Marty Tankleff Blog

Snapshot: Leonard Lubrano

Testified that years before the murders, when he distributed  wholesale bakery products, he frequently saw Detective James McCready with Jerry Steuerman in the bagel stores.  He testified that later, still before the murders, McCready frequented his pizza restaurant, where he sometimes bought food for his crew on his construction side-business.  Lubrano said McCready mentioned at the time that he did construction work on one of Steuerman’s businesses.  This testimony, if true, means that McCready perjured himself at Marty's original trial when he testified that he had never met Steuerman before the murders.  A watch buff, Lubrano recalled being impressed by McCready's Rolex. 

Snapshot: Billy Ram

Testified that Joey "Guns" Creedon, Peter Kent, and Glenn Harris met at his house the evening of  the Tankleff murders, and that Creedon asked Ram to go with him to “straighten  somebody out.” According to Ram, Creedon said he was working for  “somebody in the bagel business,” and they would be going to  “straighten out” his partner, “a Jew in the bagel business.” Ram refused  to join in the job, and also refused to lend Creedon his mother’s car, a  recent model that would not look out of place in Belle Terre, where the  Tankleffs lived. The next day, Ram testified, Harris came by his house again and told him, nervously, about what had transpired the night before.  Last year Ram was surreptitiously recorded by Kent at the behest of the Suffolk County DA in an attempt to discredit Ram's testimony.  Since before Tankleff filed his motion for a hearing in October of 2003, Ram has been on lifetime parole; yet despite his being mentioned in the first line of Harris's affidavit, the Suffolk DA never tried to contact him to investigate Harris's claims.  At the time he testified, Ram said he had a legitimate sales job.  Ram's girlfriend testified at the hearing that years ago, Ram had told her he knew Marty was innocent because he had firsthand knowledge of who murdered the Tankleffs.  Ram was apprehensive about coming forward, but she talked him into it, she testified.  “I told him he could do the right thing, could do something good for somebody…because there’s an innocent man in jail and he should help him get out.”  A couple of months after he testified, Ram was arrested and charged with a string of armed robberies in Florida over the course of a day, reportedly saying at one point, "They're looking for me.  I've got nothing to lose."  The day ended, according to news reports, with Ram in the back seat of a taxi surrounded by police.  Police said Ram then allegedly brandished a gun, was shot three times by police, then shot himself. 

Snapshot: Bruce Demps

Jail mate of Todd Steuerman's.  Demps testified last year and wrote in a 1997 affidavit that Todd told him in prison that he knew Marty didn't murder his parents, because friends of his father--Jerry Steuerman--did it. Demps testified that Todd said "money was the problem," with Jerry owing Seymour money but not being able to pay.  Following his testimony, Suffolk authorities kept Demps in the Suffolk County jail--which is under state sanction for over-crowding--for five months without explanation, during which he missed enrollment in an early-release program, changing his prison release date from June 2005 to June 2015. 

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. 

Snapshot: Todd Steuerman

Jerry Steuerman’s son. Convicted of dealing cocaine out of his father’s  bagel store prior to the Tankleff murders. Suffolk DA Thomas Spota's small law firm defended Todd in that case.  According to a confidential defense witness, Todd  admitted that “local police officers were paid not to interfere with the  drug business.”  Allegedly shot Joey "Guns" Creedon, his drug-money collector, in the arm for refusing to cut out Marty Tankleff’s tongue at the behest of his father.   According to the 1997 affidavit of Bruce Demps, Todd said he “knew  for a fact” that Martin Tankleff did not commit these crimes because the  murders were committed by friends of his father’s. 

Snapshot: Jay Salpeter

Private investigator for Marty Tankleff, who uncovered new evidence by following leads never explored by Suffolk County law enforcement. Using Karlene Kovacs's early 90s sworn affidavit regarding Joey "Guns" Creedon as a starting point, Salpeter tracked down one of Creedon's criminal associates, Glenn Harris.  Harris told Salpeter that he was the getaway driver for Creedon and Peter Kent the night of the Tankleff murders, and he led Salpeter to the location where he said Creedon threw a metal pipe. Salpeter later searched the site and found a pipe fitting the description.  Former decorated New York City homicide detective.  Now working pro bono for Marty. 

Snapshot: Joseph Graydon

Came forward after coming across a news report about the evidentiary hearing in 2004; he was surprised that Glenn Harris's statement had not already led to Marty's freedom.  Graydon testified to partnering with Joey "Guns" 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.  Graydon then went through his garbage to find the name of one of Marty's lawyers, Bruce Barket, got his number through directory assistance and called him. 

Snapshot: Walter Warkenthien

Suffolk County DA Thomas Spota's investigator in the Tankleff case, Walter Warkenthien is a former colleague of Detective James McCready. Admitted he told Glenn Harris that if his allegations were true he could be “trading  places with Marty."  According to sworn affidavits by eyewitnesses, threatened to arrest Joseph Guarascio, the 17-year-old son of Joey "Guns" Creedon, if he did not immediately talk to him about his claim that his father had confessed to him details of his involvement in the Tankleff murders. According to Billy Ram's lawyer, Warkenthien offered legal help if Ram would testify that Tankleff’s legal team bribed him to perjure himself at the hearing.

Snapshot: Karlene Kovacs

In the early 90s, signed a sworn affidavit and passed a polygraph regarding her conversation with Joey "Guns" Creedon in which he told  her that he and a Steuerman were involved in the Tankleff murders.  She says Creedon told her they hid in the bushes and that afterward “they were full of blood and had to get rid of their clothes.”   A serious and competent investigation would have uncovered Creedon's ties to Todd Steuerman and Jerry Steuerman.  Instead, Creedon merely denied his involvement to police, who took him at his word. 

Snapshot: Glenn Harris

Signed a sworn affidavit, passed a polygraph and confided in a priest and a nun that he drove Joey "Guns" Creedon and Peter Kent to the Tankleff residence the night of the murders for what Harris thought at the time was going to be a burglary; that the two returned to the car some 20 minutes later  out of breath and with bloody clothes; that on the way out of the neighborhood they discarded a pipe in a wooded area where defense investigator Jay Salpeter subsequently searched and found a single pipe fitting the description; and that he later saw Kent burning his clothes. His story was corroborated by several other witnesses, including Karlene Kovacs, who had heard Creedon tell a similar version of the story a decade earlier; Billy Ram, a friend of Harris's who testified that Creedon, Kent and Harris were at his house the night of the Tankleff murders and left to go to Belle Terre to "take care of a Jew in the bagel business."  The Suffolk County DA refused to give Harris "use immunity," whereby he could still be prosecuted for his part in the Tankleff murders, but not on his in-court testimony at the hearing.  Incarcerated on a parole violation, Harris was brought by prosecutors down to the Suffolk County jail, which at the time was 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, there was a newspaper opened to a Tankleff article on his cot, and that guards beat him up. 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.  Harris took the fifth after the DA's investigator, Walter Warkenthien, intimidated Harris by telling him he could trade places with Marty if he testified, and after Harris reported having received death threats. In late January, Harris was reported missing by his family.