[Toney] Wife guilty in bomb plot that killed husband
Anne Warfield
Wife guilty in bomb plot that killed husband
By John McCormick
Tribune staff reporter
Published March 11, 2003
A federal jury Monday found Lisa Toney guilty of conspiring with her
boyfriend to use a gift-wrapped pipe bomb to kill her husband, a
verdict that is expected to translate into a prison term of life
without the possibility of parole.
As the jury's foreman read the verdict, Constance Toney-Jackson sat
near the front of the courtroom, wearing one of the blue work shirts
her older brother frequently wore as a janitor at City Colleges of
Chicago.
"I just wanted him to be here," she said later, proudly displaying her
brother's name on a patch on the shirt. "I just wanted him to be with
us."
As Toney-Jackson and other family members watched, U.S. District Judge
Charles Norgle ordered Lisa Toney to be immediately taken into
custody. She'll be sentenced in mid-May.
Marcus Toney, 37, died Feb. 15, 2000, when he and a friend opened a
package containing a pipe bomb in his South Side apartment. The
package had been gift wrapped at a department store.
In finding her guilty on all four charges, jurors agreed with
prosecutors that Lisa Toney, 45, conspired with Sienky Lallemand to
steal Marcus Toney's identity, acquire fraudulent credit cards under
his name, steal his mail and kill him with the bomb.
"They were just having a great time at this guy's expense, and then
they blow him up," said George Rees, the jury's foreman.
Rees said many jurors didn't believe Lisa Toney was being forthcoming
when she testified late last week that she didn't remember many
details about the days before and after her husband's death.
"She was very precise when her defense was asking questions, but got
entirely vague [when prosecutors cross-examined her]," said Rees, an
over-the-road trucker. "That kind of tipped it for a lot of people."
Rees said numerous phone calls between Lisa Toney and Lallemand,
including more than a dozen while Lallemand was a fugitive, also were
considered significant by many jurors. "That's not normal to keep
talking to someone who killed your husband," he said.
Prosecutors said police and federal agents suspected Lisa Toney, a
human resources manager for SBC Ameritech, was involved in her
estranged husband's death almost immediately afterward.
Prosecutors had painted Lisa Toney as a greedy woman in a steamy
affair with a man who knew how to defraud credit card companies for
his own gain and to provide her with $7,000 diamond earrings, $1,600
hotel room stays and a down payment on a Mercedes Benz.
"Justice has been served," said Marcus Toney's mother, Mildred White,
after leaving the courtroom.
During the trial, prosecutors said Lisa Toney and Lallemand had hoped
to have a friend shoot Marcus Toney in January 2000 in the couple's
home after Lisa Toney obtained an order of protection after a fight.
But prosecutors said the planned self-defense shooting failed when
Marcus Toney never entered the couple's Dolton home.
The pair eventually plotted to blow him up after running up about
$200,000 in credit card charges and later learning that he suspected
them of stealing his identity, prosecutors said.
Assistant U.S. Atty. Lawrence Beaumont acknowledged after the verdict
that the case against Lisa Toney was "very circumstantial" but said
jurors were correct in connecting the dots.
"The law makes no distinction between circumstantial and direct
evidence," he said.
Beaumont said he plans to ask that Lisa Toney be sentenced to life in
prison without parole. The sentence will be in the hands of the judge,
but he said sentencing guidelines call for that penalty.
Beaumont said Lisa Toney was the sixth and final individual to either
be convicted or plead guilty in the case. Besides Lisa Toney and
Lallemand, the others had minor roles in the conspiracy.
Copyright Š 2003, Chicago Tribune
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/chi-0303110243mar11,1,4241090.story?coll=chi%2Dnewslocal%2Dhed
--
Anne Warfield
indigoace at goodsol period com
http://www.goodsol.com/cats/
Mark Fenster
> http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/chi-0303110243mar11,1,4241090.story?coll=chi%2Dnewslocal%2Dhed
Anne,
I couldn't understand why the defendant would want to murder her
husband until it was pointed out in your earlier posts on this case
that identity theft issues [credit cards in the husband's name, etc.]
totaled $200,000.
Before knowing the extent of the identity theft, I would have thought
it better for the defendant to divorce her not-so-well paid husband
first, then pursue the good life later.
Fenster
Anne Warfield
Fenster) wrote:
>Anne,
>
>I couldn't understand why the defendant would want to murder her
>husband until it was pointed out in your earlier posts on this case
>that identity theft issues [credit cards in the husband's name, etc.]
>totaled $200,000.
>
>Before knowing the extent of the identity theft, I would have thought
>it better for the defendant to divorce her not-so-well paid husband
>first, then pursue the good life later.
Yeah, she had a particularly good motive in this case. Still, it is
weird that people will kill their spouses when they could just divorce
them.