Man convicted, again, in murder plot

Wed., Aug. 18, 2004

Associated Press

VANCOUVER, Wash. – A brain-damaged man has been sentenced to 55 years in prison for trying to arrange the killing of his father’s lawyer to assure himself of a $3 million inheritance.

John Kenneth “Jack” Stein, 65, said the prison term ordered Monday by visiting Cowlitz County Superior Court Judge James J. Stonier amounted to a death sentence because doctors have told him he will likely die of kidney problems within a few years.

He said he would appeal both his sentence and conviction on three counts of attempted murder and one of burglary.

Stonier agreed to credit Stein with the 15 years he spent in custody after being convicted in 1988 of hiring his stepson and three other men to kill Ned Hall, a lawyer for his father, Nicholas Stein, a business and property magnate who died in 1987.

Stein is brain damaged and unable to work since a traffic accident in 1976.

Stein was described in court as obsessed with the idea of a conspiracy to keep him from receiving his father’s estate, which eventually evaporated in legal turmoil.

Overturning the verdict in 2001 because of faulty instructions to the jury, the state Supreme Court described Stein as “highly intelligent … with severe paranoid delusions.”

Stein underwent examination and medication at Western State Hospital under court order to restore his competency to stand trial a second time, resulting in a second conviction in June.

Stonier heard the case and an assistant state attorney general handled the prosecution after local judges and prosecutors recused themselves because Stein was said to have talked about blowing up the Clark County Courthouse during his first trial.

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