The Fence - Dick Lehr [119]
In Boston, when Kenny Conley’s telephone rang on the evening of August 14, he took a deep breath. He picked up the receiver. It was his lawyer, one of two hired by the police union to represent him in a legal mudslide that had begun when the FBI agents came by his apartment.
His lawyer told him to sit down. Then she broke the news: Earlier in the day assistant United States attorney S. Theodore Merritt had obtained a three-count indictment charging Kenneth M. Conley with twice lying before his federal grand jury and with one count of obstructing justice.
Kenny, the indictment read, “did knowingly make false material declarations before the grand jury.” In one count, the government charged Kenny was lying when he said he did not see Mike Cox at the dead end; in the second count, the government charged Kenny with lying when he said he did not see the beating. Both constituted the crime of perjury in violation of Title 18, United States Code, Section 1623. Then, in a third count, Kenny was charged with impeding “the due administration of justice, that is, a criminal civil rights investigation” of the Cox beating “by means of giving false, evasive and misleading testimony.” This was in violation of Title 18, United States Code, Section 1503.
The eleven-page indictment, his lawyer explained, would be un-sealed the next morning in U.S. District Court in Boston, where he would be arraigned. Kenny hung up the phone. He broke down. Then he called Jen at her place in western Massachusetts. She told him she was heading back to Boston and would be there as quickly as possible.
The next day, Kenny put on a suit and met his attorney at the Boston office of the FBI to officially “surrender.” FBI agent Kimberly McAllister was waiting. She pulled out handcuffs and cuffed Kenny despite the protestations of his attorney, who pointed out that Kenny wasn’t going anywhere and certainly wasn’t a flight risk. Kenny was led away and his lawyer was told to find her own way to the federal courthouse.
The arraignment lasted only a few minutes. Kenny pleaded not guilty to the charges. He was released on a $10,000 bond and headed home. “I just felt alone,” he said. For days he didn’t want to leave the house. “I didn’t eat; all I wanted to do was sleep.”
If convicted, Kenny faced up to twenty years in prison and a $500,000 fine.
The two FBI agents had not believed a word of what Kenny had said in his living room. The agents had sat together on the couch where he’d been napping, and Kenny had begun the meeting by asking his guests if they wanted a cup of coffee.
No thanks, the agents had replied in unison.
Okay, what can I help you with?
Michael Cox.
What do you need?
Kenny, without hesitation, told them everything he knew—which wasn’t much when it came to Mike Cox. The agents took notes, and later, in her three-page FBI report, Agent McAllister wrote up Kenny’s account of arriving at Woodruff Way and chasing Smut Brown over the fence and into the woods. It was basically a rewrite of Kenny’s original statement to Internal Affairs in March 1995 and of his interview with Jim Hussey. Nothing had changed. “He never observed any other individual on the fence or in that vicinity,” the FBI agent had written. “Conley stated that he has no knowledge of who is responsible for Cox’s injuries nor did he witness anyone assaulting him.”
Within days of the interview, McAllister had called Kenny to tell him she was about to file her report with Ted Merritt. Was there anything he wanted to recant?
Recant? Kenny said. No, I have nothing to recant. Why?
The agent said, “I just think maybe you saw something you’re not telling me.”
“Which part is that?”
The agent said the part about not seeing anyone at the fence.
Kenny was confused. He’d been open and direct with the agents; he hadn’t littered his answers with “I don’t recall” or thrown up a fog of misdirection by saying, “Oh yeah, I did see people there, but nothing specific because it was all a blur.” That wouldn’t have been the truth, and