-Caveat Lector-
NYTimes
May 27, 2001
Document Erases Doubts About a McVeigh Witness
By JO THOMAS
DENVER, May 26 - One of the newly discovered F.B.I. documents
handed
over to lawyers in the Oklahoma City bombing case was a report
about a
witness on the day of the bombing whose testimony at trial was
later
discredited. The witness's credibility came under attack, in
part,
because lawyers on both sides did not know about the document, a
person
familiar with the case said.
The missing document, known as a lead sheet, was one of about
4,000
pages of information turned over to lawyers for Timothy J.
McVeigh and
Terry L. Nichols in recent weeks after the Federal Bureau of
Investigation sought to close down its case in preparation for
the
execution of Mr. McVeigh.
Mr. McVeigh's execution was delayed this month after embarrassed
Justice Department officials acknowledged the existence of all
the
documents and said they should have been provided to the lawyers
before
the two men were tried.
The lead sheet pertained to Morris John Kuper Jr., a witness who
called
the F.B.I. on April 21, 1995, two days after the bombing, to
suggest
that the bureau investigate activities in a parking lot a block
away
from the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building an hour before the
bombing.
Mr. Kuper, who was called as a witness by the defense at the
trial of
Mr. Nichols, testified that he saw a man resembling Mr.
McVeigh walking with another man along the sidewalk near the
Federal
Building in Oklahoma City at 8:02 a.m. the morning of the
bombing. He
said he saw the two men getting into an old, light-colored car
similar
to the Mercury in which Mr. McVeigh was arrested later that
morning.
In court, Mr. Kuper described the other man as being muscular
and
dark-haired, a description that was similar to that of a number
of
witnesses who have described the unidentified suspect who came to
be
known as John Doe No. 2.
Mr. Kuper also testified that he called the F.B.I. on April 21
to
suggest that they check cameras at the Public Library and
Southwestern
Bell that might have caught something in that area, "but they
took my
name and phone number and never contacted me again."
But in the fall of 1995 Mr. Kuper responded to an e-mail request
for
information about any activity in the parking lots from his
employer,
the Kerr-McGee Corporation.
In his cross-examination, Patrick Ryan, then the United States
attorney
in Oklahoma City and one of the prosecutors, emphasized that the
date of
the first F.B.I. interview report with Mr. Kuper was Oct. 24,
and
repeatedly challenged his credibility, saying that he had made no
attempt to reach the bureau until then.
In an interview on Friday, Mr. Ryan said that he had had no idea
the
document existed and that he would have treated the issue much
differently if he had. "I certainly would never intentionally
tell the
jury someone had not come forward for six months if I knew they
had come
forward a couple of days after the bombing," Mr. Ryan, now a
lawyer in
private practice, said.
On Friday, Chris Watney, a spokeswoman for the Department of
Justice,
said she could not comment on the details of any of the
documents. "We
have reviewed all of the documents carefully and remain confident
that
nothing in them undermines Mr.
McVeigh's admission or the justice of his sentence," she said.
On Thursday, Attorney General John Ashcroft said that "nothing in
any of
the documents links anyone else to this bombing" and that he saw
no
reason to delay any further beyond June 11, the date on which the
execution is now scheduled.
Lawyers for Mr. McVeigh say that they are still examining the
documents
and that Mr. McVeigh has not yet decided whether to seek a new
trial or
a stay of execution. Mr. Kuper was among a number of witnesses
who
were called by lawyers at Mr.
Nichols's trial, in an effort to show that someone other than Mr.
Nichols helped Mr. McVeigh.
"It was my feeling they were fairly unreliable," Mr. Ryan said.
"The
problem with any of these witnesses, even if some were right, you
didn't
know which were the right ones and which were the wrong ones."
Beth Wilkinson, another prosecutor, likened such accounts to
"Elvis
sightings," and Mr. McVeigh has subsequently been quoted as
saying that
John Doe No. 2 does not exist.
During his testimony, Mr. Kuper, a data communications
specialist for
Kerr-McGee, an energy and chemical company, said he was confident
of the
time of his sighting because he was late to work that day and was
checking his own watch, which he set against the atomic clock at
the
Naval Observatory in Washington, a service provided by a local
radio
station.
He noticed the car, he said, because he restored cars as a hobby,
and
added that "it was not the type of car you would normally see in
that
parking lot." The driver, he said, was white, with short
light-colored
hair, and was wearing a white or light T-shirt and dark pants.
The
other man was shorter and stockier, with a dark complexion and
dark
hair. He was also more muscular than the other man, Mr. Kuper
said.
Mr. Ryan drew attention to discrepancies between Mr. Kuper's
testimony
in court and what he had told the F.B.I. two years earlier, when
he
said the passenger was not as muscular as the driver.
In a filing with the Supreme Court last week, Michael E. Tigar,
the
lead lawyer for Mr. Nichols, said he had found at least two
instances
in which prosecutors tried to impeach the credibility of defense
witnesses with assertions that were contradicted by the newly
disclosed
F.B.I. files. Mr. Tigar did not provide details, and the
documents
are covered by a protective order forbidding disclosure by any of
the
lawyers involved.
=======================================================
Kadosh, Kadosh, Kadosh, YHVH, TZEVAOT
FROM THE DESK OF:
*Michael Spitzer* <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
The Best Way To Destroy Enemies Is To Change Them To Friends
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