NEW TACTICS LED TO ACQUITTAL IN LETELIER CASE

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP90-00552R000403680028-2
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: July 22, 2010
• Sequence Number: 28
• Publication Date: June 1, 1981
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

STAT
Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2010/07/22 : CIA-RDP90-00552R000403680028-2
By Laura-A- Kiernan
Wnsb1ngtonPoet8trr2Wrf er -
On Feb. 14, 1979, Guillermo Novo Sampol be-
leved he would be convicted of murder and con-
spiracy in the car-bombing assassination of for-
r:er Chilean ambassador Orlando Letelier and his
young aids Ronni Karpen Moffitt.:
"It's sure that they screwed us," he said-.
Spanish to friends in the hushed courtroom mo
ments before the jury returned a verdict.
"Viva Cuba:" shouted Novo's codefendant Alvin
Rozsa Diaz, his fist raised, after the jury foreman
confirmed the verdict Novo thought was coming:
guilty on all counts.
On Saturday, those two men -spared from
life prison terms and granted. a new trial by the
U.S. Court of Appeals - heard that -a second
jury had reached the opposite conclusion. "Not
g,_rilty," foreman Catherine Nicholson calmly re-
nested 10 times over the muffled sobs of Ross'
wife and Novo's girlfriend. The jury convicted
Novo only on two charges of making false state-
ments to a grand jury. Novo and Ross are mem-
bers of the anti-Castro Cuban Nationalist Move-
ment based in northern New Jersey.
The stunning reversal concluded a three-week
retrial that was distinctly different from the orig-
inal - there was new ; evidence; new defense
strategy and tactics; a' new,. more highly educated,
younger
__..jury-, and prosecution witnesses from:the.
first trial who were, banned from the second.
Even before the verdict was announced, these
changes had convinced prosecution and defense
lawyers that the retrial was a "real horse race."_ .
Defense lawyers Paul A. Goldberger and Law-
rence A. Dubin completely`changed their then
about who had orchestrated the Letelier murder
Instead of blaming the U.S. Central Intelligen
Agency, as they did unsuccessfully in the first trial, they blamed Letelier's' murder on the
Chilean government; its secret police, once known
as DINA, and on Michael Vernon Townley, the
key prosecution witness.s-_i:,.;.:_,:.... _.,
THE v1ASHINS!.J POST
1 June 1981
Townley, an American-born- DINA agent, tes- The-' prosecution's -ca.Qe , remained
titled that he recruited the. Cubans to help hun basically the same, except for testimo-
nc
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nts
say a
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g. aww
DNA superiors. Letelier, an outspoken critic of! Novo and Ross had alle wiry marls.
the military government of Chilean President Au- about the Letelier murder to fellow
gusto.Pinochet, had been labeled an enemy of the inmates at a New York City jaiL This.,
country and- targeted for murder, Townley told testimony was prohibited by the ap-
the jury. 17 peals court.
The . defense, now given a second chance to Despite changes in, evidence, strat-
attack Townley's story, said Townley was lying tol egy and witnesses, the defense lawyers I
protect himself. They argued that Townley had : considered jury selection- the most.
ecauseof
implicated the. Cubans to shield the Pinochet,~ the important part complexities of the trial.
government. I
"If ,you "_ don't swallow Townley," said defense } intricate murder. plot, which included
phony names and passports, aborted i
-,lawyer Dubin yesterday, "You don't i : schemes, clandestine meetings and the,
'swallow the case." .- ' grisly assassination itself; the under-,;:
The turning point in the defense's lying political intrigue and the shad;
assault on Townley's credibility came owy cast of characters - the lawyer3
when they convinced Judge Barring- I looked for jurors who could penetrate
ton D. Parker to allow the jury to. the flaws in the government's case.
hear evidence he had:-not allowed ate
the first trial about a taped telephone
.conversation between Townley and a
friend in Santiago, Chile.'
On the tape, the jury heard Town
ley tell his friend that he would re-
cruit people to threaten Parker so the'
judge would -remove himself from the
The tape was given to the defense
during the first trial by an attorney
for Juan Manuel Contreras Sepulveda,
the former head 'of DINA, who was
indicted in the Letelier case with two
,.other DINA officials, all of whom
Chile refused to extradite for trial.
Parker, however, refused to allow the
tape to be heard at the first trial, a
decision the appeals court ' said was
wrong. At the retrial, Parker refused
to let the prosecution explain that the
tape had come from Chile, that its
source was unknown, or that it had
been passed - along by an attome .
;'working for the. ormer head of DINAJ
They found them in a government
lawyer, a man with a prestigious grad
uate degree in business; an investiga-
tor for the local Alcoholic Beverage
Control board and a jury foreman
with an Ivy-League college degree.
"We just wanted some smart peo
pie," Dubin said.
When that jury returned from 17
hours of deliberations, 10 deputy U.S.
marshals were posted at the entrances
W the courtroom and beside the two
defendants. This time, however, when
the decision, was announced, - the
marshals stepped: aside. '
Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2010/07/22 : CIA-RDP90-00552R000403680028-2