THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Wednesday, October 12, 1994 TAG: 9410120463
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: By JOE JACKSON, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: NORFOLK LENGTH: Long : 112 lines
Marvin Anthony Pointer, serving life without parole for dealing drugs, alleges in federal court that he was denied a fair trial because the FBI allowed the key witness against him to have sex in exchange for helping prosecute Pointer, and Pointer's attorneys were never told of the trysts.
Twins were conceived during one of the alleged conjugal visits between the witness, Gary Weathers, and Weathers' wife, Cynlithia, claims Pointer's appeal, filed Tuesday. The sexual encounters allegedly occurred in an FBI office in 1990.
Pointer is asking that his conviction be overturned. If his allegations are true, Pointer's conviction and the convictions of as many as 10 other members of a major Hampton Roads drug gang could be affected. The $20 million heroin ring flourished in Hampton Roads from 1984 to 1990, smuggling narcotics from Northeastern cities.
Weathers was a drug wholesaler who supplied Antonio Charles Blow, a Portsmouth heroin dealer whose 1988 trial exposed an extensive heroin underworld. In 1989, Blow was sentenced to 25 years in federal prison.
Blow, Pointer and the others were convicted after Weathers testified against them or gave authorities information that led to their arrests. In 1990 and 1991, the 11 men were given sentences ranging from three years in prison to life without parole.
Pointer's attorney, James Broccoletti, alleges that authorities failed to turn over to defense attorneys information about the conjugal visits. In doing so, they illegally suppressed evidence favorable to Pointer, Broccoletti claims. If a judge rules that Weathers' testimony was tainted, all the convictions could be jeopardized.
Pointer's charges are supported by federal court documents containing statements from Gary and Cynlithia Weathers. Gary Weathers is in a federal prison in Terre Haute, Ind., serving a sentence of 10 years and 10 months for a drug conviction. The sentence was reduced from 14 years after Weathers cooperated with authorities.
Pointer's allegations name FBI agent James Watters, the lead agent in the state and federal investigation into Blow's gang, and Norfolk Commonwealth's Attorney Charles D. Griffith Jr., who was then the assistant U.S. attorney leading the prosecution of the gang.
There is no evidence that Griffith knew of the alleged sexual favors. He is named in Pointer's appeal because the alleged trysts - and their subsequent suppression - happened while he was prosecuting the case.
``I knew nothing about it and certainly condoned no such thing,'' Griffith said Tuesday.
``It's just not appropriate to award cooperative witnesses that kind of benefit. We don't make deals like that. If it's proven to be true, I'll be very disappointed to hear that the agents permitted this to happen.''
Pointer, 34, accuses Watters of setting up the sex-for-testimony deal and suppressing evidence. If the encounters had been disclosed, the appeal says, Watters' testimony as to what Weathers told him ``would have been impeached; and further, the defense would have called his credibility'' in other matters into question.
``Pointer wouldn't have gotten life without Weathers,'' said Dean Sword, Pointer's lawyer in the May 1991 trial.
``His testimony and previous statements was the killer. . . . You can bet your sweet bippy that this deal would have been before the court and before the jury. The way we tried to defend Marvin was to impeach Watters. This certainly would have been one more tool.''
In a written statement issued Tuesday, Thomas Love, a spokesman for the FBI, said: ``Because the motion filed today on behalf of Marvin Pointer constitutes litigation pending in federal court, Department of Justice policy prohibits any discussion of the allegations.''
Gary and Cynlithia Weathers attest in court documents that in May and June 1990 they were given several visits alone in FBI offices in the Federal Building on downtown Granby Street while Gary Weathers was in the FBI's temporary custody.
``During four to six of those visits, while alone in an office of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, (Cynlithia) and (Gary Weathers) had sexual intercourse,'' Cynlithia said in a sworn affidavit. As a result of those visits, Cynlithia ``became pregnant and on Feb. 17, 1991, delivered twins, named Shawnese and Shawn,'' the affidavit said.
A birth certificate from Portsmouth General Hospital, filed in federal court, lists the father as Gary Stephen Weathers, then an inmate at the U.S. penitentiary in Petersburg.
In a letter to U.S. District Judge John A. Mackenzie on Feb. 23, 1991, Gary Weathers wrote, ``my wife has five kids at home and carrying twins now because when I was back there helping the FBI they let me see her about 5 or 6 times because I was doing so well help(ing) them.''
The letter, filed in federal court, added that Weathers' lawyer, Robert Ricks, wanted ``to tell you they let me get my wife pregnant but I said no, they might get mad . . . .''
MacKenzie said through his law clerk that he did not recall the letter.
In an interview in federal prison in Atlanta, Pointer said he learned of the alleged conjugal visits last November.
``I was talking to a friend of mine and she said, `How can you get life? Gary got nothing. Maybe it's 'cause he got babies?' '' Pointer recalled. ``I said, `Wait a minute, he's got babies?'
`` `Yeah, twins,' she said. I thought: `What's he doing with twins? He was supposed to be locked up.' ''
Soon he learned more details from friends. In a February 1994 letter to the Justice Department's Office of Professional Responsibility, Pointer asked for an investigation.
``I would not have been convicted without the government's unethical and illegal manipulation of this crucial witness,'' he wrote. ``Please confirm that you will be looking into this matter . . . .''
The government acknowledged the letter and placed it in Pointer's file in Norfolk federal court. ``Other than that, no one's ever contacted me,'' Pointer said.
``They gave me life because I didn't cooperate,'' Pointer said during the interview. ``They wanted me to cooperate on something I didn't know. They wanted me to talk about my co-defendants, but I didn't know nothing.
``That's the whole thing. If you don't tell lies, they get you - they give you life. If you do what they want, they give you nothing. You get out in three years.'' by CNB