By Matt O’Connor, Chicago Tribune
Steven Manning, who was freed following nearly 14 years in prison after separate convictions for murder and kidnapping were overturned, was framed by two FBI agents who invented evidence and manipulated witnesses, an attorney for Manning alleged Tuesday.
In opening remarks to a federal jury at a trial stemming from Manning’s lawsuit, attorney Jon Loevy contended the case was about “abuse of government power” and suggested that the FBI had retaliated after Manning quit as an informant in 1986.
But Assistant U.S. Atty. Jonathan Haile, representing Special Agents Robert Buchan and Gary Miller, maintained that Manning’s convictions were overturned because of mistakes made at trials by prosecutors and judges, not investigators.
Haile also told jurors there was no evidence that the two agents had a personal vendetta against Manning, a former police officer.
Manning took the witness stand later Tuesday and testified about the trauma he suffered when he said as many as 30 FBI agents, some toting automatic weapons, arrested him in 1990 on charges of kidnapping two drug dealers in Missouri.
“I thought I was going to be killed,” said Manning, recounting the scene as his car pulled out from the garage at his condominium in Arlington Heights. “I relive this constantly.”
While Manning was held in Cook County Jail, authorities used Tommy Dye--described by Loevy as being from “the Hall of Fame of jailhouse snitches"--to try to get Manning to confess to the kidnapping as well as to the 1990 murder of James Pellegrino in Cook County.
Dye, who wore a hidden recorder, claimed that Manning admitted killing Pellegrino, the owner of a trucking firm, during a two-second inaudible gap in the recording.
But in a recent deposition for this lawsuit, Dye refused to answer when asked if he had told the truth about Manning’s confession during the inaudible portion, citing his 5th Amendment right against self-incrimination, Loevy said.
In the deposition, Dye also alleged for the first time that the FBI allowed him to have sex in its office in the Dirksen U.S. Courthouse “to keep him interested in the project,” Loevy said.
In addition, Dye has charged that the FBI paid him more than $40,000 in connection with his cooperation against Manning, about $8,000 more than had been disclosed to attorneys at the time, Loevy said.
Haile contended that Loevy wants it both ways with Dye--calling him an unreliable con man but now relying on his recent sworn statements as truthful.
Haile also defended the two agents’ investigative tactics, pointing out that they had Dye wear a wire in hopes of corroborating his claims.
“They did that because they were trying to find the truth,” Haile said.
Haile also questioned why Buchan and Miller would risk losing “their honor and dignity” by manufacturing false evidence against someone they hadn’t even met.
Manning testified that a third FBI agent had gone “ballistic” when Manning quit as an informant one day after a man he was giving information to the FBI about was murdered. Manning called Dye’s claim he confessed during the two-second inaudible gap “an absolute fabrication.”
Manning also testified that when he was moved to a Missouri jail on the kidnapping charge he was held in solitary confinement for five to six months in a small concrete-encased cell.
“It’s designed to drive you crazy,” he said. “It’s beyond your imagination.”