Re: [A-List] May 18, 2002

[Lucio Flávio Rodrigues de Almeida <lubejo@xxxxxxxx>]

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----- Original Message -----
From: "Charles Brown" <CharlesB@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
To: <a-list@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Tuesday, May 28, 2002 10:30 AM
Subject: [A-List] May 18, 2002


May 18, 2002


New York State Board of Parole
97 Central Avenue
Albany, NY 12206

To Whom It May Concern:

I am writing to urge  the New York State Board of
Parole to grant clemency or parole to Anthony Bottom
(#77A4283) when he comes before the board in July. A
fundamental principle of the U.S. judicial system is
that it dispenses blind justice. "Lady Justice" was
clearly blinded during the prosecution of Mr. Bottom
and his co-defendants, Herman Bell and the late Albert
Nuh Washington, who were convicted of the May, 1971,
first degree murders of  New York City police Officers
Joseph Piagentini and Waverly Jones.

I  have followed this case since its inception.
Working as a news reporter during the 1970's, I
frequently wrote about the Black Liberation Movement,
in which Mr. Bottom and his co-defendants (known as
the New York Three) were activists. Currently, I am a
journalism professor and a freelance journalist.
Rarely during the thirty years that I  have reported
on courtroom trials have I come across the commission
of so many egregious acts of judicial and
prosecutorial misconduct as those which took place
during the trial of the New York Three.  The following
facts have led me to conclude that Mr. Bottom  has
spent nearly thirty-one years in prison for a crime he
did not commit.

1. According to information revealed during the 1976
congressional hearings of the U.S. Senate Intelligence
Committee, in August, 1967, the  FBI expanded its
Counterintelligence Program (COINTELPRO) against
social justice activists to include the illegal
repression of activists in the Black Liberation
Movement (BLM). With the help of the news media, the
FBI  falsely branded BLM activists as "terrorists."
The Senate Intelligence Committee's investigation
uncovered information that  the Black Panther Party
was the primary target of the FBI  COINTELPRO campaign
against the Black Liberation Movement. The New York
Three were members of the Black Panther Party. Their
names and those of several other BPP members appeared
in various COINTELPRO documents.

2. FBI documents reveal that on May 26, 1971, five
days after the police officers were killed, FBI
Director J. Edgar Hoover met secretly at the White
House with President Richard Nixon; his
domestic advisor, John Erlichman; and members of the
Watergate "plumbers." They discussed the
shootings of the police officers, and Hoover was
authorized to solve the case, using the code name
NEWKILL (New York killings). There is sufficient
evidence to believe that the White House and the FBI
conspired to frame members of the Black Panther Party
for the shootings of Officers Piagentini and Jones.
The prosecution concealed the secret White House
meeting from the defense, and the Nixon Library has
withheld  the taped recordings of the  meeting from
defense attorneys.

3.  Documents obtained by the defense under the
Freedom of Information Act show that the prosecution
concealed an FBI ballistics report which showed that
the gun in Mr. Bottom's  possession when he was
arrested, which was introduced at  the trial as the
murder weapon, was not the gun used to kill Officers
Piagentini and Jones. Defense attorneys also learned
that the ballistics expert of the New York Police
Department who testified at the trial committed
perjury*with the knowledge of the prosecutor. Mr.
Bottom was convicted on false evidence. For this
reason alone, he should be released from prison.

4. Prosecutors  threatened two women, who were
friends of the New York Three, with losing custody of
their young children if they did not falsely testify
against the men. The women were jailed for almost a
year.

5. Mr. Bell was arrested in New Orleans almost two
years after the shootings. In an effort to get  his
friend and co-worker,  Ruben Scott, to implicate Mr.
Bell in the shootings, New Orleans police beat  Mr.
Scott  unconscious. During questioning by New York
police officers, Mr. Scott was tortured with an
electric cattle prod, and needles were placed on his
testicles. Fearing for his life and promised that he
would not have to serve time on a pending murder
charge, Mr. Scott fabricated information used to
implicate Mr. Bell in the shootings. Later, Mr. Scott
told the trial judge, Edward Greenfield, that  he (Mr.
Scott) had lied about Mr. Bell's involvement because
he was tortured by the police.  Instead of protecting
Mr. Scott by  removing him from police custody, Judge
Greenfield sent him back to jail and told prosecutors
that Mr. Scott was wavering in his testimony. The
judge did not tell defense attorneys about his
conversation with Mr. Scott for five weeks.
Furthermore, the judge later tried to suppress the
entire matter and refused to hold a hearing on Mr.
Scott's recantation of his trial testimony.

6.  Late in the trial, defense attorneys learned that
Judge Greenfield gave the prosecution permission to
alter a fingerprint found on a car parked near the
shootings. The prosecution  claimed that the
fingerprint belonged to Mr. Bell, despite testimony
from two police witnesses that another print found on
the same car could not be identified.

7.  According to the FBI,  a drug dealer confessed to
having the police officers killed. The prosecution did
not share this information with defense attorneys.

8. Judge Greenfield  refused to declare a mistrial
after a juror reported receiving threatening phone
calls, nor would he allow defense attorneys to ask
other jurors if they had received threats.

9. New York Police officers arrested a prostitute who
claimed she knew who killed Officers Piagentini and
Jones. Her name was never given to the defense.

FBI documents have revealed  that framing Black
Liberation Movement activists  on false criminal
charges was a favorite tactic of the FBI COINTELPRO.
During the late 1960's and 1970's, Mr. Bottom, Mr.
Bell and Mr. Washington  were among several young
African-American men and women who were victims of
these vicious frame-ups.

As a teen-ager over thirty years ago,  Mr. Bottom
committed  his life to organizing against the racism
and oppression of black and  poor people in the United
States. His commitment has caused him to spend over
half of his life in prison for a crime he did not
commit. Having exhausted all of his legal appeals, Mr.
Bottom  now must rely on the parole board in order to
win his freedom. In the interest of justice*justice
that is long overdue*I urge the board to grant Mr.
Bottom clemency or parole.