The New Evidence: Is Cover-Up Too Strong a Word?

In 2001, Marty convinced a former New York City homicide detective, Jay Salpeter, to join his team. When Salpeter read Karlene Kovacs's sworn affidavit that a Joseph Creedon had said he was involved with a "Steuerman" in the Tankleff murders, the first serious investigation into the Tankleff murders began.

[Tankleff investigator Jay Salpeter]

Looking up Creedon's rap sheet in a search for more leads, Salpeter learned that Creedon was arrested for attempted burglary of one of Jerry Steuerman and Seymour Tankleff's bagel stores. On the burglary attempt, Creedon's accomplice was a man named Glenn Harris.  Salpeter tracked down Harris, who told him a story strikingly similar to Kovacs's. Both accounts had Creedon and his accomplice hiding in the bushes or in the backyard of the Tankleff residence, and both included details about having to dispose of bloody clothes.

[Getaway driver Glenn Harris]

DA Sits on Motion
In August of 2003, in good faith Marty's lawyers gave the Suffolk County district attorney's office this information, but the DA's office did not interview any witnesses until October 1st, the day before Tankleff's lawyers filed their motion for a hearing on the new evidence. By this time, Creedon and his alleged accomplice had retained lawyers.

DA Coddles Criminals
On October 7th, the DA's office interviewed Peter Kent, one of the men Harris said he drove to the Tankleff residence the night of the murders.

[Peter Kent]

It was during this interview that the tough, swaggering, career-criminal Kent, told of Harris's statement implicating him, broke down in tears. However, Kent has said, prosecutors immediately assured him they didn't believe he was involved in the Tankleff murders.

Intimidation of Glenn Harris
The DA's investigator, Walter Warkenthien, had no such assuring words for Glenn Harris, the purported getaway driver. Had they been seeking to investigate whether Harris's statement were true, prosecutors would have offered him immunity or other incentives in an attempt to land a "bigger fish." Instead, Warkenthien intimidated Harris by telling him he could trade places with Marty if he testified.

[DA's investigator Walter Warkenthien]

Prosecutors then brought Harris down to the Suffolk County jail, which happens to be run by Sheriff Alfred Tisch, the judge who presided over Marty's original trial and sentenced Marty to 50 years to life. Harris said that when he arrived at his jail cell, someone had left him a "message" on his cot: a newspaper left open to a Tankleff article.  Harris said guards later gave him a beating.  Jail officials deny it.  Then the DA, knowing Harris had obtained a lawyer, wired three snitches in an unsuccessful attempt to get him to change his story.

Refusal to Investigate
The first line of Glenn Harris's affidavit mentioned that before leaving for the Tankleff residence, the crew had met up at the house of their associate Billy Ram. Despite Ram's being on lifetime parole, prosecutors did not track him down for questioning. Salpeter did, and Ram's testimony corroborated Harris's account.

Upon reading a newspaper article on the recent Tankleff hearings, a man named Joseph Graydon came forward and testified to partnering with Creedon in a plan to murder Seymour Tankleff just weeks before the actual murders took place.  The attempted hit, which Graydon said was sponsored by Seymour's "business partner," failed because Seymour did not show up at the bagel store as expected the night the men were waiting for him.  When Graydon called the district attorney's office last year to report this information, they told him it was just "speculation" and hung up on him.

For two months, the DA declined to visit the location where defense investigator Jay Salpeter found a three-foot pipe possibly used as a murder weapon. 

Deliberate Misrepresentation of Evidence
After prosecutors finally visited the pipe site, they represented in court that they had found four similar pipes at the site. Only when questioned by the media, and later under cross-examination, did the prosecution admit that the pipes they found were at least ten feet long and partially buried in the ground, compared to the loose, three-foot pipe that Salpeter had found.  After having this misrepresentation of evidence exposed, the DA proved the misrepresentation was intentional by repeating it in its recently filed "final argument" brief. 

The prosecution made a point in court that Glenn Harris would have had trouble driving into and parking in Belle Terre with a guard on duty. But Warkenthien admitted on cross-examination that he had failed to check the log book indicating there was no guard on duty at the Belle Terre gate in the early hours of the morning of the murder. The defense had no trouble obtaining the log book.

Retaliation Against Tankleff Witnesses
One of several witnesses who corroborated the theory that Jerry Steuerman was behind the murders was Bruce Demps, a jail mate of Jerry's son Todd Steuerman.

[Todd Steuerman]

During their time in prison, Demps testified, Todd told him that he knew Marty didn't murder his parents, because friends of his father did it. Demps testified that Todd said "money was the problem," with Jerry owing Seymour money but not being able to pay. Demps had nothing to gain for testifying. In fact, he paid a price, as Suffolk authorities inexplicably kept him in the Suffolk jail--which is under state sanction for over-crowding--for five months following his testimony, during which he missed enrollment in an early-release program, changing his prison release date from June 2005 to June 2015.

The DA has revealed the names of confidential defense witnesses who came forward despite fear of retaliation by people such as Creedon and Kent.

Stacking the Deck
In response to defense concerns regarding DA Thomas Spota's conflicts of interest, he and ADA Leonard Lato said they erected what they called a "Chinese wall" separating Spota from the case. However, before turning the reins over to Lato, Spota appointed as the investigator on the case Walter Warkenthien.  Out of some 80 investigators who could have been chosen for the job, Warkenthien was the only one who was a colleague of McCready's and a veteran of that notorious era of Suffolk law enforcement in the 80s. In its damning report on the Suffolk DA and police department, the New York State Investigation Commission, in addition to citing Detective McCready for perjury, listed Warkenthien among detectives whose high salaries “were not, unfortunately, accompanied by a high degree of professionalism in their performance.”  And despite the "Chinese Wall," Warkenthien testified he reports directly to Spota to this day.

DA Keeps Violent Felons on the Streets
A man named Brian Scott Glass, an acquaintance of Creedon, Kent, Harris et al, told the Tankleff defense that Jerry Steuerman had offered him the Seymour Tankleff hit, but Glass turned it down and passed it along to Creedon. Then Glass, a convicted felon facing an armed robbery charge, changed his story and began cooperating with the DA in the Tankleff matter. Glass suddenly went from having trouble finding a lawyer to having one of the best connected in the county, William Wexler, who happens to be an associate of Judge Stephen Braslow's father.

[Brian Scott Glass]

Despite multiple prior offenses, Glass was released on his own recognizance in connection with the armed robbery charge, and has since been arrested and released twice more without bail. A defense witness later testified that Glass told him the DA threatened him with life imprisonment if he didn't change his story. This same witness testified that Glass had told him of his connection to Steuerman and the Tankleff murders as far back as 1990 or 1991.

The New Evidence is Overwhelming
As the defense's recently filed "final argument" brief states, "the amount of evidence and the number of witnesses establishing that Seymour and Arlene Tankleff were murdered, not by their loving son Marty Tankleff, but by Joseph Creedon, Peter Kent, and Glenn Harris, at the behest of Jerry Steuerman is staggering:

1) Summer of 1988: Jerry Steuerman grabs Seymour Tankleff by the throat and threatens to kill him. (Marcella Falbee);

2) Summer of 1988:  Jerry Steuerman offers Brian Scott Glass money to “hurt or kill” Seymour Tankleff.  (Brian Scott Glass);

3) Summer of 1988: Brian Scott Glass declines this offer and passes the 'work' to “Joey Guns” Creedon. (Brian Scott Glass);

4) Summer of 1988: Joseph Creedon hires Joseph Graydon to assist him in murdering Seymour Tankleff at Steuerman’s request.  The two men drive to the bagel store but cannot find Mr. Tankleff.  (Joseph Graydon);

5) Spring of 1989:  Jerry Steuerman admits that he 'already killed two people and it wouldn’t matter' if he did it again.  (Neil Fisher);

6) 1990 or 1991:  Brian Glass states that he was asked to kill the Tankleffs but he passed the job to Creedon. (Mark Callahan);

7) Easter 1991 or 1992: Joseph Creedon admits that he killed the Tankleffs after waiting in the bushes and watching the card game. (Karlene Kovacs);

8) The mid 1990s:  Joseph Creedon states that he knows Marty is innocent because Creedon killed the Tankleffs himself.  (...a “reliable” government informant);

9) 1990 or 1991:  Todd Steuerman states that Marty did not kill his parents.  Todd admits that his father had some of his 'friends' do it. (Bruce Demps);

10) August 2003: Glenn Harris admits that he drove Peter Kent and Joseph Creedon to the Tankleff residence. Immediately thereafter Kent and Creedon left the house covered in blood, discarded a pipe (a pipe has been found) and burned their clothes.  (Glenn Harris);

11) 1999:  Billy Ram tells his girlfriend and family about a man he knows to be innocent but was nonetheless wrongly convicted of murder. (Heather Paruta); and

12) October 2005:  Billy ram admits that Joseph Creedon, Peter Kent and Glen Harris were at his house the night of the Tankleff murders and left his house to go to Belle Terre to 'take care of a Jew in the bagel business.'  (Billy Ram)"

The Duty of a Prosecutor...
Suffolk County District Attorney Thomas Spota's message on his Web site begins by quoting American Bar Association Standards Relating to the Prosecution Function: "The duty of a prosecutor is to seek justice, not merely to convict."