April 21, 2011 in Idaho

Setback for Steele’s bid to challenge FBI tapes

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Edgar J. Steele
(Full-size photo)

BOISE - Edgar Steele’s defense won’t be able to call two expert witnesses it lined up to question the authenticity of FBI tapes of Steele talking with Larry Fairfax about an alleged murder-for-hire plot against Steele’s wife, Cyndi, a federal judge in Boise ruled Thursday.

The testimony and expertise from one proposed expert was unreliable, U.S. District Judge Lynn Winmill found, and the qualifications and testimony of the second were irrelevant, at least at this point.

Steele, a self-described “attorney for the damned” who’s represented clients including the Aryan Nations, goes to trial on Tuesday on four felony charges related to an alleged murder-for-hire plot to kill his wife and mother-in-law; he faces up to 30 years in prison.

Cyndi Steele’s lawyer, Wesley Hoyt, is the one who contacted the proposed experts and sent them the FBI tapes. “Mrs. Steele believes that the tapes were manipulated,” he said after the judge’s ruling Thursday. “The victim is totally supporting the accused. She believes in his innocence.”

The case began last June when Fairfax told the FBI Steele had hired him to kill his wife and mother-in-law, and paid him $10,000 in silver coins plus $400 in travel expenses to Oregon, where Steele’s mother-in-law lives, plus a promise of another $125,000. A week later, Cyndi Steele took her car in for an oil change and workers found a pipe bomb attached to its underside.

Fairfax pleaded guilty to federal weapons charges in October and is in jail awaiting sentencing; he could get up to 10 years in prison.

Steele, wearing a bright-orange Ada County Jail-issue sweatshirt and scrubs, sat silently through the day-and-a-half pretrial hearing Wednesday and Thursday, speaking only in whispers to his lawyers.

Dennis Walsh, a former New York City detective who said his opinion was that the tapes had been edited, wasn’t qualified to offer that opinion, Winmill ruled. “I just have to conclude he does not have the background and experience,” the judge said, ruling from the bench.

Prosecutors questioned inflated claims on Walsh’s resume, noted that key portions of his report duplicated the report from the other proposed expert witness verbatim, and pointed out that Walsh had no education or certification as a forensic examiner.

Plus, an electronics engineer and certified forensic examiner for the FBI reviewed Walsh’s work and reached opposite conclusions. “There were no signs of tampering,” FBI forensic examiner Dave Snyder, who works at the agency’s Quantico, Va. lab, told the court. “We didn’t feel that their conclusions were accurate.”

A second expert witness, George Papcun, who holds a PhD in acoustic phonetics, testified that he examined the recordings and found unexplained anomalies that could have been triggered by editing, or by other factors including electronic glitches. “This recording does not contain what was being picked up and only that,” Papcun told the court. But he said he wouldn’t use the term “suspicious,” because a variety of factors could have caused the glitches he observed.

Papcun, whose was long employed by the Los Alamos National Laboratory and whose resume shows work on the Jon Benet Ramsey trial, work on recordings for Paula Abdul and work for the Associated Press on the O.J. Simpson trial, said he spent less than a day examining the recordings, which he termed “of poor quality.”

Snyder, who said the recordings were made on a device that’s been standard for the FBI since the 1990s, called them “very clear” and said, “I felt that it was of fair quality.”

He said when he tested the recordings in their original format, he found no anomalies. When he used the uncertified, Russian-made testing program that Walsh used, he found anomalies similar to those cited by Walsh, but Snyder said the program is unreliable - and that’s why the FBI doesn’t use it.

Steele’s attorney, Robert McAllister of Englewood, Colo., told the court, “The government has the burden of establishing authenticity.”

But Winmill said the way that’s normally done is by having people whose voices are on the tape testify as to whether they accurately represent what was said - and that’s something Fairfax can testify about in the trial. If questions arise during that process, he said, it’s possible that Papcun’s analysis of the tapes could become relevant and he could then be allowed to testify.

But short of those questions, the judge said, Papcun’s testimony about the quality of the tape being impacted by one of many possible factors wouldn’t satisfy legal standards for expert witnesses regarding “whether it’s helpful to the jury - which really is the court’s central concern.”

Winmill said any value from Papcun’s testimony at this point would be outweighed by “confusion of the issues and potential of misleading the jury.”

Five comments on this story so far. Add yours!

• 

  BitinDawg on April 21 at 6:00 p.m.

  In that first recording of Edgar Steele talking to his son from jail, he is heard to say: Quote: I never thought that they would come after me this way. End Quote

  That is not the response of a man who has been caught red handed. That is the response of a man who is puzzled. That is the response of a man who has been blindsided.

  There is a legal concept known as spontaneous utterance. This was a spontaneous utterance.

  He is mulling this over in his mind. This was something that never in his wildest fears did he consider that they would go the extent of a blatant frame up.

  It supports his contention that he is being framed.

  Motive: Visit his conspiracy pen pal website. This man has pulled the tail of the ZOG tiger. It is eminently understandable that ZOG would strike back.

  They have him dead to rights on tape: Go and watch the movie W. The movie about the low IQ ZOG puppet George Bush. They have accurately captured the inflections of his voice. This re-creation of a persons unique voice inflections is eminently doable.

  Edgar has hired tape recording experts to impeach the recording that they have. If the tape is genuine, that would be a waste of money.

  Update: Is it possible that the prosecution has shopped an acceptable Judge? The Judge has just disallowed Edgar’s audio tape experts.

  My opinion, it is about a 93% probability the man is innocent. But less than a 7% possibility that he will prevail and come out of this alive.

  ZOG is full of Jews and Jews are this man and John Demjanjuk’s mortal enemy.

  The key piece of evidence against John Demjanjuk was revealed to be a Soviet forgery. Not to worry, Judge says trial goes on.

• 

  greenlibertarian on April 21 at 8:56 p.m.

  Wow a full on racist and conspiracy theory nut, they usually don’t pop up on normal news websites. Stormfront, yes, of course, but the S/R?

  Bitin’Dawg probably has a bad hangover from last night’s wild birthday party for Hitler.

• 

  johnk1971 on April 22 at 10:23 a.m.

  “the court’s central concern”

  Clearly, the (kangaroo) court’s only concern is conviction.

  This is the state of American “justice” - no defense is permitted.

  Mr. Steele’s often-wrong opinions are irrelevant; every person who believes in Liberty should be rallying to his cause, which is the cause of every free man’s or woman’s.

  At this point, it’s certain that he will never see his home again; he probably wishes he had stood his ground at home, regardless of the consequences.

• 

  greenlibertarian on April 22 at 11:41 a.m.

  And the insanity continues. johnk1971 thinks Skeltor should have died a martyr at home.

  Yeah, it’s all ZOG’s fault.

  Crazy AND racist, what a pair.

• 

  misjustice on April 22 at 9:23 p.m.

  “ZOG is full of Jews and Jews are this man and John Demjanjuk’s mortal enemy.”

  OMG! Hate much?

  And the moderators let this comment remain on the thread? REALLY? It’s all the “Jews” fault?