Keefe was clever. No one denied him that. He never stuck to one specific topic too long. He liked to talk about an issue, then move on to something different. It helped to mix up a witness. If a witness was telling the truth, jumping from date to date or place to place wouldn’t make much difference; the truth was the truth. If he was lying, however, it would eventually reveal itself.
By day’s end, Keefe had made a few important issues clear—mainly, Clein had made an agreement with the state’s attorney’s office to testify against Beth Ann in order not only to save himself, but possibly to get less than the mandatory forty-five years in prison when he was later sentenced. In fact, Keefe got Clein to admit that the state’s attorney’s office hadn’t even filed charges against him for stealing hundreds of thousands of dollars from his clients—charges, in fact, that could have sent Clein to prison for years.
Then it came time for what amounted to the most embarrassing part of Clein’s five days on the stand—the infamous love letters. The jury was about to find out that Clein was not, by a long shot, William Shakespeare, bleeding his heart out on paper to the one he loved.
Keefe had Clein read from a letter dated January 24, 1994. But as Clein got to the sexually explicit parts of the letter, Tara Knight called Keefe over to their table and whispered something in his ear.
Just then, Clein was asked to stop reading, and it was decided that the letter was a bit over the top for an open courtroom. The jury would be given the opportunity, it was agreed, to read it themselves.
As the jury passed the letter around, there was no hiding the fact that Clein was coming across as a sex-crazed lunatic, admittedly high on cocaine, writing to Beth Ann about sexual fantasies many of the jurors possibly had thought only existed on the fictional pages of a porno magazine.
“Were you out of control?” Keefe asked, referring to the period in the letter.
“I must have been, as far as Beth was concerned. But I didn’t think I was generally out of control, no.”
“You wanted to remove any source of discomfort in her life, though, right?”
“Sure,” Clein answered.
It was a fair question and an honest answer. If Keefe could convince the jury that Clein had become so obsessed with Beth Ann that he wanted her to defecate on him, as he had written in one letter, he might have done anything to make her happy. The jury needed to understand it was possible that Clein had taken it upon himself to have Buzz murdered when he saw how much Beth Ann was suffering over the custody battle.
Martha Jenssen, a lawyer, had been a court officer at the New London Superior Court for the past two years. With her long, dark hair, attractive figure and professional manner, Jenssen was respected by her peers and loved her job. As a court officer, she acted, as most officers do, as the judge’s shadow. Her duties, among many others, included processing files, motions, orders and judgments in civil and criminal cases. In court, Jenssen sat directly next to the judge; among other responsibilities, she made sure exhibits were marked correctly and ready for court. Part of Jenssen’s job also was to keep an eye on the jury to make sure it maintained a sense of integrity. If an officer overheard anything out of order from a juror, it was her job to report it.
As Jenssen was sitting, waiting for Keefe to continue with his cross-examination, she overheard a juror remark that the letter “has to be pretty bad if his assistant [Tara Knight] called him over.”
When Keefe was finished with his questioning for the day, Judge Devlin made mention of the comment to the jury, reminding them that they shouldn’t be discussing the case until deliberations. Still, it was an indication that the jury was itching to get this case into its hands and begin going through it. Obviously, the letter, like a lot of the evidence Keefe had presented already, was going to be crucial to Clein’s credibility. And if there was one thing in Beth Ann Carpenter’s corner as the trial drew to a close, it was how Haiman Clein appeared now that the jury had a complete portrait of who he truly was.
Chapter 48
For three days, Hugh Keefe questioned Haiman Clein like Clein was a prisoner of war. Just about all of Clein’s previous statements had been put under a microscope and dissected word for word.
To his credit, many later said, Keefe had done a good job of attacking Clein’s credibility. The true test would come later, of course. But for now, people were saying, Keefe had scored big time.
By March 13, the jury already had heard an earful of testimony surrounding DCYS’s involvement in the custody battle between Buzz and Kim and the Carpenters. Keefe didn’t want to bore them with more. But he still needed them to hear Beth Ann’s side of an issue that the state had made into a major concern during Clein’s direct examination.
Near the end of his cross-examination, Keefe somehow got Clein to admit—“I’m not sure if I saw her”—that he wasn’t all that sure if Beth Ann had actually seen Mark Despres in the office on the day Clein had supposedly given Despres a photo of Buzz. Both Despres and Clein had earlier, in statements to the state police that would be available to the jury once they began deliberations, stated that Beth Ann was in the room. But now Clein wasn’t so sure. He was doubting himself and his memory—which was exactly what Keefe and Knight wanted.
To tie up some loose ends, Kane recalled Chris Despres and Dee Clinton to the stand on March 19, along with Jeremiah Donovan, a local lawyer Clein had gone to in hope of retaining him for Despres, after Mark had killed Buzz. Donovan, who had been friends with Clein at one time, declined to represent Despres when he found out Clein had himself been involved in the murder. In some respects, Donovan gave the jury a bit of an outsider’s point of view as to who had actually called for the murder. Kane got Donovan to admit that Clein had told him that he’d hired Despres at Beth Ann’s request: “She (Beth Ann) kept after me and after me,” Clein told Donovan one day. “And I finally hired Mark Despres….”
Keefe had expected a much larger case from the state’s attorney’s office, he later said. More witnesses, more evidence, more proof that Beth Ann had been the murder-for-hire mastermind. But when the state’s attorney’s office wrapped its case up on March 19, over a period of sixteen days in the courtroom, it had called a total of twenty-two witnesses, two of whom were later recalled. Apparently, Kane and McShane were confident the jury was going to believe Clein. Because if it didn’t, all those other witnesses really didn’t matter much.
As Keefe and Knight’s defense got under way on March 22, they called Thomas Cloutier, Cynthia Carpenter’s attorney during the child custody fight, another lawyer (who was now a judge) who had been involved in the child custody matter. They also called Detective Marty Graham and Mary Sneed, a local tailor who had known Beth Ann for some time.
For the most part, they wanted to establish that the child custody issue the state’s attorney’s office had made such a big stink over during its portion of the case was nothing more than a family situation in which the Carpenters were truly concerned about Rebecca’s welfare. They wanted to show the jury that Beth Ann hadn’t been as preoccupied with the situation as nearly half of the state’s attorney’s office’s witnesses had implied. Moreover, Mary Sneed, who was “not permitted to testify about it,” someone close to Beth Ann’s camp later said, would have told the jury that Beth Ann had “long been thinking of going” overseas when she couldn’t find a job in town after leaving Clein’s law firm. More important, she even had asked Mary what she thought about London. In fact, during that same conversation, she also had told Mary that everything was “going smoothly” with regard to Rebecca. “There were no pressing problems.”
Dr. Vittorio Ferrero drew the spotlight on March 22. Ferrero, Clein’s former psychiatrist, had heard directly from Clein just how obsessed he had become with Beth Ann, and Keefe wanted the jury to understand it clearly.
Before the day ended, Keefe had Ferrero explain the effects of cocaine on a person’s psyche. Clein had admitted to using cocaine during the time in question, and Keefe wanted to keep the fo
cus on why a cocaine user and alcoholic shouldn’t be all that useful in testifying about his actions nearly a decade ago.
After telling the jury how cocaine makes a person feel “euphoric” and “very powerful,” Ferrero detailed how certain people can become “aggressive” on the drug because “they begin to believe there are plots against them….” What’s more, Ferrero insisted, “another complication…is that because of what it does to the brain, it can cause permanent damage to areas…that are also related to memory functions and impulse control.”
“You mentioned something about feeling powerful as a side effect of cocaine use?”
“Yes.”
“What do you mean by that?”
“I mean powerful in an unrealistic and inappropriate way—that is, the person can feel there is nothing that’s beyond me, there is nothing that I cannot do. I can do whatever I want and get away with it.”
“Now, taking…Prozac and cocaine [together], and throwing in a little booze to boot, are there effects, sir, from that mix?”
“Yes.”
Keefe asked Ferrero to explain.
“I would say…there is certainly an increased risk for damage related to memory functions.”
It was possible that Clein, because he was doing many different drugs at the same time, wasn’t in a position to remember accurately what had happened. Ferrero outlined rather fluently, in lay terms, that the drugs and alcohol Clein had been on had a major impact on his behavior and memory.
When Ferrero returned to the stand on March 26, Keefe quickly got him to discuss Clein’s actual psychotherapy treatment: when, where, what they talked about, and how often Clein had come in for treatment.
Near the end of Keefe’s direct examination, the subject of Clein’s sordid sexual behavior became an issue the judge wanted discussed without the jury.
“What is it that you were going to say about Mr. Clein’s sexual behavior, Doctor?” the judge asked Ferrero after the jury stepped out.
“Mr. Clein was having wild parties in his home in Old Saybrook before he lost [his home] due to financial problems. There was couple swapping at times. He had his wife have sex with friends”—reporters, well-wishers and most of the gallery nearly gasped all at once when the doctor alluded to this; in fact, the sexually explicit letters Clein had written now seemed G-rated—“sometimes several different friends. And watched it. Any part of his rationalization as to why he was doing that was [that] these people were business partners and that he needed their financial support in order to get out of financial difficulties…. He was showing them a goodtime.”
Sacrificing his wife: He was showing them a good time.
Was there anything more to say about Clein’s lack of credibility? He had sold his own wife’s body and soul to friends—but not for money, for work.
Keefe’s job, however, was to get this information into the hands of the jury.
Kane didn’t view the situation the same way. He objected on the grounds that it had nothing to do with Clein’s credibility. Kane suggested that Keefe just wanted to “get this in.”
“His sexual practices and his sexual behavior have nothing to do with his credibility,” Kane contended.
Keefe argued the “components of deceitfulness,” which the court obviously had reason to question. Kane continued to say that, although most could agree it was disgusting behavior, it had nothing to do with Clein’s version of the events in question.
Psychiatric information gleaned during therapy was a slippery slope. Much of it is not admissible in a court of law—hence the concern of patient-client privilege always attached to these types of arguments. But Keefe continued to beat the drum about Clein’s credibility: Clein had put his own head on the chopping block by accusing Beth Ann of masterminding a murder. Anything should be fair game. Address this situation now, or have it come back on appeal.
Next there were discussions regarding Ferrero’s diagnosis of Clein’s antisocial disorder.
“Your Honor,” Keefe said at one point after Ferrero had been asked to leave the room, “let me just say this. You have to live with what witnesses you get. I sympathize with Mr. Kane. He’s got Haiman Clein….”
Kane, sitting, listening without much reaction, shook his head. Keefe was jabbing him, trying to make Clein out to be someone who shouldn’t be trusted to take the garbage out, better yet make statements that could put Beth Ann in prison for life.
After a long discussion, it was agreed they would “move beyond” the topic.
No sooner did one matter get cleared up and the jury was back, did another arise after Keefe asked what turned out to be a fair and important question.
“These psychotherapy sessions that you had [with Clein]—were you able to form an opinion with respect to whether Mr. Clein was a truthful or an untruthful person?”
“Yes, I was.”
“What was your opinion?”
“That he was not truthful.”
The judge indicated to the jury that what Ferrero had just said was an “opinion,” and it should be taken as such.
Opinion or not, it was coming from a reputable source.
By midafternoon, Keefe had finished his direct examination of Ferrero and Kane his cross-examination. It was up to the jury to separate truth from fact from fiction from opinion.
As March drew to a close, Keefe and Knight called several more witnesses who could throw water on the fire of the state’s attorney’s office’s assumption that Clein had set the entire murder up under the direction of Beth Ann. No one held on to a smoking gun, but it was a way for Beth Ann’s defense to offer the jury a second scenario.
Dr. Matthew Elgart, the local optometrist and one of Clein’s closest friends near the time of Buzz’s murder, testified how he’d snorted cocaine with Clein, offering more evidence that Haiman Clein was out of control.
One of the defense’s most important witnesses to substantiate its claim that Clein had acted alone was Paul Francis, Clein’s old cellmate—a guy who had written to Keefe and told him that Clein had made up the entire murder-for-hire plot theory against Beth Ann to get back at her for turning him in. The only problem with Francis’s testimony, however, was that if the jury was to believe a guy with a record as horrifying as Francis’s, that same jury would have to view Clein as a monk. Lest anyone forget, Paul Francis was serving a ninety-year sentence for murdering an elderly woman.
When Francis took the stand, he testified about the letters he’d written to Keefe—but that was it, Keefe took it no further.
Kane, when he got his chance, tore right into Francis’s background, having him explain how he’d been charged with burglaries, assaults, larcenies and several weapons violations, all before graduating to murder.
Francis, Kane implied, had given Keefe the goods because he wanted Keefe’s law firm to represent him in an upcoming habeas corpus hearing.
In the end, though, it was up to the jury to decide.
Chapter 49
On Tuesday, April 2, 2002, Linda Yuhas, a family relations counselor, Diana Hendelman, a former friend of Beth Ann’s, and Diane Contino, a real estate agent from Ledyard who knew Haiman Clein, took the stand and exposed further the fact that, according to Keefe and Knight, Beth Ann didn’t have as much to do with the custody case as the state’s attorney’s office had been implying for the past month or so.
By midday, rumor was in the air around the courthouse like high-school gossip that Beth Ann had made a decision to take the stand in her own defense.
“No way,” someone said. “She’ll bury herself.”
“It’s her only chance,” someone else commented.
Either way, it was time for her to make a decision. Soon the trial would be in the books.
If Keefe put his client on the stand, there were certain issues he was going to have to address, and from Beth Ann’s point of view, she would have to try her best to clear these up. For one, how did Clein get hold of a photograph of Buzz if Beth Ann hadn’t given it to hi
m? Second, how could she imply that witness after witness were liars? There wasn’t one or two people saying damaging things about her; there was a small chorus. And how, by God, would she explain away the notion of having taken off to England as soon as word hit the street that Despres and Fremut were going to be arrested in connection with Buzz’s death?
All the rumors had been squelched by midmorning when the gallery looked on as Beth Ann Carpenter got up from her chair at the defense table and made her way to the witness stand. Surprisingly, she looked calm and in control. Many thought she would never do it. Yet, obviously, she had convinced Keefe and Knight that she could carry the load, and she felt confident the jury would believe what she was going to say. After all, she was a lawyer. The courtroom was not some foreign place she had only seen in movies and on television. She had experience. She knew what to say, and when to say it. Many said she was articulate, intelligent, well-liked and misunderstood.
Many others, however, swore she was manipulative, devious, cold; she had mastered the art of lying.
As every eye in the courtroom looked on, Keefe began by asking his client if she understood the charges against her. Then he wanted to know if she was involved in Buzz’s murder in any way.
“Absolutely not,” Beth Ann answered both times.
“Have you ever asked anyone in your life to murder anybody?”
“No, I have not.”
“Are you a violent person?”
“No, I’m not.”
“Objection,” Kane said.
“Sustained.”
Spending a bit of time talking about her family, Beth Ann showed impeccable memory skills regarding dates, places and details about her education—some of which took place two decades ago—and upbringing. Then Keefe had her move into her desire to practice law and her early search for a job.
“Did you ultimately apply to the law firm of Haiman Clein?”
Lethal Guardian Page 38