OT (kinda): Pizza-Bomber Mystery Solved?
Matthew Kruk
Authorities Appear Poised to Announce Indictments in the Strange, Fatal Bank
Robbery Case
By CHRIS FRANCESCANI
ABC News Law & Justice Unit
July 10, 2007 -
Nearly four years after one of the strangest murder cases in federal law
enforcement history, authorities appear poised to announce indictments in
the case of the pizza bomber as early as Wednesday, sources tell ABC News.
Sources say the indictments will center on a former high school
valedictorian with bipolar disorder who is believed to be the ringleader of
a bizarre Pennsylvania bank robbery gone bad. What remains vexingly unclear
is whether pizza-delivery man Brian Wells was involved in the plot in any
way.
In late summer 2003, Wells walked into an Erie, Pa., bank wearing a bomb
attached to his neck by an elaborate, locked metal collar. He was also
carrying a gun disguised as a walking cane.
Cornered by police in a nearby parking lot after the robbery, Wells said
that armed gunmen had locked the bomb around his neck and sent him into the
bank. Police seized a multiple-page note full of instructions that told
Wells to move swiftly to a variety of seemingly unrelated spots around the
area or the bomb would detonate.
"Why is nobody trying to come get this thing off me?" he yelled to
authorities as he sat handcuffed near a police car. "I don't have enough
time."
He didn't. With a small crowd gathered that included curious media, the bomb
exploded, blowing a hole through Wells' chest and killing him instantly. He
was 46 years old.
The case has taken numerous twists and turns over the years, and
investigators have acknowledged at times that they were simply stumped. This
week though federal authorities are expected to announce indictments,
sources close to the case tell ABC News' Law & Justice Unit.
Valedictorian Turned Robbery Ringleader?
Monday, a federal public defender for a woman named Marjorie Diehl-Armstrong
filed court documents trying to prevent the government from holding a news
conference to announce indictments. A spokesperson for the U.S. Attorney's
office in Pittsburgh, which is handling the case, declined comment, as did
federal public defender Thomas Patton's office.
Diehl-Armstrong, a high school class valedictorian with multiple graduate
degrees who suffers from bipolar disorder, has long been a main target of
the investigation. While law enforcement sources tell ABC News
Diehl-Armstrong has cooperated with investigators, she is still expected to
be charged in the case, possibly as its ringleader.
Tim Lucas, a lawyer who represents a witness who testified before a grand
jury in the pizza-bomber case, told ABC News that "it appears the government
theory is Diehl-Armstrong is the primary leader/orchestrator in the robbery
that led to Wells' death."
It was unclear whether the indictments were expected to include charges
related to Wells' death or just the bank robbery.
Less than two years after Sept. 11, the strange case immediately raised
fears of a new and frightening terrorist tactic. It appears now that the
plot was the work of a group of American criminals, virtually all of whom
are either dead or in jail on unrelated charges.
Bill Schenley
Prosecutors: Wells case took a long time because of elaborate scheme
Photo:
http://www.goerie.com/brianwells1/assets/players/armstrong_sm.jpg
(Marjorie Diehl-Armstrong)
FROM: The Erie Times-News (July 12th) ~
By Ed Palattella
Looking back, some clues in the mystery of Brian Wells'
bombing death seemed obvious from the start.
A body in a freezer, an eccentric handyman who lived near
a key spot in the case, a mentally ill woman with a history
of violence -- all that information surfaced within weeks
after Wells was killed.
Federal prosecutors said investigators -- like the public --
took note of that information right away. But the prosecutors
said the investigators needed nearly four years of work and
more than 1,000 interviews to secure Wednesday's
indictments.
"The reason that this investigation took as long as it did is
because there was so much information and such an
elaborate scheme to carry out these plans," U.S. Attorney
Mary Beth Buchanan, of Pittsburgh, said in an interview
Wednesday.
The indictments in the Wells case name as a defendant
Marjorie Diehl-Armstrong, the mentally ill woman with
a violent past, and the indictments allege she killed her
boyfriend, James Roden, whose body was found in the
freezer, to keep him from disclosing the Wells bank
robbery plot.
William A. Rothstein, the handyman whose freezer held
Roden's body, is an unindicted co-conspirator in the
Wells case. Rothstein, who died of cancer in July 2004,
lived near the spot where the FBI believes Wells had the
bomb locked to his neck. The other indicted defendant is
Kenneth E. Barnes, who fished with Diehl-Armstrong.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Marshall Piccinini, the chief
federal prosecutor in Erie, is trying the case. He was
asked Wednesday whether Rothstein and the others
became suspects in the case early enough. Piccinini said
that to think "these people were not part of our investigative
inquiry at the same time as anybody else in the world was
obviously suspicious would be completely wrong."
"The obvious suspicions to others were even more obvious
to trained investigators, but that's not what rules the day for
us -- it's proving a case beyond a reasonable doubt."
Buchanan said the deaths of some of the subjects
complicated the investigation. She said investigators also
had to explore all the evidence -- including why Wells,
before he died, told police three black men forced him to
wear the bomb. Investigators believe Wells made up that
claim.
"We had to pursue leads on certain theories and
information that was presented which we now believe was
false," Buchanan said.
What's Next
Marjorie Diehl-Armstrong and Kenneth E. Barnes, who
are both in prison for other cases, are scheduled to make
their first court appearances in the Brian Wells case this
week.
Their initial appearances, as the hearings are called,
represent the first stage in a long process that later will
include an arraignment and any evidentiary hearings, all
leading up to a possible trial. All the hearings will be at the
U.S. District Courthouse in Erie.
Barnes, who is at the Erie County Prison, is set to appear
in court at 10:30 a.m. today.
Diehl-Armstrong, who is at the State Correctional
Institution at Muncy, near Williamsport, is set to appear
in court at 3 p.m. Friday.
----
Photo:
http://www.foxnews.com/images/100608/10_24_wells_brian.jpg
(Brian Wells)
---
Feds: Roden killed to silence him
FROM: The Erie Times-News (July 12th) ~
By Lisa Thompson (w/Ed Palattella)
Despite overlapping casts of characters, for nearly four
years two of Erie's strangest crimes officially were not
connected.
On Wednesday, a federal indictment charged that James
Roden became a victim of one of the crimes because he
knew too much about the other.
In early to mid-August 2003, Marjorie Diehl-Armstrong
shot Roden, her boyfriend, and hid his body in a freezer
at a friend's upper Peach Street home.
Later that month, Brian Wells had a bomb locked to his
neck down a dirt road that starts next to that same
Peach Street house.
That proximity of geography and time figured for years in
official reports as a strange coincidence.
But in indictments unsealed Wednesday against
Diehl-Armstrong, 58, and Kenneth Barnes, 53, federal
authorities charge that Diehl-Armstrong killed Roden, 45,
to stop him from revealing her plan to rob a bank in order
to raise money to pay Barnes to kill her father.
Wells died in a bomb blast after robbing an upper Peach
Street bank. The indictments say that robbery was part
of Diehl-Armstrong's plan.
The indictments also link Wells' death to William A.
Rothstein, the owner of the home where Roden's body
was hidden in a freezer.
The theory of Roden's killing laid out in the indictments
differs from the theory under which Diehl-Armstrong was
prosecuted in Erie County Common Pleas Court for his
death.
The prosecution's main witness in that case -- Rothstein
-- called police on Sept. 21, 2003, to report that Roden's
body was in his freezer at 8645 Peach St. Rothstein's
home was next to the road leading to the television tower
where authorities said Wells had the bomb locked to his
body just weeks earlier.
Rothstein claimed Roden's death had nothing to do with
the Wells case. He said Diehl-Armstrong -- his one-time
fiancee -- killed Roden because she was angry that he
had not helped her probe what she claimed was the theft
of $133,000 in a May 2003 burglary.
Rothstein, who was questioned extensively in the Wells case,
died of cancer in July 2004 at age 60.
It was not immediately clear whether the new theory of
Roden's death would have any effect on Diehl-Armstrong's
January 2005 state conviction for killing him.
Diehl-Armstrong, who has long suffered from bipolar
disorder, pleaded guilty but mentally ill to third-degree
murder and was immediately sentenced to seven to 20
years in a state prison.
She admitted she shot Roden in an upstairs room in the
house they shared at 1867 E. Seventh St., but gave no
reason for the killing.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Marshall Piccinini said Wednesday
that the indictments in the Wells case don't charge
Diehl-Armstrong with Roden's death, but he said the
indictments include his death to help the government
establish evidence of a conspiracy.
"Whether there were multiple motives for committing the
murder is not something the indictment speaks to," he
said.
District Attorney Brad Foulk said he could not comment
on Diehl-Armstrong's state conviction until after he met with
U.S. Attorney Mary Beth Buchanan to discuss the federal
investigation.
---
Photo:
http://www.goerie.com/brianwells1/assets/players/roden_sm.jpg
(James Roden)
---
Woman accused of masterminding Erie bank robbery
troubled with love, the law
FROM: The Erie Times-News (July 13th) ~
By The Associated Press
PITTSBURGH
Marjorie Diehl-Armstrong's lawyer has floated an alibi for
her in the bizarre death of one man: the bizarre death of
another man.
James Roden's body was in a freezer in August 2003,
when Brian Wells robbed a bank with a bomb locked to
his neck. Before the explosive killed Wells, the pizza
delivery man told police he had been forced to commit the
crime.
Authorities announced Wednesday that Diehl-Armstrong
and friend Kenneth E. Barnes have been charged with the
deadly robbery, after a nearly four-year investigation into
the puzzling, convoluted plot. Federal prosecutors believe
Wells was involved in planning the crime but may have
become an unwilling participant by the time a metal collar
carrying the bomb was fastened to his neck.
Diehl-Armstrong is in prison for murdering Roden, a
former boyfriend. Her attorney Lawrence D'Ambrosio told
The Associated Press he believes she was too obsessed
with that killing to have been involved in the robbery plot.
She has a tendency to focus _ and even obsess _ on major
events in her life, he said.
Diehl-Armstrong, 58, was the valedictorian of her high
school class, but her trial in Roden's death showed that her
life since was full of severe mental problems, including
bipolar disorder and schizophrenia _ and a deep hatred of
men. Two decades earlier, she was acquitted in the killing of
another boyfriend that she said was in self-defense.
Diehl-Armstrong had been repeatedly questioned about
Wells' death. All the while, she asserted her innocence in
letters to news outlets.
"I'm sane, not on psych(iatric) meds" and have "equivalent
of five college degrees with honors," she wrote to ABC
News.
Her father, Harold Diehl, sees things differently. Federal
prosecutors allege that Diehl-Armstrong hatched the robbery
plot to get money to kill the 88-year-old.
"She, in my estimation, she'd have a tendency to do anything
that's possible because I think her mind is a little bit goofed
up," said Diehl, who added that it was no surprise she wanted
him dead. "I don't think she's completely sane."
Diehl said his daughter was an only child who was born and
grew up in the house in which he still lives. The home is on a
quiet street of well-kept houses, its porch decorated with
flowerpots and American flags set there by neighbors.
Diehl is a retired salesman who had traveled throughout
Pennsylvania, Ohio and New York selling aluminum siding,
awnings and windows. His wife, Agnes, a grade-school teacher,
died about 10 years ago after more than 50 years of marriage.
In 2005, Diehl-Armstrong pleaded guilty but mentally ill to
murdering Roden on or around Aug. 13, 2003, about two
weeks before Wells' death. His body was found in a freezer at
the home of another former boyfriend, William Rothstein, after
he tipped off police in September 2003.
Rothstein, who has since died of cancer, said he came forward
after Diehl-Armstrong suggested using the ice crusher to get
rid of the remains.
Rothstein is listed as an unindicted co-conspirator in the
Wells case. So is Wells himself.
U.S. Attorney Mary Beth Buchanan has said Wells had a
limited role planning and staging the robbery, but "we have
reason to believe that at some point right before the bomb
was fastened to his neck that he was coerced." His family has
insisted he did not know the suspects.
Barnes, 53, a fishing buddy of Diehl-Armstrong's who has
been jailed on an unrelated drug charge, pleaded not guilty
during a brief arraignment Thursday. Diehl-Armstrong's initial
appearance on the federal charges, previously scheduled for
Friday, was delayed until Tuesday.
Both are charged with bank robbery, conspiracy and a
firearms count. The latter charge is related to the bomb.
Diehl-Armstrong admitted killing another love interest,
Robert Thomas, in the 1980s, but she said she had been a
victim of physical and sexual abuse and shot Thomas before
he killed her. She was acquitted of homicide in 1988 and
put on probation for carrying a firearm without a license.
In February, she focused her anger on a new man: Fox
News correspondent Geraldo Rivera. In papers filed in Erie
County, she preserved her right to sue him down the road
over a 2005 broadcast report on her criminal past and how
she came to be linked to the bank robbery investigation.
Diehl described his daughter as intelligent but gullible.
He said he hasn't seen his daughter in years and he doesn't
want to, and doesn't plan to attend any of her court
proceedings.
He said he can't recall exactly when his daughter started
getting into trouble, but added that he is convinced she
took years off her mother's life.
"I don't know much about her," he said. "I don't think
I ever will."
---
http://www.goerie.com/brianwells1/assets/players/barnes_sm.jpg
(Kenneth Barnes)
---
Barnes: 'I had no part in this' bombing death'
FROM: The Erie Times-News (July 13th) ~
By Ed Palattella
Kenneth E. Barnes pleaded not guilty at his arraignment in
the Brian Wells case, and he continued to insist he had
nothing to do with the pizza deliveryman's bombing death.
With the arraignment over, Barnes' lead lawyer said she
will start reviewing evidence in the case, including information
that could prove a problem to Barnes -- the statements he
previously gave to the FBI with no lawyer present.
"Without knowing what he has said to the FBI, it is difficult
to say whether that will complicate issues," attorney Alison
Scarpitti said after Barnes' minutes-long arraignment in
U.S. District Court in Erie on Thursday.
As he was led to the Erie FBI office before the arraignment,
Barnes proclaimed his innocence to reporters.
"I had no part in this," Barnes said. Asked who carried out
the bank robbery plot that led to Wells' death, Barnes said,
"I have no clue."
Barnes' arraignment is the first stage in what is expected to
be a lengthy prosecution. The government will now start
turning over evidence to Barnes' lawyers as both sides
prepare for trial.
Barnes, as is typically the case at arraignments, said little.
He told Chief U.S. Magistrate Judge Susan Paradise Baxter
that he has legal representation, and he waived the reading
of the charges against him.
The indictment against Barnes in the Wells case was unsealed
Wednesday. He and a co-defendant, Marjorie
Diehl-Armstrong, are accused of armed bank robbery,
criminal conspiracy to commit armed bank robbery, and using
and carrying a destructive device.
Diehl-Armstrong has a history of bipolar disorder, and her
mental state is expected to become an issue in the case
against her. Scarpitti said reviewing a defendant's mental
health "is always something you have to consider," and she
said she might explore that issue as part of Barnes' defense.
Authorities drove Barnes to the arraignment from the Erie
County Prison, where he is serving a sentence of 11½ to
23 months he received in August on drug convictions.
Barnes' other lawyer in the Wells case is Jamie Mead, a
former federal prosecutor. He is a shareholder of the Times
Publishing Company, which publishes the Erie Times-News.
---
Photo:
http://www.goerie.com/brianwells1/assets/players/ballew_sm.jpg
(Ted Ballew, stole $133,000 from Armstrong-Diehl)
---
Labyrinth of lies
In Wells case, Rothstein sowed deceit in police's path
FROM: The Erie Times-News (July 15th) ~
By Ed Palattella and Lisa Thompson
The 911 call came in to state police at 10:15 p.m. on
Sept. 20, 2003.
Bill Rothstein was on the line.
He needed troopers at his house right away.
He said the body of a man named James Roden was in a
freezer in his garage.
Marjorie Diehl-Armstrong, Rothstein said, was to blame.
In an investigation that included more than 1,000 interviews,
the 911 call would help change the course of the Brian Wells
case for the investigators and the accused.
The call turned the FBI's focus to Rothstein and his cohorts,
and to how investigators believe they honed in on the
elaborate scheme that ended in Wells' bombing death.
The call, according to court documents and other evidence,
also helped Rothstein concoct his own elaborate scheme to
try to avoid arrest in the Wells case -- and possibly to keep
Diehl-Armstrong from killing him.
For a long time, according to the indictment and other
information, all the schemes worked.
Investigators needed nearly four years to secure last
week's indictments against Diehl-Armstrong, 58, and her
fishing buddy, Kenneth E. Barnes, 53. The indictments
named Rothstein and Wells, 46, as unindicted co-conspirators,
and said Rothstein was involved in using egg timers
Diehl-Armstrong gave him to make the bomb.
As part of the conspiracy, the indictment alleges,
Diehl-Armstrong killed Roden -- whose body was in the
freezer -- to silence him in the Wells plot. Rothstein always
told police Diehl-Armstrong killed Roden for other reasons.
Rothstein died of cancer at age 60 in July 2004, three years
before the indictments came down. He claimed on his
deathbed he had nothing to do with the Wells case.
Hiding in plain sight
By the night Rothstein made the phone call to police, more
than two weeks had passed since Wells was killed when a
homemade bomb locked to his neck exploded on Aug. 28,
2003.
The FBI had been busy trying to verify what Wells had told
police moments before he died. He claimed four black men,
one with a gun, forced him to wear the bomb and rob the
PNC Bank at the Summit Towne Centre.
Rothstein lived two-tenths of a mile from the spot where
investigators said Wells had the bomb locked to his neck.
But Rothstein, a 59-year-old white electrician and substitute
teacher whose house was filled with junk, had not generated
much sustained interest from the FBI in the Wells case.
Two days after Wells was killed, Rothstein stood in front
of his house on upper Peach Street, across from New
Motors, and spoke to a reporter. Rothstein said he was as
surprised as anyone at Wells' death.
He led the reporter down the dirt road next to his house.
At the end of the road was a clearing for several television
towers.
The FBI by then had publicly described the clearing as the
spot where Wells, a pizza deliveryman, dropped off an
order for two pepperoni-and-sausage pies -- and then had
the bomb locked to his neck.
This is the place the FBI is talking about, Rothstein told
the reporter.
Back at Rothstein's house, a dead body was in his freezer.
The police had no idea.
Until Rothstein dialed 911.
'Take my word for it'
A dispatcher picked up the phone at the state police
barracks at Lawrence Park.
"You need to get a car to 8645 Peach St., because there's
a body in the garage freezer," Rothstein said, according to
a search warrant. "You need to pick up Marjorie Diehl.
She's wearing green slacks and a blue top."
"How do you know this?" the dispatcher said.
"I live there."
"Who killed him?"
"Marjorie"
"How do you know this?'
"Take my word for it. I've done a lot of things that I
regret, but I didn't kill anyone."
About four and a half hours later, at 3 a.m. on Sept. 21,
2003, police arrived at Rothstein's house with a search
warrant.
Officers found Diehl-Armstrong wandering around in a
nightgown, based on what police said at the time. She
seemed disoriented, as if she had just gotten out of bed.
Inside Rothstein's garage was a $400 chest freezer. He
had purchased it from the Rex TV & Appliance store in
the Summit Towne Centre on Aug. 13.
Inside the freezer, shot in the chest and wrapped in a
neatly taped green plastic tarp, was the frozen body of
45-year-old James Roden, Diehl-Armstrong's latest
boyfriend.
The state police swore out the search warrant for
Rothstein's house. FBI agents investigating the Wells
case showed up as well.
The investigators found a suicide note Rothstein had
written. It said Roden's body was in the freezer, according
to information obtained by the Erie Times-News.
"This has nothing to do with the Wells case," the note said.
The coincidences were too much.
As the police investigated Roden's death, the FBI also
started to look at Rothstein and Diehl-Armstrong in the
death of Wells.
Following directions
Why did Rothstein make the phone call?
Why did he draw attention to himself ?
Until that moment, one aspect of the Wells plot had
worked -- the FBI had failed to figure out what had
unfolded that day.
Last week's indictments allege Diehl-Armstrong, Barnes
and Rothstein tried to make sure an arrest would never
come. As part of the plot, the indictments said, Wells was
supposed to appear as "merely a hostage," who had been
forced to wear a bomb to rob the bank. If Wells was
caught, according to the indictments, he could claim he
was an "unwilling participant."
The bomb served other purposes. According to the
indictments, it guaranteed Wells would turn over any bank
robbery proceeds to the co-conspirators, who would then
disarm the bomb. If Wells refused to give up the money,
he risked getting blown up. And if the bomb did go off,
according to the indictments, "Wells could not be a witness."
Wells followed his instructions until the very end, according
to the indictments.
The government alleges Diehl-Armstrong and the others told
Wells that, if he was caught, he was to report to police that
four black men, one with a gun, forced him to wear the bomb
and rob the bank.
Police caught Wells with $8,702 in stolen money -- he had
asked for $250,000 from the bank teller -- in the parking
lot of Eyeglass World, near the PNC Bank. Handcuffed and
kneeling outside his Geo Metro, Wells spoke with police for
about 35 minutes as they waited for the bomb squad. Wells
told police about the black men. The bomb exploded.
Investigators soon started exploring Wells' claims. Eight days
after his death, the FBI searched the lower Ash Street
apartment of a black man whose girlfriend said she knew
Wells.
On upper Peach Street, Rothstein's house went untouched
in the Wells case.
Scared of Diehl-Armstrong?
Police in October 2003 charged Rothstein in Roden's death.
He was accused of tampering with evidence, abuse of a
corpse and conspiracy. He told police he helped
Diehl-Armstrong remove Roden's body from her house at
East Seventh Street and Bacon Avenue; he used a pulley to
lower the body into his freezer; and he used a reciprocating
saw and an oxyacetylene torch to destroy the 12-gauge
shotgun he said Diehl-Armstrong used to kill Roden.
Rothstein admitted the crimes when he testified at
Diehl-Armstrong's preliminary hearing in January 2004.
He also testified that Diehl-Armstrong told him she killed
Roden because she was upset he was not helping her solve
a robbery of $133,000 in cash she said occurred at her
house over Memorial Day weekend 2003.
Rothstein never mentioned Wells in his testimony. He was
clear on why he called 911. He said he decided to alert
police after Diehl-Armstrong asked him to cut up Roden's
body with an ice crusher.
"I couldn't see myself cutting up a body like that,"
Rothstein testified. "She indicated she wanted me to, and
I couldn't do it."
The protests were unusual, coming from a person who
had already admitted to dismantling a shotgun and stuffing
a dead body in a freezer.
And more than two decades earlier, Rothstein had testified
he helped a friend dispose of a .25-caliber handgun used
in another homicide case -- the February 1977 slaying of
Erie resident William Berry. Rothstein's testimony that he
threw the gun in the trash helped convict Erie resident Louis
Allessie, who has since died. Rothstein said he had tried to
burn the gun with a torch.
It's possible Rothstein called 911 about Roden's body for
another reason. According to investigative records, he was
afraid Diehl-Armstrong wanted him dead.
In October 2003, after his arrest in the Roden case,
Rothstein told police he had "an intense fear that
(Diehl-Armstrong) was going to have someone kill him,"
according to notes of the interview. Rothstein even asked
police to put him in a witness-protection program.
Rothstein would have had reason to be concerned.
He had known Diehl-Armstrong for more than 30 years,
and had been engaged to her twice. Roden was not the first
man who had died while living with Diehl-Armstrong, who
has a history of suffering from a bipolar disorder.
She relied on a battered-woman defense to win an
acquittal in the July 1984 fatal shooting of her boyfriend,
Robert Thomas, in 1988. And in August 1992, her
husband, Richard Armstrong, died of a brain hemorrhage.
Diehl-Armstrong claimed he hit his head on a table. No
one was charged.
Controlling a case
No matter why Rothstein called 911, the decision worked
to his advantage. His statements to police on Sept. 20,
2003, led state troopers to charge Diehl-Armstrong
immediately in Roden's death, and to put her in prison
while she awaited prosecution.
Diehl-Armstrong has not been out since. In January
2005, she pleaded guilty but mentally ill to third-degree
murder in Roden's death, and was sentenced to seven to
20 years in state prison. She never testified about what
happened to Roden.
Rothstein died before he was tried for his role in Roden's
death. And never once did Rothstein reveal to investigators
what he knew about Brian Wells.
Grand jury's end spurred charges
Two dates stand out in the Brian Wells case.
Aug. 28, 2003, the date Wells was killed.
And July 9, 2007, the date a federal grand jury returned
the indictments against Marjorie Diehl-Armstrong and
Kenneth E. Barnes.
Investigators have not said whether the first date had a
special meaning.
The second date, however, was not picked at random.
Federal prosecutors said the indictments came down on
Monday, after nearly four years of investigation, because
the grand jury hearing the evidence in the Wells case was
set to expire.
The U.S. Attorney's Office unsealed the indictments
Wednesday.
The grand jury had met for 18 months, and then had its
term extended by another six months, for a total of two
years, said U.S. Attorney Mary Beth Buchanan, of
Pittsburgh.
She said the U.S. Attorney's Office in Erie could have
convened another grand jury in the Wells case.
But then prosecutors would have been required to present
the case anew to that panel.
"We could have used another grand jury and re-presented
the evidence," Buchanan said in an interview last week, "but
we were confident that we had presented the evidence that
we had to the grand jury who had been assigned to hear this
case."
---
Photo:
http://www.goerie.com/brianwells1/assets/players/rothstein_sm.jpg
(William Rothstein)