Snapshot: Brian Scott Glass

Told the defense team last summer, and was scheduled to testify, that prior to the Tankleff murders, Jerry Steuerman offered  to pay him to kill his business partner and that he passed the job to Joey "Guns" Creedon. Lacking money and connections, Glass had asked the  defense for assistance in finding  a lawyer for an armed robbery charge (an alleged knifepoint robbery on a street in Port Jefferson), but was told by Marty’s lawyers that they could not help him. Glass then stopped cooperating with the Tankleff defense, changed his story and began cooperating with the DA's office around the time he came to be represented by William Wexler, a high-powered Suffolk County attorney who is the son of a federal judge (and who happens to share office space with Judge Stephen Braslow's father).  Glass was released on his own recognizance for the armed robbery charge and for two more charges since.  He was also, according to defense witness Mark Callahan, threatened with life imprisonment--as a three-time offender--by the DA if he did not cooperate with them.  According to Assistant District Attorney Leonard Lato, Glass retained Wexler through Creedon's lawyer, Anthony La Pinta.  Recently, Suffolk County DA Thomas Spota reversed his position and endorsed the release from prison, after 22 years, of La Pinta's mother, Marie, who had been convicted in the murder of her abusive husband.  Newsday reported that "[Marie's] son, Anthony La Pinta, an attorney from Hauppauge, negotiated a deal with Suffolk District Attorney Thomas Spota that enabled his mother to come home permanently after the plea."  We congratulate and are happy for Mrs. La Pinta and her entire family.