Witness keeps quiet

Man key to defense case pleads the Fifth, frustrating Tankleff kin as DA refuses to grant him immunity to testify

By Zachary R. Dowdy | Staff Writer

July 27, 2004

The star witness for the defense team seeking a new trial for Martin Tankleff declined to testify yesterday about the 1988 murders of Arlene and Seymour Tankleff, a major blow to Tankleff's latest attempt at freedom.

"I concur with my attorney," Glenn Harris said when asked about Joseph Creedon, the Selden man who defense attorneys Bruce Barket of Garden City and Barry Pollack of Washington say helped kill the Belle Terre couple. "I'm invoking my Fifth Amendment right not to incriminate myself."

A collective gasp filled the courtroom, occupied mostly by Tankleff's relatives, when Harris began to evade questions.

It was the latest in a series of dramatic moments in a days- long hearing to determine whether Tankleff, 32, will have his 1990 conviction vacated. Defense attorneys say Harris' testimony is the glue that connects new evidence that could persuade a future jury to acquit Tankleff, but no jury will hear the case unless Suffolk County Court Judge Stephen Braslow decides the defense has presented sufficient new evidence.

The lack of the much-anticipated testimony - Harris had been expected to provide direct evidence of his own role and the roles of two other people in the slayings - weakened the drive to free Tankleff.

It came, though, as two other witnesses, a confidential informant and Bruce Demps, who served in state prison with Tankleff, implicated others.

The confidential informant, whose name was not revealed in court, said Creedon admitted to him in a conversation in a bar that "the kid," Tankleff, was innocent and that Creedon killed the couple. Demps said Todd Steuerman told him his father, Jerry, did just that. Barket and Pollack have said Jerry Steuerman, a business parter of Seymour Tankleff who owed him hundreds of thousands of dollars, ordered Creedon to commit the crime.

Harris and his attorney, Richard Barbuto of Mineola, invoked the right against self-incrimination about a dozen times. His reticence frustrated the defense, coming after he had given detailed information suggesting Tankleff's innocence in dozens of letters, interviews and an affidavit during the past 17 months.

He had told the defense he drove Creedon and another man, Peter Kent, to the scene of the crime, and that the men stayed in the home for about a half hour, emerged with blood on them and discarded a pipe on the grounds of a nearby home.

The latest bombshell sparked a backlash among Tankleff's relatives against Suffolk District Attorney Thomas Spota. They said Spota won't grant "use immunity" to Harris because he is more interested in defending the conviction than in revealing what they called the truth of Tankleff's innocence.

Barket said that protection would allow Harris to testify without fear of having his statements used against him, in case he is ever charged with his role in the murders. That immunity does not protect him from prosecution for perjury, however.

In court yesterday, Assistant District Attorney Leonard Lato said he would not grant immunity when Barket made a motion for the court to compel the district attorney's office to offer it.

Braslow said he was not going to "step in the shoes of the district attorney" and declined to force Spota's office to grant immunity to Harris.

Lato explained later that Harris has refused to meet with him in a "proffer session," at which Harris would get immunity for a day to say what he knows about the case. Afterward, if Lato felt the information was worthwhile he could offer "use immunity" for the hearing.

Relatives of Tankleff, who filled nearly every seat in the courtroom on what was to be the most important day of testimony, were angered by what one termed Lato's "hubris."

"It's just sickening," said Ruth Tankleff, Seymour's sister-in-law. "I feel terrible for Marty. They're doing everything in their power to keep Marty in jail." Barket and others called Lato's position "almost hypocritical," because he claims Martin Tankleff committed the murders while impeding testimony from a witness who could show otherwise.

Barket said Harris receives threats from all sides. Harris was approached by an inmate at Suffolk County jail who said that Kent "knows where your children live," according to Barket.

Harris was also told by an investigator for the prosecution that if his affidavit is true, he could switch places with Tankleff, who has a 50-years-to-life sentence, Barket said. "Mr. Harris has been afraid for some time about being prosecuted for the murders," Barket said.