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Sunday, February 15, 2004 Conte
rejects LaGuer claim
DNA expert says he's owed $7,000
WORCESTER- Benjamin LaGuer's latest bid for freedom centers
on a piece of evidence that was withheld from his defense lawyers for almost 20 years.
The potentially exculpatory
fingerprint report - discovered 18 years after the trial that ended with a conviction for aggravated rape and a life sentence
for Mr. LaGuer - emerged amid a lengthy court battle for DNA testing of the evidence.
The DNA test further implicated
Mr. LaGuer, who for two decades has said he was the victim of mistaken identity. He was convicted in 1984 of raping his 59-year-old
neighbor in her Leominster apartment. The victim, who identified Mr. LaGuer as her attacker, died at age 75 in 1999.
The
motion filed last week by defense lawyer James C. Rehnquist, makes only brief mention of the DNA analysis, focusing on the
questions raised by the fingerprint report and its concealment from the defense.
Mr. Rehnquist, in a prepared statement
last week, said, "The state crime lab fingerprint report, which Mr. LaGuer did not learn about until 2001, conclusively demonstrates
that the fingerprints of someone other than Mr. LaGuer were found on a telephone that was handled by the assailant at the
crime scene."
Mr. LaGuer, meanwhile, is lining up experts to back his theory that the evidence may have been contaminated
and is therefore untrustworthy.
"DNA is not infallible," Mr. LaGuer said last week.
District Attorney John
J. Conte said last week that Mr. LaGuer's guilt had been "conclusively demonstrated" and it was implausible the former Leominster
man would have any success fighting his conviction in court.
The DNA expert who conducted the test two years ago rejected
Mr. LaGuer's latest claims and revealed his office is still owed about $7,000 for its services.
In a prepared statement
issued Thursday, Mr. Conte said, "The jury verdict, the numerous appellate court findings and the DNA test results have conclusively
demonstrated the defendant's guilt in the case of Commonwealth vs. Benjamin LaGuer."
Mr. Conte also wrote that the
2002 DNA result proved Mr. LaGuer's guilt "to a mathematical certainty."
"The district attorney described any further,
successful court action by the defendant in the case as "implausible,' noting that Mr. LaGuer's own expert has described the
suggestion of evidence tampering as farfetched and straining the bounds of imagination," Mr. Conte's statement concluded.
That expert is Edward T. Blake of Forensic Science Associates, the California laboratory that yielded the incriminating
results in 2002. He had harsh words for Mr. LaGuer's second-guessing of the results two years ago, and remained steadfast
last week amid speculation by the defendant that the evidence had been compromised by contamination.
"He is one of
the most creative people I have encountered," Mr. Blake said Thursday. "LaGuer got his day."
The legal argument behind
the motion filed last week - that the withholding of potentially exculpatory evidence is grounds for a dismissal of the indictment,
or a new trial - is sound, Mr. Blake said, but the theory of contamination is not.
"It's called proof by innuendo,"
Mr. Blake said. "Nobody took that position prior to the testing. In an intellectual discussion, you don't accept those kinds
of positions, ever."
Police and court records show the circuitous route the crime scene evidence took from its collection
in 1983 to DNA testing almost 20 years later.
The transcript of a 1989 evidentiary hearing indicates the state police
chemist who worked on the case in 1983 said he would handle multiple cases at once to save time. Lab notes from the chemist
indicate he was performing tests on the interior crotch of the suspect's underwear, though police had said nothing was taken
from Mr. LaGuer's apartment.
DNA expert Lawrence Kobilinsky, associate provost of John Jay College of Criminal Justice
in New York, said in an interview on the eve of Mr. LaGuer's last parole hearing that he was surprised by the results returned
in Mr. LaGuer's case.
"We really don't know the history of the evidence," Mr. Kobilinsky said last year. "It seems
in this particular case there are a number of questions about the history of the evidence."
Tony N. Frudakis, a molecular
biologist and chief scientific officer with Florida-based DNAPrint Genomics, was contacted by Mr. LaGuer's defense team to
review the case.
Mr. Frudakis, who said he is not being paid by Mr. LaGuer's lawyers, said last week the crime scene
evidence could have been contaminated if the defendant's underwear was also being handled nearby.
"My understanding
is the people related to the process haven't necessarily admitted that's what happened," Mr. Frudakis said.
But the
small amount of genetic material recovered from the evidence would be consistent with contamination, he said.
"It
fits with their story," he said. "It doesn't prove it. But it's consistent with their story."
Mr. Blake isn't buying
it.
"The question is, is it reasonably plausible under the totality of circumstances? I don't think so," he said.
Mr. LaGuer said from Norfolk State Prison last week that not all of the background information on the case was shared
with Mr. Blake while the testing was under way.
"If John Conte had given us all the information on day one, I could
have given it to my experts," he said, recalling evidence inventories and other documents that came to light during the long
court battle for DNA testing. "What matters is scientists of some note are calling this thing into question."
Mr.
Blake said his office is still owed about $7,000 in fees from Mr. LaGuer's DNA test, but he doesn't expect he will be paid
anytime soon. The total cost of the testing was $25,000 to $30,000, he said. Mr. LaGuer's supporters, including Boston University
President Emeritus John Silber, had been footing the bills.
The unpaid bills, Mr. Blake said, were sent to Mr. LaGuer's
former lawyer.
Mr. Blake said he still gets correspondence from Mr. LaGuer, updating him on the progress of the case
and the roster of supporters he still maintains.
"They're just fascinating pieces of evidence, if you will, of his
thought process," he said. "He's managed to seduce the Boston intelligentsia."
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