Tankleff hearing ends

Judge to rule whether bid for new trial in parents' murders is warranted

BY ZACHARY R. DOWDY | STAFF WRITER

February 5, 2005

Nearly eight months after it began, the hearing to determine whether Martin Tankleff should get a new trial in the 1988 murder of his parents ended Friday with testimony from a prosecution investigator who gathered evidence to block Tankleff's bid.

Both sides claimed the hearing bore out their versions of the facts in the case, with Suffolk prosecutor Leonard Lato saying he is convinced Tankleff is guilty while Tankleff's attorneys said the hearing proves others killed Tankleff's parents, Seymour and Arlene Tankleff.

Investigator Walter Warkenthien testified in Suffolk County Court in Riverhead during cross-examination that he did not interview certain witnesses who supported Tankleff's claims of innocence and that he wired two jailhouse informants who tried to capture on tape statements to contradict a Tankleff witness' sworn affidavit.

Warkenthien, in his testimony before Judge Stephen L. Braslow, also said he took his orders from Suffolk County District Attorney Thomas Spota.

Braslow will in the next few months decide whether to grant Tankleff a new trial.

Attorneys for Tankleff, who is serving a 50-years-to-life sentence for the murders, said after the hearing that Warkenthien's testimony shows Spota has been directing the case despite the fact that he vowed to play no role in it.

"I was stunned," said Bruce Barket of Garden City, who said Warkenthien labored to discredit and intimidate Tankleff's witnesses when he started investigating in 2003. "This is the same Thomas Spota who said he appointed Lato and that he was erecting a Chinese wall between himself and the case."

But Lato said Warkenthien was merely appointed by Spota. Warkenthien actually reported directly to Lato during the hearing, Lato said.

"Tom Spota simply made him available to me and I was the one who told him what to do," Lato said.

Spota once represented Suffolk Homicide Det. James McCready, who wrote out a confession from Tankleff that the defendant said was fictitious. Warkenthien's testimony renewed Tankleff's attorneys' concerns that Spota was more interested in defending a conviction won by an old client than in seeking justice.

Tankleff's attorneys claim the Belle Terre couple was killed by Peter Kent and Joseph Creedon on orders from Jerry Steuerman, a business partner of Seymour Tankleff who owed Tankleff hundreds of thousands of dollars. All three men deny involvement in the crime.

That version of the crime first emerged in an affidavit submitted by Glenn Harris, who claimed he drove Kent and Creedon to and from the Tankleff home that night. A portion of it had been corroborated by a 1994 sworn statement by Karlene Kovacs, who said she heard Creedon admit to the crime in the early 1990s.

Tankleff was convicted of the murders in 1990.

Warkenthien interviewed Kovacs and Harris in October 2003, but he told Harris he could change places with Tankleff if his story were true. Tankleff's attorneys said that was an attempt to intimidate Harris into believing he would spend the rest of his life in prison.

Braslow said Tankleff's attorneys have until March 11 to submit a summary of their claims and that Lato has until April 15 to respond.

Barket and Pollack may respond to that by April 29 and Braslow will issue a decision in the following weeks.