Judge Considers New Trial In Sudafed Case Inmate Who Confessed To Tampering Is Admitted Liar

It’s the nightmare of prosecutors, criminal lawyers and judges: Someone who has been convicted and punished for a crime turns out to be innocent.

That possibility is why Joseph E. Meling deserves a new trial in the death of two people and the near-fatal poisoning of his wife from drug tampering in 1991, now that another man has confessed, Meling’s lawyer told a federal judge Wednesday.

“I argue, your honor, that it would be powerful evidence that would probably result in a different verdict,” Cyrus R. Vance Jr. said.

The testimony is anything but powerful, coming from someone like bank robber Monte Lee Bridges, who has admitted lying about his varying claims that he put cyanide capsules into Sudafed packages and placed the tampered packages in stores, assistant U.S. Attorney Joanne Y. Maida said.

“Credibility is the issue that this court needs to decide,” Maida said. “A person who lies is simply not credible.”

U.S. District Judge Barbara Rothstein, who heard nearly three days of testimony on Meling’s motion for a new trial, said she would issue a written decision at a later date.

Meanwhile, Meling was sent back to the federal prison in Sheridan, Ore.

Bridges, 59, is serving a five-year, three-month sentence for a bank robbery in Northern California.

Meling, 35, a former insurance salesman in Tumwater, is serving a life prison term for two counts of product tampering causing death, four of nonlethal tampering, two of perjury and three of insurance fraud.

His wife, Jennifer, nearly died after taking a cyanide-filled capsule on Feb. 2, 1991, the day after his $700,000 accidental death policy on her became effective. Kathleen Daneker, 40, of Tacoma, died that Feb. 11 and Stan McWhorter, 40, of Lacey, died that Feb. 18, both of cyanide poisoning, after taking what they thought was Sudafed.

Two tampered Sudafed packages were found in homes and one was recovered from a store during a $17 million nationwide recall.

Jennifer Meling stood by her husband during the trial but later divorced him and said she believed he was responsible.

Bridges and Joseph Meling are inmates in the same no-smoking section of the minimum-security prison, but witnesses testified they never were cellmates and did not appear to be more than casual acquaintances.

Before closing arguments, K.M. Sweeney, a retired police forensic scientist, said a suicide note Bridges claimed he buried after Meling was convicted in 1993 did not appear to have been in the ground that long.

At the same time, Sweeney said he could not determine how long the handwritten note had been buried before it was found July 10 in a sealed plastic container at Wallace Falls State Park.

Bridges testified that he was upset by the Sudafed deaths, having thought people would avoid swallowing the cyanide capsules because of their slightly different appearance, and became despondent when Meling was sent to prison.

Bridges had a long history of mental problems, admitted changing parts of his confession in ways that shifted much of the blame from himself and gave testimony that contained several inconsistencies, Vance conceded.

“Mr. Bridges is a very disturbed man,” the lawyer said. “He’s crazy enough to do it for whatever motivation.”

Still, there is no reason for him to lie about the tampering, Vance said.