplebauer’s witness list he nearly had a coronary. In motions court, he pleaded for some judicial relief. “Your Honor,” he told the judge, “we can’t bring all these guys here. They’re all extremely dangerous men and significant escape risks. It would break the county to bring in all of these people. This is an impossible thing we’re being asked to do.”
The judge assigned to rule on pretrial motions was not unsympathetic. He readily recognized that the mere cost of transporting these men to Guilford County would be prohibitive. The public safety issues inherent in such an undertaking were a whole other matter—one he shuddered even to think about.
As the DA voiced his vigorous objections to assembling the defendant’s witness list, Kripplebauer gradually grew more agitated, fearing an outright rejection of his request. Realizing that he had to stem the rising tide of opposition, Junior jumped up as if unable to contain himself and shouted at his nemesis, “Your Honor, the DA wants to send me to jail for life without any opportunity to mount a defense. He’ll do whatever it takes to put me away. And he doesn’t care if any constitutional guarantees are sacrificed in the process.” Junior then turned his attention to the judge: “Hell, why don’t you just sentence me to life in prison and forget about the damn trial?”
Offended, the judge lashed back. “Mr. Kripplebauer, don’t you get sarcastic with me, or you’ll get your wish.”
He then ordered that the defendant’s witnesses were to be brought to court and that the trial should proceed as scheduled, causing the county sheriff an acute case of angina. “But, Your Honor,” he said, “there’s no place to house these men in the county.”
Shortly thereafter, when Judge William Z. Wood gaveled the trial to order, he quickly realized that the defendant’s novel defense strategy had placed the state in an untenable position. Judge Wood listened to the bickering for only a few minutes before calling it to a halt: “Everybody take a few minutes and figure this out. We’re not proceeding with this trial until there is some agreement here. When you all come back I expect everybody to be on the same page.”
The ruse had worked. Guilford County and the state of North Carolina were forced to deal. Kripplebauer had gotten over on them.
“They wanted me to accept an 18-to 20-year sentence like they had given Tommy Seher,” says Junior, “but I wasn’t gonna plead guilty and take the same sentence that little rat took. He was so stupid he couldn’t even get a decent deal, and he turned over for them. I told them I wouldn’t take an 18-to 20-year sentence and that I wanted my day in court. And I wanted my witnesses with me there as well. They said they’d depose them at the prisons they were being held at, but I said, ‘No way.’ I wanted them in court with me. We had researched the law. We had them.”
The last thing the state wanted was to let Junior Kripplebauer off easy. But he now had them; they’d have to cut a deal with him. Incredibly, Kripplebauer, who refused to name names, who fought them to the end, and who was the one law enforcement agencies wanted more than anyone else, was given a relatively modest 12 to 20 years. Moreover, it was to be concurrent with his federal sentence. In the end Kripplebauer didn’t walk, but he wasn’t buried under a decades-long sentence either.
Mickie, now his former wife, was also dealt with leniently and handed a flat 10-year sentence (and Junior made sure she’d be eligible for parole after serving one year of it). Frankie Brewer,
who chose to plead guilty like Junior, but without the courtroom histrionics and creative legal gamesmanship, was given 18 to 20 years. Though all three were going to reside for some time in North Carolina prisons, their sentences paled in comparison with those dealt out to some Hallmark burglars with very similar cases.
Soon after the deal was struck and the sentences were handed down, Junior was shipped back to Atlanta and Frankie Brewer to Graterford to finish their respective federal and state sentences. Mickie began serving her sentence at North Carolina’s women’s prison in Raleigh.
REASONABLY PLEASED WITH the results of the North Carolina proceedings, Kripplebauer was returned to Atlanta Federal Penitentiary on July 15, 1980 with only the Houston case hanging over his head. Though he knew the Texans would eventually be coming for him, raising the prospect of another knock-down-drag-out legal battle below the Mason-Dixon Line, there was something else to occupy his time.
Cheryl Lee McConnell was a drop-dead gorgeous brunette in her mid-thirties who had started seeing Junior prior to his departure for North Carolina. The curvaceous, raven-haired vixen with the killer smile was one of five sisters who shared not only the middle name “Lee” and a love for money and excitement, but also a striking natural beauty that caught the eye of males from Florida to Maine. Originally from South Florida, she had recently relocated to the Atlanta area. As soon as she was introduced to Kripplebauer by a friend of his who was also serving time at the institution, the two seemed to click. It was a welcome diversion for both of them, but especially for Junior.
There was an impediment to the nascent love affair, however. Cheryl was married, and her husband was one of Junior’s best friends. Mike “Mac” McConnell was a bank robber of some repute who had done a slew of work with the likes of Charlie Allen and Frankie Del Piano. He and Junior had developed a strong friendship over the years, intensified by their shared time at a “cold stop” like Atlanta Federal Penitentiary.
Junior was excited at the prospect of a relationship with Cheryl, a gorgeous woman with an outgoing, radiant personality, but the fact that she was the wife of one of his best friends put a serious crimp in his dreams of a life together. On scheduled visits to see her husband, Cheryl also spent some time with Junior in the prison visiting area. Kripplebauer often had his own girlfriend down on visits, and sometimes the two couples would share an afternoon together, but when she was alone with Junior, Cheryl would admit to her marital difficulties. The marriage had been going south for some time, and her husband’s lengthy incarceration hadn’t helped. Initially just a concerned friend, Junior gradually became more emotionally involved and eventually found himself somewhere between enchanted and mesmerized by the comely Mrs. McConnell.
Even after he was shipped to North Carolina, they continued to correspond, and she even visited him a couple of times as he waited for his day in court. There was no doubt that a bond had formed. Kripplebauer decided that he couldn’t move on a buddy’s wife and he dealt with his dilemma the only way he knew how—head on. He managed to get a call in to McConnell at Atlanta one day and opened, “Mac, we gotta talk. You should know that things are getting pretty involved here between Cheryl and me. I think she’s a great girl and I’m finding myself more and more attracted to her. I want you to know that I never expected anything like this to happen. I just wanted to be a friend, but ....
McConnell cut him off: “Hey J. R., don’t sweat it. Things are over between me and Cheryl. It’s been played out. The relationship is dead, it’s over. You wanna take a shot at it, go ahead. But you should really consider if you can handle it. Cheryl’s a handful. Anyway, man, I appreciate you coming to me. Don’t worry about me. Junior, I know she likes you. Good luck.”
Given the green light, Cheryl and Junior became an item and continued to write, call, and see each other whenever they could. As Junior was transferred from one prison to another and tackled his varied legal problems, Cheryl stayed supportive and filed for divorce from Eddie McConnell.
Even while he was doing battle with an assortment of political jurisdictions stretching from North Carolina to Texas (not to mention the federal government), and even though he seemed fated to remain behind bars and cut off from making any real money for at least the next decade, and quite possibly for a hell of a lot longer, there was no shortage of female suitors. Junior had the goods. Who cared, women seemed to say, if they visited him in Atlanta and Lewisburg federal penitentiaries as opposed to South Beach or Acapulco?
Yet other concerns intruded on Junior’s busy love life. And some of them were deadly serious.
“I got word that my friends in Texas would be coming for me the following day. I was pretty damn nervous and sure as hell didn’t wanna go down there. If they were successful they could bang me for two life terms—one for burglarizing an unoccupied home after dark and the other for being a habitual offender. Texas was like the last place I wanted to do time. I would’ve been killed down there. The place was just rotten through and through. The Texas prison system was like the last stop on earth. The prison gangs down there were extremely violent and constantly at war with each other. The Aryan Brotherhood, the Black Guerilla Family, and the Mexican Mafia dominated life inside those walls as much as the authorities. Even the Crips and Bloods had gained a foothold in there. The whole goddamn place was loaded with competing armies. As soon as a new fish walked inside one of those joints, he was being pressured to join up. You could hardly avoid it. And if you were by yourself you were totally fucked. Even the average Joe doin’ time was forced to adopt a cut-throat attitude.
“I wasn’t any virgin. I knew the score. While I was at Lewisburg and Atlanta bodies were falling all the time. It seemed that every day somebody was getting shanked. Me and Mac were playing cards in my cell one day when we saw a few ABs pass by. Next thing we hear, somebody is getting whacked pretty good. You could hear the thump, thump, thump of the shanks being rammed in the guy. They killed him right on the spot. Another time I’m heading out to the yard, and just before I leave the corridor I see a black dude pull a four-foot piece of metal out of his pants—the size of a samurai sword—and jam it in another black inmate. Shoved it right through him. The guy went down and just bled out all over the fuckin’ hallway. I figured there’d be that stuff and more down in Texas. Yeah, I didn’t want any part of Texas.
“They finally came for me, put me on a plane, and stuck me in the Harris County Jail to await trial. I must have been there two months, and you better believe I dreaded every minute of it. I was worried about a life sentence and repeatedly expressed my concerns to Racehorse [Haynes]. He kept on telling me to relax; he was working on something. He said he’d take care of it.
“The guy was a real character. Racehorse was fairly short and just an average dresser except for the cowboy boots he wore all the time, but he knew everyone and everyone knew him. Earlier, when I was out on bail and had met him at the courthouse coffee shop, it was tough to get a word in with everybody constantly coming over to him to say hello. Even though he was in his sixties and nothing special to look at, he was like a local celebrity. And now I was about to go to trial, but I was really small potatoes on his plate. He was in the midst of defending Cullen Davis, a prominent oilman, for a series of high-profile murders. It was the talk of the state. I felt for sure I was gonna get lost in the shuffle and end up with a bad bit.
“The court date is getting closer, and even though my attorney is supposed to be the main man and tellin’ me to take it easy and relax, I’m feeling pretty uneasy. I’ve already paid him some big money to take care of me, but the DA wanted me real bad. The burglaries had been big news in Texas, and nailing me was a good way to get some free publicity. I’m even thinking about not showing up, if you know what I mean.
“The morning of the trial I tell Racehorse I’m not feeling good about this, and he says, ‘Don’t worry. It’s a done deal.’
“‘Whaddya mean?’ I reply.
“‘I worked a deal,’ he says. ‘You’re gonna d
o seven years. And I think I can get it to run with your federal time. Ya think you can handle that?’
“I was dumbfounded. It was too good to be true. When I walked into the courtroom, I was still skeptical and expected to be nailed, but I did as Racehorse told me, pled guilty to the charges, and held my breath. The judge then sentenced me to seven years and had it run concurrent with my federal time. I tell you, I was jubilant. It was unbelievable. Haynes really had it worked. He was the man down there. I had paid him a hell of a lot of money, but I got what I paid for. I don’t know how he did it, but he did it.”
BACK AT LEWISBURG, Junior did the best he could under the circumstances. Though technically just another convict doing his time, Kripplebauer had a knack for making the best of a bad situation. Whether it was his stoical coal-mining background or a professional criminal’s realistic outlook on life, Junior handled the blows of penal servitude. As his friend, Jimmy Dolan says of him, “Junior was a standup guy. No matter where the prison was located or the length of the sentence, he’d do his time without moaning and groaning about it. And more importantly, without ratting out a partner, or anybody else, to get out of a jam. If Junior caught a bad break, he’d just learn to deal with it and do his time like a man.”
Kripplebauer still owed the federal government several years before he’d ever be taken down to North Carolina to serve out his state sentence. His various schemes and scams at Lewisburg were doing well, and the pervasive institutional violence fortunately stayed away from him, but a new worry appeared on his radar screen. An avid reader, Kripplebauer received newspapers from a number of cities, including some in western Pennsylvania. Alarmingly, the Pittsburgh Post Gazette.nd the Pittsburgh Tribune Review.ere running a series of high-profile articles on a recently discovered plot to kidnap Art Rooney. Richard Henkel, Gary Small, and Henry Ford had been picked up by the police, and there was reason to believe that Jack “the Jew” Siggson and possibly Tommy Seher were spilling their guts to authorities. For die-hard Steeler fans, the owner of the local gridiron team was a hero, making the extortion conspiracy a front-page story. The growing list of dead bodies tied to Henkel, the plan’s mastermind, increased public interest.
Confessions of a Second Story Man Page 34
