Michael’s lawyers also showed how the prosecution team illegally concealed reams of exculpatory evidence from Michael. The hidden evidence included the secret agreement between the State’s lead investigator, Frank Garr, and author Len Levitt to share expected profits from a book and movie deal about Michael’s conviction. Santos and Seeley also proved that Garr had threatened, intimidated, and harassed witnesses to testify against Michael. Garr had deliberately concealed police reports from the defense team that supported Michael’s alibi defense and a composite drawing strikingly similar to suspect Kenny Littleton that would have bolstered Michael’s third-party culpability defense. That sketch places Littleton near the crime scene within minutes of Martha’s time of death. Garr also withheld a suspect profile of Littleton linking him to over a dozen serial murders of young women and more than 12 hours of video tape and 40 hours of taped phone conversations with Littleton from 1992. Finally, Benedict and Garr illegally withheld a suspect profile of Tommy Skakel until mid-trial and a damning audiotape of prosecution witness Andrea Shakespeare.
In addition, Judge John Karazin reviewed the new evidence that I helped uncover pointing to Adolph Hasbrouck and Burton Tinsley as the real murderers. I testified at the evidentiary hearing regarding my conversations with Tony Bryant, Burton Tinsley, Adolph Hasbrouck, Crawford Mills, and others. Since they had invoked the Fifth Amendment, Bryant, Tinsley, and Hasbrouck were not available to testify. Judge Karazin admitted my 10 tape-recorded conversations of Tony Bryant and his former friends, and Tony’s videotaped testimony with Vito Colucci. Neal Walker, Margie Walker, Barbara Bryant, and Crawford Mills also testified, as did Colucci.
On October 25, 2007, Judge Karazin denied Michael’s appeal. In his ruling Judge Karazin concluded that the video confessions Colucci had recorded of Tony, Adolph, and Burton were sufficiently credible to be admissible. “Mr. Bryant’s statements,” the court concluded, “were made under circumstances which support admission, are corroborated by sufficient evidence, and are clearly against his penal interest.” Nevertheless, the court concluded, in a seemingly contradictory finding, that the new evidence, while credible enough to be admitted, would not have prompted the jury to change its verdict. Michael’s attorneys appealed this bizarre ruling to Connecticut’s Supreme Court on January 16, 2008, arguing that this and the other newly discovered evidence should entitle Michael to a new trial.
On April 12, 2010, by a vote of four to one, the Connecticut Supreme Court upheld Karazin’s decision against a stinging dissent by Justice Richard N. Palmer, who had written the original opinion preserving Michael’s conviction, but who was apparently now fed up with what was clearly a rigged game. In his scathing 103-page dissent, Palmer blasted both the prosecutor and his brother judges for allowing the unjust conviction of an innocent man based upon “evidence … that was weak at best, especially when viewed in the light of the testimony that was used to convict [Michael Skakel], which consisted almost entirely of equivocal admissions by [Michael Skakel] and one dubious confession.”
Even more importantly, Palmer argued, the actual perpetrators of the murder had now been identified. Palmer scourged Benedict and Garr for their determination to overlook compelling new evidence indicating that Adolph Hasbrouck and Burton Tinsley had murdered Martha Moxley. Palmer characterized as “contradictory” and “unprecedented” Karazin’s finding that Tony Bryant’s testimony was credible enough to be admissible but not credible enough to sway a jury. “I believe that the petitioner, Michael C. Skakel, is entitled to a new trial … the Bryant evidence is highly relevant because it identifies Hasbrouck and Tinsley as the persons actually responsible for the murder.” Judge Palmer found Tony Bryant believable. “The record reveals nothing about Bryant or his background to suggest either that he is the kind of person who would provide testimony falsely implicating two innocent people in a brutal murder or that he had any reason or motive to do so,” he wrote.
Finally, Justice Palmer opined that the exculpatory evidence hidden by prosecutors during the trial was alone enough to justify a new trial. “[A]t the very least, it is likely that this new evidence, when considered in light of the State’s thin case against petitioner, would give rise to a reasonable doubt. … The likelihood of an acquittal upon retrial is enhanced by other newly discovered evidence, namely, the relationship between the lead investigator in the case, Frank Garr, and Leonard Levitt, the author of a book about the victim’s murder on which Garr collaborated, and the views expressed by Garr in that book reflecting, inter alia, his strong and long-lasting feelings of antipathy toward [Michael Skakel] and the [Skakel] family.”
The law requires that Michael exhaust all other appeals before invoking his constitutional right to habeas corpus based on a claim that he had an incompetent lawyer. With all his legal appeals now exhausted, Michael’s lawyers, on May 17, 2013, filed a habeas corpus petition challenging his incarceration due to Mickey Sherman’s rank ineptitude. On October 23, 2013, Judge Thomas Bishop, Superior Court, issued a blistering 136-page ruling granting the habeas appeal and freeing Michael after 11½ years in some of the most brutal prisons in Connecticut.
Judge Bishop’s long opinion gave the lie to Benedict’s self-aggrandizing claim that Sherman had been a worthy and valiant opponent. Habeas appeals are notoriously tough to win. The defendant must prove not only that trial counsel was ineffective, but that the verdict would have been different had the defense been adequate. Courts typically grant habeas petitions in only extreme cases, for example, where a drunk public defender representing an indigent defendant falls asleep in court during a capital trial. A successful habeas appeal is exceedingly rare in cases involving million-dollar defense attorneys. However, after tabulating an inventory of Mickey’s catastrophic malfeasances, Bishop wrote that “Trial counsel’s failures … were significant and, ultimately, fatal to a constitutionally adequate defense.”
Judge Bishop’s decision freed Michael after 11½ years in prison. Michael had seen his son, George, only a handful of times during that period. When he went in, George was 2 years old. When Michael emerged from jail, his son was a teenager. Michael has been free for nearly three years, but he does not have the life of a free man. He wears what he calls a “Lindsay Lohan bracelet” on his wrist to monitor his whereabouts. He must apply for court permission whenever he wants to leave the state. His career is on hold until the courts make a final ruling.
Since his release from prison, Michael has lived off the kindness of his family, at first boarding in a tiny guestroom in his little brother Stephen’s modest Connecticut rental that Stephen shares with his girlfriend. Eleven years of litigation and imprisonment had left him destitute and beggared many of his family members. A decade earlier, Michael had sold his beloved cabin in Windham to pay his legal bills. He spends his weekends in the Adirondacks and Catskills, coaching now 17-year-old George, a downhill and grand slalom ski racer, and waxing and tuning skis before competitions. As a former US Ski Team speed skier, Michael feels that help with ski racing is one of the few tangible things he can give his boy.
In a recent vulnerable moment Michael told me, “I feel sorry for him that he is my son.” His eyes were tearing as he stood in my kitchen following a 12-step meeting. With Michael’s acquiescence George had just changed his last name; the boy was tired of the teasing and the public hostility. He believed that his father’s blighted reputation would hinder his college admission opportunities. That afternoon, Michael told me he had been driving with George back from Lake Placid when a man pulled alongside Michael’s car and recognized him. The stranger unrolled his window, gave Michael the finger, and threw a beer can. Michael kept driving. He is used to it. “I told George he could call himself Bullwinkle for all I cared. I’ll love him no matter what name he chooses.” Michael is a peculiar combination of being both physically tough and impervious to pain and having extreme emotional sensitivity. Stuff like this still makes him cry. But then, suddenly, he was laughing again. “George called me an hour later
and asked me for money, so I guess nothing changed.”
Even in the 12-step meetings that ought to be his refuge, he is discomforted by the ubiquitous whispers and stares and occasional hostility. For three years, a group of men have held semi-private weekly 12-step meetings in my home to give Michael a sanctuary where he can feel safe. Michael said the rosary thrice daily in prison. On his release he returned to his practice of daily mass and communion, but gawkers have made church visits a painful experience. Michael erected an altar in his bedroom where he can pray in solitude and peace. He recently moved out of Stephen’s guest room and is currently living with and caring for an elderly aunt in Bedford, New York, on the Connecticut border.
On August 8, 2014, Connecticut prosecutors filed an appeal of Judge Bishop’s grant of habeas corpus. That action caused me to begin work on this book. On February 24, 2016, I attended the arguments on this appeal before a six-justice panel of the Connecticut Supreme Court in Hartford.
As prosecutor Susan Gill recited a cruel battery of calumnies and lies about Michael, I scribbled a passage from the Old Testament and handed it to Michael:
He was despised and rejected—a man of constant sorrows, acquainted with deepest grief. We turned our backs on him and looked the other way. He was despised, and we did not care.”
—Isaiah 53:3
Michael scrawled a note back to me, “I’m familiar with the sorrow. Having someone to shoulder the burden with me has cut its weight in half. Thanks for your friendship—and for all the laughs.”
As I write this, six Connecticut Supreme Court justices are deciding whether to uphold or strike down Judge Bishop’s decision. If they strike it down, Michael will go directly back to jail to complete his 20-years-to-life sentence. If, in the best scenario, the justices uphold Judge Bishop’s decision, State prosecutors will decide whether to retry Michael Skakel for Martha Moxley’s murder. John Smriga, the Fairfield County State’s Attorney who succeeded Benedict in 2009, will choose how to proceed.
With his new lawyers and the exculpatory evidence now in hand, and the evidence of Adolph Hasbrouck’s and Burton Tinsley’s likely culpability already judged admissible, prosecutors would have almost no chance of convicting Michael in a new jury trial. With Benedict retired and Garr disgraced, perhaps the Connecticut State’s Attorney will decide to prosecute the likely perpetrators of the Moxley murder and finally bring Martha’s killers to justice.
Using the evidence I have cited in this book, prosecutors have sufficient cause to indict Burton Tinsley and Adolph Hasbrouck for Martha Moxley’s murder.
They also have enough evidence to prosecute Frank Garr and Jonathan Benedict for suborning perjury and illegally concealing evidence. Benedict committed overt acts of prosecutorial misconduct of the kind that got North Carolina prosecutor Mike Nifong removed from office, disbarred, and imprisoned in the Duke Lacrosse case.
Garr suborned perjury, a felony. In addition, he has admitted to obeying Benedict’s illegal orders to actively conceal police reports and witnesses that would have demonstrated Michael’s innocence. Together the pair illegally conjured a conviction out of smoke and mirrors. Because of their crimes, my cousin lost over a decade of his life—and his son’s entire childhood. It’s time for Garr and Benedict to pay for their crimes and for Martha Moxley’s murderers to finally face justice. We shall see how committed the Constitution State is to the rule of law.
INDEX
A
Adams, John, 205
Albano, Lou, 220
Appeal, denial, 275–276
Arnold, Liz, 138, 200
Attanian, Matt, 181–183, 185–186
Ridge conversation, 183–184
B
Baden, Linda Kenney, 216, 231, 273
recommendations, Sherman nonusage, 226–233
Sherman, impact, 218–219
Baden, Michael, 7, 28, 173, 216, 222
notorious/infamous crime prosecution, approach, 20
Bailey, F. Lee, 163
Baker, Mary, 111–112, 114
Littleton conversations, police tapings, 116–117
Solomon/Garr interview/interaction, 115–116
Baran, Jr., Stephen (Skakel authorization revocation), 93
Barbieri, Paula, 221
Belle Haven Club, 4, 41, 55, 79, 83, 87–88, 96, 103, 105–106, 207, 249–250
Belle Haven, description, 3
Belle Haven Yacht Club, 249
Belmont Hill, 104, 110
Benedict, Jonathan, 5, 8, 13, 62
confidence, absence, 17
disgrace, 278
Margie Walker visit/story, 243
multimedia display, problems, 31–33
one-man grand jury, convening, 170
Peeler case, failure/loss, 20–21
phony confessions, 23
political pressure, 171
prosecutorial misconduct, 25
scenarios, 23–34
tapes, splicing, 34
theory, solidity (absence), 30
trial summation, 22
Bennison, Daniel, 155
Bethpage Polo Club, 41
Billings, LeMoyne, 40
Bishop, Thomas, 13, 276
Bjork, Cynthia, 56–57
Blassie, “Classy” Freddie, 220
Bohemian Grove, 44
Boroski, Jane, 120
Brannack, Ann, 36–40
Brannack, Joseph, 37
Brisentine, Robert, 118
Brooks, Darryl, 269
Brosko, Ted, 87, 166
Browne, Donald, 17–18, 94, 159
job, quitting, 19
payoff, Dumas speculation, 169–170
Brown, Tina, 157, 224
Brunswick School, 4, 79, 91–92, 100, 104, 105, 108–109, 135, 137, 239–265
Greenwich County Day, senior mixer, 265
Brush pile search, 64, 67–68
Bryan, Jamie, 148
Purposely Prejudicial Analysis, 148–149
Worst Case Scenario report, 62, 149
Bryant, Barbara, 244, 262–263
subpoena, 263
Bryant, Kobe, 240
Bryant, Tony, 79
Adolph/Burr distance, mother’s insistence, 255
Belle Haven meanderings, police questioning (absence), 268
Bryant, Tony, (continued)
Colucci interview, 245
Fifth Amendment, 263–264
Gitano Bryant (full name), 239–240
justice system fear, 256
Kennedy meeting, 265
life, background, 240–241, 245–246
Mead departure, 253
secret, 240–241
subpoena, 263
Bryant, Wallace, 240, 245
Buckley, Jr., William F., 44
Burgess, Thornton, 38
Burke, Richard, 179
Byrne, Dori, 258, 268
Byrne estate
coal chute, Walker description, 265
description, 256
Byrne, Geoffrey “Geoff,” 3, 25, 242, 246, 256
Bryant description, 256–257
death, 258
life, ruin, 271
Lunney interview, 266
Stephen Skakel examination, 265–266
traumatization, 257–258
Byrne, Warren, 257, 258
C
Cahoon, Linda, 120
“Caller, The,” 147–148, 150
protection, 151
Caron Foundation, 196
Carroll, Steve, 55, 58–59, 69
interview, 63–64
Skakel cooperation, 86
Carver, Wayne, 28
Catholic Society Opus Dei, 40
Cavello, Ralph, 126
Cave Mountain, 82–83
Chapman, Duane “Dog the Bounty Hunter,” 221
Charles Evans Hughes High School, 246, 260
Chateau Coiffures, 203
Chianese, Dominic, 223
Citizens Energy Corporation, 49–50
Clinton, Bill, 165<
br />
Clusen, Chuck, 206
Coleman, Greg, 268
addiction, 195–197
Attica/mental institutions, 196
confession claims, 192–193, 195, 201
credibility, absence, 204
death, heroin (impact), 199
epithets, 196
Garr recruit, 195
lying, reputation, 21
memory, drug addiction impairment, 198
sadism, 139–140
star witness, problems, 197–198
Colored boys, Martha run-in, 269
Colucci, Vito, 7, 197, 200, 217–218, 200, 222, 225, 250, 256, 259–265
interview, 245
potential witness discoveries, 227
Condit, Gary, 157–158
Connecticut v. Adrian Peeler (Benedict loss), 20–21
Connolly, Mark, 155
Conspiracy
Benedict theory, 23–25
witnesses, involvement, 24
Conviction (Levitt), 21, 100, 147
Coomaraswamy, Peter, 60, 73–74, 79
Copeland, Laura, 218
Cortese, Vinnie, 66–67, 70
Couric, Katie, 220
Craparotta, Vincent “Jimmy Sinatra,” 216
Crowe, Michael, 232
Cuomo, Andrew, 81
Curatola, Vince, 223
Czaja, Paul, 92
D
Danehower, Richard, 60
Darrow, William, 112
Davidson, Gerald, 138–139
Dead Man Talking (Hoffman), 15, 33
Devlin, John, 7, 28
Dick, Esme, 244, 245, 248, 264
Diehl, Debbie, 133–134
DNA
recovery, absence, 11
tests, usage, 20
Dobson, Willie, 221
Dominick Dunne’s Power, Privilege and Justice, 175
Dowdle, Georgeann, 5–6
grand jury testimony, 230–231
perjury, possibility, 25–26
Skakel account confirmation, 13, 24
Framed: Why Michael Skakel Spent Over a Decade in Prison For a Murder He Didn't Commit Page 41
