New look at Martin Tankleff trial

Over 10 warm spring weeks in 1990, 12 men and women gathered in a stuffy courtroom to sit in judgment of a Belle Terre student charged in one of the most horrific crimes Suffolk County had ever known.

After deliberating for eight days, the Riverhead jury convicted Martin Tankleff, then 19, of murdering his mother, Arlene, and father, Seymour.

Tankleff had served 17 years of a 50-years-to life sentence when an appellate court overturned his conviction last December, swayed in part by considerable new evidence of the involvement of other possible suspects.

Tankleff is still waiting to hear from state prosecutors to see whether they intend to dismiss the charges or retry him. Prosecutors with the state attorney general's office, which took over the case from Suffolk District Attorney Thomas Spota in January, are expected to announce whether they intend to dismiss all charges against Tankleff, 36, or retry him.

Through the years, the complex case has been reduced to a simple shorthand, easily summarized in the thousands of stories about it: Tankleff says he was forced to confess and that the real killer was his father's business partner, who owed Seymour Tankleff hundreds of thousands of dollars.

But the transcript of the trial, analyzed by Newsday over several weeks, offers insights and perspectives largely unexplored in recent news accounts of the case.

Officials in the Suffolk district attorney's office, including the case's prosecutor, John Collins -- now the office's chief trial prosecutor -- declined to comment pending a decision from the attorney general on Tankleff's charges. The three detectives who investigated the case and testified, and the trial's judge, Alfred Tisch, also declined to comment.

THE SETTING

Although it wasn't presented to the jury, the allegations of police misconduct that were at the heart of Tankleff's defense echoed many similar complaints that plagued the department for years, and were the subject of a nearly 200-page State Investigation Commission report released just a year earlier.

The commission, which noted that it received "more than twice as many" allegations of misconduct in the Suffolk police department and district attorney's office as any other county in the state, blasted the county's law enforcement agencies for having a mindset that "You do what you've got to do in order to arrest and convict."

The same report criticized Suffolk for relying on confessions at the expense of taking "routine investigative steps."

The State Investigation Commission's probe was one of a half dozen probes into allegations of misconduct and corruption in the police department around the time, including those conducted by a grand jury, the Suffolk County Bar Association and one commissioned by the county executive. All found significant problems in the department.

Tankleff's arrest and subsequent confession also came two years after Newsday published a series of investigative stories dealing with Suffolk police's 94 percent confession rate in homicide cases from 1976 to 1986 -- a rate significantly higher than in comparable counties. In its report, the commission said the rate was "so astonishingly high ... that, in and of itself, it provokes skepticism regarding Suffolk County's use of confessions."

Amid the public lambasting, in 1989 District Attorney Patrick Henry announced he would not run for re-election. That opened the door for Tankleff's defense attorney, Robert Gottlieb, to run as the Democratic candidate. It was only after completing pre-trial hearings in the Tankleff case that Gottlieb learned that the case's judge, Alfred Tisch, was being considered for the Republican nomination.

Gottlieb demanded that Tisch remove himself from the case, but Tisch refused. GOP party leaders ultimately backed James Catterson Jr., who went on to defeat Gottlieb.

EVIDENCE AND REASONABLE DOUBT"All this time, Marty was just screaming, 'murder, murder,' and I just ran after him," said one of the first witnesses in the trial, the Tankleffs' neighbor Morton Hova.

Collins asked if, despite Tankleff's screams, Hova ever saw him cry.

"No, I didn't see him cry," he responded.

Prosecutors relied on three types of evidence, much of it circumstantial, in making a case against Tankleff: his disputed confession, testimony intended to establish a motive for Tankleff to commit the crime and show his lack of emotion to his parents' deaths, and forensic evidence, which defense attorneys said more clearly pointed away from Tankleff than toward him.

Among the witnesses called by prosecutors were three young acquaintances of Tankleff who testified that weeks before the killings, they heard him talk about all the money he would inherit if his parents were dead and Tankleff's coworker at a bagel store, who said he witnessed what appeared to be an argument between Seymour and Martin days before the murders. And Belle Terre Bay Constable -- and Tankleff family friend -- Donald Hines testified that while talking to Tankleff at the scene, Tankleff looked up and "his eyes widened" when Hines told him that police were with his father in chase he awoke from his coma.

While questioning several witnesses who saw Tankleff immediately after the murders, Collins also zeroed in on Tankleff's unemotional state.

Defense attorney Robert Gottlieb scoffed at the conclusions police and prosecutors drew from the witnesses' testimony, and noted that several prosecution witnesses testified about Tankleff appearing "shocked," "hyper" and "excited" after discovering his parents.

Gottlieb also told jurors that the most accurate depiction of Tankleff's reaction to his parents' death could be heard in the taped 911 call, which was played for the jury. He could be heard pleading "Please" and "Hurry" as the operator tried to slow him down.

Gottlieb also noted that Tankleff mentioned only his father in his 911 call -- matching his claim that he discovered his mother's body later.

In addition, Gottlieb argued that other witnesses' testimony about rifts between Tankleff and his parents were taken out of context. Some of the same witnesses also testified that Tankleff had a loving relationship with his parents. Indeed, some said he was seen smiling and laughing with them the night before their deaths.

And even Collins noted in his summations that "all 17-year-olds do" is complain to their parents.

THE FORENSICS

"A piece of watermelon, I believe, a plate -- a paper plate ... [was] next to the knife, yes," Suffolk forensic scientist Robert Baumann testified.

"And the watermelon is pinkish in color, right?" Gottlieb asked.

"Yes, the central part, sure," he responded.

"And the color of this material [on the knife] you saw was what?" Gottlieb asked, zeroing in on what police said was the murder weapon. Later, however, tests for blood were negative.

"Pink."

Prosecutors also relied on forensic evidence that they said proved Tankleff's guilt. Much of it, however, dealt with what police didn't find -- no blood on a door handle and several phones that Tankleff touched after he said he aided his bleeding father, for example. Police said Tankleff confessed to killing his mother first and then attacked his father.

But Gottlieb offered a different perspective on the forensic evidence, which he said was definitive proof that Tankleff's supposed confession was false.

Police said that Tankleff confessed to being nude when he bludgeoned his parents with a barbell, stabbed them with a kitchen knife, and then washed himself and the murder weapons in the shower.

But lab results, which came back days after Tankleff's confession, found no traces of blood or human tissue on the sponge that police said Tankleff used, in any of the drains or traps in the various sinks and tubs in the house, on the disassembled barbell or on the disassembled knife. Scientists determined the substance on the knife wasn't blood, but it dissolved before it could be tested for anything else.

Gottlieb also noted that even though police said Tankleff confessed to showering after committing the killings, he still had a large patch of blood on his right shoulder under his shirt when he was questioned by police. "There's no way, if he had taken a shower ... that he would have missed that amount of blood," Gottlieb said.

Also, Seymour's blood was found in Arlene's room, indicating that he was attacked first, Gottlieb said. And tests conducted days after the confession found glove prints on the bloody lightswitch plate and the master bedroom's bedding. Nowhere in Tankleff's detailed confession did he mention using gloves.

In an acknowledgment that Tankleff's confession did not answer all the questions raised by the forensic evidence, Collins conceded that prosecutors were not contending that the confession was "completely true."

In addition, a defense hair expert testified that the hair identified as Arlene's near Seymour was more likely his own. Gottlieb also said blood was found on a towel in Martin's bedroom because he wiped his hands on it after aiding his father, and his mother's blood could have gotten on Martin's tissue as he walked around the house touching various items with a tissue in his hands, as police witnesses testified.

Tankleff's own nose had been consistently bleeding for weeks after he had a nose job, a doctor testified. Tankleff otherwise did not have any marks or scratches on him, despite forensic evidence that Arlene struggled with her killer.

Gottlieb suggested that part of the reason Tankleff did not get blood on various items in the house after aiding his father was that much of Seymour's blood was already dry -- indicating that he was attacked much earlier than an hour before police and rescue workers arrived, as Tankleff allegedly confessed. An EMT who responded to scene said much of the blood on Arlene and Seymour was crusted and clotting.

HE SAID, THEY SAID

Testimony from both the defendant and detectives established this much: After being questioned for more than an hour, Tankleff finally said, "Yeah, I did it." But the explanations of how that came to be uttered were vastly different.

The apparent admission came after Det. K. James McCready tricked Tankleff by telling him he had just received a phone call from a police officer who said Seymour Tankleff awoke from his coma and named his son as his attacker.

Det. Norman Rein and McCready both testified that the interview was conversational for about an hour, before McCready began getting more confrontational and asked Tankleff why he wasn't crying.

Using a common and legally acceptable tactic, McCready tried to trick Tankleff a few times, including by telling him that a "humidity test" proved he took a shower that morning and not the previous night as he claimed, and that his hair was found in his mother's hand.

Then McCready left to go to another room, and pretended to take a phone call. When he returned, he told Tankleff his father had woken from a coma and told police that Martin did it.

Tankleff still insisted he didn't do it, saying his father must have only said that because he was the last person he saw. His confession, according to Rein, began with Tankleff asking, "Could I have blacked out and done it? ... It's not likely it's me, but it's like another Tankleff that killed him ... Could I be possessed?"

The detectives only then read Tankleff his rights, and asked him again if he killed his parents. "Yeah, I did it," Tankleff said.

"I started believing them that I did do this," testified Tankleff, who said he was brought up to trust police. "They were saying my father said I did this. My father never lied to me."

The final product was a confession written by detectives, who said they captured the substance of Tankleff's words, and which was not signed by Tankleff. It mentioned only Arlene's slaying, as Tankleff's attorney stopped detectives before they could write about the attack on Seymour.

"It wasn't so much questioning. A lot of it was suggesting. ... Statements were made to me like, 'Well, you killed your mother first, didn't you?' " Tankleff testified. "When I said, 'No,' they said, 'Well, Marty, we don't want to hear 'I don't know.' Just say yes.' "

Detectives and Tankleff also testified about a phone conversation Tankleff had with his half-sister, Shari Rother, later than evening. According to Rein, Tankleff apologized to her -- not for killing his parents, but for telling police that he did so. He also told her he needed psychiatric help.

JERRY STEUERMAN

"Now that you know that Mr. Steuerman had changed his appearance and was traveling under a phony name, an alias, was he a suspect in this case at all?" Gottlieb asked Det. Sgt. Robert Doyle, who supervised the case.

"No, sir. He was not," Doyle replied.

Nearly as key a figure in the trial as the defendant himself was Jerry Steuerman, the business partner of Seymour Tankleff whom Tankleff and several family members immediately suspected of the killing.

In his testimony, Steuerman confirmed that his business relationship with Seymour had deteriorated in the weeks leading up the murders so badly that they were barely on speaking terms. Steuerman owed Seymour more than $500,000 and that amount was growing.

Some $50,000 of Steuerman's debt was owed the same week of the murders -- as shown by a promissory note found spattered with blood on Seymour's desk.

After the Tankleffs' deaths, Steuerman testified he never made any payments to their estate.

Prosecution witness Daniel Hayes, who owned a gym with Seymour Tankleff, testified that a "nervous" Steuerman came to the gym in the days after the slayings to ask if police had been around asking about Steuerman.

According to police and Steuerman, a week after the attacks -- with Seymour still alive and several weeks before he was given a do not resuscitate order - Steuerman visited his attorney to tell him about death threats he said he'd received, sent his son an ominous message about soon meeting with his deceased mother, checked into a hotel in Hauppauge under an alias and then parked his car across the street with the engine on, door open and a bracelet of his on the floor. Then he went into the hotel and shaved off his beard, took a bus to Atlantic City and from Atlantic City a limo to Newark Airport, flew across the country under a different name and checked into a psychiatric spa.

But Doyle said he never considered him a suspect because "I had a valid confession" from Tankleff.

In one of the trial's most emotional outbursts, Steuerman insisted while being cross examined, "I am no murderer. .. I did not do this. ... I should not be here."

Collins told jurors that while Steuerman may have pulled "one of the incredibly stupid stunts of all time," it should not create reasonable doubt about Tankleff's guilt.

"He's been shown to be many things," Collins said. "But I submit to you, a cold-blooded killer is not one of them."

WHAT THE JURY DIDN'T HEAR

Several pieces of evidence that defense attorneys said could have made a big difference in the trial were never presented to the jury.

Among them was a statement given to police by Joseph Creedon -- one of the men Tankleff's attorneys now claim carried out the killings -- in which he said that Steuerman's son Todd talked about his father looking for somebody to cut Martin Tankleff's tongue out of his mouth. Tisch ruled that the statement had "no relevance."

Jurors also never heard from Tankleff family attorney Myron Fox, who Tisch ruled was not credible. Fox would have testified that he told detectives at the scene of the crime that they could not question Tankleff.

Tisch also kept out testimony from several of Tankleff's relatives, who intended to testify about how Seymour and Arlene feared for their safety because of Steuerman. And Tisch did not allow Gottlieb to question McCready about the State Commission of Investigation finding that McCready deliberately gave false testimony in another murder trial that included accusations of a false confession.

Despite prosecutors' depiction of Tankleff as unemotional immediately after the slayings, Tisch repeatedly blocked Gottlieb's attempts to ask Tankleff about how he felt right after discovering his parents had been attacked, saying it was not "relevant."

LOOKING BACK

Nearly two decades since the jury's verdict of guilty came down, Tankleff said he remembers little about the shock he felt that day, other than the disbelief of the court officers as he turned over his property and was jailed.

"There was never a feeling that I'd end up in prison," Tankleff told Newsday in a recent interview. "I was a kid. You kind of had this belief that innocent people don't get put on. And if they do, the system works. They don't get found guilty."

Several jurors who could be reached for comment either declined to comment or did not return calls. Earlier this year, juror Victor Muglia said the jury may have reached a different verdict if they had known then what they do now. "The evidence we had was overwhelming," Muglia said. "It was a tough decision for everybody involved."

Gottlieb said even after having handled hundreds of cases in the years following Tankleff's trial, he was still "haunted" by the case.

"I was having trouble breathing," Gottlieb said, recalling the jury's verdict. Still, despite feeling, "devastated," Gottlieb said he never lost faith in his client's innocence.

"From the day of the verdict, I knew Marty was going to walk out," Gottlieb said. "The only question was whether or not I would be alive to see it."