The revelation in today’s Globe is pretty jaw dropping:
A federal inspection of the State Police crime laboratory completed in September found problems with the handling of DNA evidence that go beyond those that prompted the agency to suspend a civilian administrator and led to two sweeping reviews of the lab.
So we are belattedly learning that while Kerry Healey was savaging (or trying to) Deval Patrick last September and October for supporting Ben LaGuer‘s parole bids, the Romney/Healey administration sat on a report showing gross incompetence in the State’s DNA lab.
Remember, the entire basis of Healey’s attacks were that Patrick advocated the release of a man who it was later “proven” through DNA was indeed guilty. And let’s be very clear. The connection between LaGuer’s 2002 DNA test and the State crime lab is not at all trivial. By court order, LaGuer’s expert did his testing blind. This meant that it was up to the crime lab to catalogue and vouch for the integrity of the evidence. Gwen Pino, the wife of embattled administrator Robert Pino, signed the affidavits for testing to go forward. We now know that had she so much as read the chain of custody documents she would have known LaGuer’s personal items had been mixed in with the things she approved for testing. It was a deriliction of duty (I’ll settle for gross incompetence) for her not to warn the blind tester of the danger of contamination.
On top of that, crime lab employee Kellie Bogosian flew out to California at LaGuer’s expense to witness the testing. Actually, LaGuer didn’t have any money, so she really flew out at the expense of John Silber, Deval Patrick and others who wanted to see a fair and legitimate test. The Patrick administration is now doing the right thing in getting an outside auditor to look at how the crime lab functions. A government spokesperson told the Globe:
[Recent revelations] confirm the need for the comprehensive analysis that the Patrick administration announced last week. It has asked for proposals for an independent management consultant who would be paid up to $250,000 to evaluate all operations at the crime laboratory.
It is imperative that the LaGuer case be part of that review. Maybe then, Patrick will finally get his money’s worth from helping to support what turned out to be a botched test.
There is no doubt in my mind that Ben Laguer’s case in one of those few that needs to be reviewed as a possible misjustice. My problem is with the people of this state, and their ability to ignore the facts. Any one of the numerous discrepencies in this case would normally cause people to ask themselves what is going on, so why not this one? What is it about the Ben LaGuer case that makes people numb to the mountain of evidence uncovered on your site, benlaguer.com?
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Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. rightfully once said, “Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.”
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Without the public cry to see all the questions answered, how do we know we will get the justice we need when we need it?
The handling of the evidence in the Ben LaGuer case outraged us all. An investigation into the handling of the DNA evidence is long over due. However Ben LaGuer while convicted wrongly is a guilty man. We all have met very interesting people thought out the Patrick campaign this last couple of years. I met one such person who had been personally involved with Mr. LaGuer. I believe he had no axe to grind when he said Ben LaGuer was a brilliant and an amazing con man. That he methodical selected and studied the prominent people to champion him. That the DNA evidence was mishandled, but those close to the case knew he was guilty. I cannot identify this person who told me these things so the credibility of this post is in question. All I can say is if you met this person you might be writing what I am. I do not believe for one second the ends justify the means. To have any type of confidence in our states DNA or crime lab operations a compressive evaluation must take place.
Njord, I’m not sure which means and which ends you are talking about. As I understand it, from a legal standpoint Ben is guilty because a jury said he is. But I think a fair minded person would have to agree that the trial was fatally flawed. The withholding of a fingerprint report showing that someone other than LaGuer handled the base of a telephone, the cord of which was used to bind the victim’s wrists, is just the tip of the iceberg. If the integrity of our justice system means anything, Ben deserves a new trial. If he is actually guilty, as your unidentified source seems to think he is, then a new trial will bear that out. Sure, it will cost the commonwealth some money to mount that trial, but it will be a small price to pay for maintaining public faith in the integrity of the system.
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As one of those people who has championed Ben’s cause, let me respond to the heart of your post. As I related at length in a previous post, I am a journalist, and at the time I was drawn to this case I was in search of a good story. As I wrote:
That post goes on to detail some of the shoe leather investigation I did on the case. I urge you to read it. The view your unidentified confidant is expressing is pretty widely held, from what I can tell. It would be nice if you could give us a little information on where you and this person are coming from, and maybe even a detail or two on what you are basing this assessment on. I do applaud you, by the way, for seeing the need to review the DNA test. The point, as I see it, is that Ben has been able to do amazing things for a high school dropout who got thrown into prison at the age of 20. What I have found by investigating this case is that the resiliency of his claims is grounded in the underlying truth of what he is saying, not some preternatural ability to draw otherwise sophisticated people into is web.
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It is fitting to be writing this on Ground Hog Day. I have often thought of July 13, 1983 as Ben’s Ground Hog Day (as in the Bill Murray movie). From the moment he was carted off to jail others started defining the events of that day in his absence. For the last Twenty-three and a half years he has been struggling to understand how his life went so tragically off the tracks because of what was set in motion.
Speaking Out, thank you for providing a link to your post. I have a better understanding of where you are coming from. The means by which Ben LaGuer was convicted and found guilty by a jury of his peers was flawed. Suppression of evidence and the possibility of outright lies being used to convict him shame our legal system. The end (that a guilty person was actually convicted) cannot be justified by using flawed evidence to convict him. I think we are in agreement here.
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I probably should have never written this post. My friend who related his years of experience with Ben LaGeur did not want his name brought in to this. Right there I am sure bells go off about the credibility of this person.
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Speaking Out, keep up your good work.
Believe me, if it weren’t for the existence of an alternative suspect who in so many ways cries out for further investigation I would be more skeptical. This guy needs to be looked into, not only by me, but by professional investigators. The fact that the State Police crime lab LOST the fingerprints that were withheld from Ben at the 1984 trial stinks to high heaven. If we had those, things would be very different right now. I can only hope that the SJC (which is deliberating right now on the exculpatory fingerprint issue) makes a decision grounded in the law (which would favor Ben) rather than one grounded in politics (which, given Healey’s demonization of LaGuer and, indirectly, Patrick, would not be surprising). Six State Reps. (one of whom is now a Senator) and two State Senators, including Jarrett Barrios, wrote to the State Police several years ago asking about the whereabouts of those fingerprints but were stonewalled. If the SJC ends up going against Ben on the fingerprints there are other avenues he can pursue, but it’s going to take a bit of a groundswell for that to happen. Now would be the time to start laying the groundwork for that. I am hoping that people with better organizing skills than I have get involved. Some already have, but more would be better.
However Ben LaGuer while convicted wrongly is a guilty man.
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I actually know nothing about the LaGuer case. But let’s undersand something. LaGuer may well have committed the act of of which he was found guilty. But if he was convicted using tainted evidence, and if the jury was not informed that the evidence was tainted, then his conviction should be overturned, and he should be committed to a new trial so that the jury can assess the evidence as a whole.
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Understand?
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It really doesn’t matter whether LaGuer is a con man, a snake-oil salesman, or anything else. The only thing that matters in a criminal prosecution is whether the defendant was convicted using tainted evidence. Get over it.
We would still be left with one very intriguing dilema. Why would a guilty man stay in jail for 23 years to protest his innocence when he could have taken a plea bargain for two years, or could have simply proclaimed his guilt at his parole hearings and been out? If you forget that facts have been fudged left and right in this case when presenting evidence against Ben, if you don’t believe that Ben had a completely clean criminal record, the question still haunts us; why would a guilty man choose to stay in jail? The carrot cake can’t be that good… đŸ˜‰
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Food for thought?
It’s amazing, really. Time and again former DA John Conte said, in effect, “say the magic words” but Ben always refused. Had Ben taken the plea, or come to any of his three parole hearings and taken responsibility for the crime, he would very likely be walking among us right now. If he did commit the crime, then that might not be such a blessing. But if he didn’t commit the crime, then a crime of equal proportions is being committed against LaGuer. That’s why he deserves a fair trial and why the courts have got to open this case up and let the sun shine in.
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And, ht J.H., it looks like Ben LaGuer is on the marquee over at Live, Love and Learn.
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And be sure to check out Mark Bail’s great post over on his blog, Granby 01033.
I have word from Ben that he would like to let people know who he is as a person, so that they might better understand why he is not the perpetrator of this crime. I will be assisting him in posting articles that he writes, and he is willing to entertain comments as well.
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This is an amazing story no matter what opinion you have, and it is well worth telling in as much detail as we can. There is a lot to be learned here if look carefully. Let’s take our time and do a thorough job so we can reap the greatest reward out of this ugliness.
some questions about his case. Ben never seems to mention the “witnesses” that were with him the night of the rape. Are they no longer with us? The ones interviewed in that old Hank Phillipe Ryan video, seen on YouTube.
And, as a member of NOI (nation of islam) does he think all white people are the devil, created by MR. BIGHEAD. They are worse than the klan.
If you posters think that the LaGuer Case has been mishandle with such incompetence that it boggles the mind, just wait and see what the Eddie O’Brien case will show.
It just wasn’t incompetence with the handling of the Eddie O’Brien case DNA but just plain politics as then DA Reilly was running for Attorney General and then Gov. Weld was running for a U.S. Senate seat. This case actually had the juvenile laws changed in this state so that 14 year old kids go directly to adult court. All this because of lies, holding back evidence and the so called “mishandling “of evidence with malice.
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Once this story is told it will blow the lid of the criminal justice system in this state.
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Just wait and see.