Witness: Ex-con admitted role in Tankleff deaths

By Zachary R. Dowdy | Staff Writer

July 22, 2004

As Joseph Creedon smoked marijuana with friends one Easter in the early 1990s, he mentioned in passing that he had hidden in Arlene and Seymour Tankleff's bushes a few years before and bludgeoned the couple later that night, according to testimony by a woman who said she heard the statement.

"I was so scared I didn't even want to discuss it," said Karlene Kovacs, who testified she was sharing a joint with her then-boyfriend, John Guarascio, and Creedon on Easter in either 1990 or 1991, when Creedon allegedly said he played a key role in the notorious Sept. 7, 1988, Tankleff killings. "I pretended I didn't hear it," she added.

Kovacs testified before Suffolk County Court Judge Stephen L. Braslow at a hearing that will determine whether the slain Belle Terre couple's son, Martin Tankleff, will be granted a new trial based on new evidence that has emerged since he was convicted of the crimes in 1990.

He is serving a sentence of 50 years to life.

During questioning by Tankleff attorney Barry Pollack, Kovacs said the conversation occurred at Guarascio's sister's home, which Kovacs thought was in Farmingville. Guarascio's sister, Theresa Covais, is the mother of two of Creedon's children.

In this weeklong hearing in Riverhead, Kovacs offered the first eyewitness account of events the defense says links Creedon to the crime. Her testimony came a day after Creedon denied in court any connection to the crime or to anyone associated with it.

"He said something about his adrenaline pumping and they had to burn their clothes and they had to get out of town," Kovacs testified, recalling the day Creedon allegedly admitted his role to her.

Her claim jibes with testimony expected this week from Glenn Harris, a former Creedon accomplice in other crimes who has claimed he drove Creedon and Peter Kent to the Belle Terre home on the night of the murders.

The testimony comes 10 years after Kovacs submitted an affidavit saying the same thing - that she had heard Creedon make admissions to the crime. She came forward to Suffolk prosecutors after relating her story to a private investigator uninvolved in the case. She said nothing was done to investigate the claim. Suffolk prosecutors have said they did not find Creedon's supposed admission credible.

Kovacs last year took and passed a lie detector test requested by Tankleff's attorneys, she testified, adding, "I had nothing to lie about."

Harris told private investigator Jay Salpeter that Creedon and Kent killed the Tankleffs for bagel store operator Jerry Steuerman, a business partner of Seymour Tankleff who owed him hundreds of thousands of dollars.

Testimony from Tankleff's 1990 trial showed that Steuerman was at the Tankleff home the night they were killed, and was the last player to leave a poker game that night. Creedon testifed Tuesday that he had worked for Jerry Steuerman's son, Todd, but that he had never met or spoken to Jerry Steuerman.

Kovacs also testified yesterday that Creedon said he was with "a Steuerman" during the crime. But Suffolk Assistant District Attorney Leonard Lato drew testimony from Kovacs suggesting she doesn't recall clearly which Steuerman it was that Creedon allegedly mentioned. "Is it your testimony that it could have been Todd Steuerman?" he asked on cross-examination.

"Could have been," she replied. After Kovacs' testimony, defense attorneys Bruce Barket and Pollack called an expert on "false confessions."

Richard Ofshe, a sociologist at the University of California at Berkeley, said he thought the confession police say they got from Tankleff was flawed, corroborating defense claims at trial that the statement was coerced.

Ofshe said that's because the alleged confession differs from key forensic facts.