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Ungodly House Calls
AJSK
Extortion is a felony with a minimum of two and a maximum of ten years in prison as punishment. Dana Williams had been indicted for sending a letter to Sister Cornell threatening to accuse her of a crime of an indictable nature to wit perverted practice with a view then and there to extort and gain from her a hundred thousand dollars. He had also been charged with knowingly making a second letter without signing the same for the purpose of accusing the nun of perb\verted practice and fornication, which, if true, would bring Sister Cornell into contempt of disrepute with the prupose of obtaining one hundred thousand dollars from her.
Williams had been rude to Kevin Murphy, my young law intern at BCJ. Williams denied any participation in the extortion offense and declined to shake Kevin's hand or tell him anything of interest. Kevin walked out disgusted.
I went to the City Jail ot interview several clients. Among them was Dana C. Williams. When he came into the visitor's booth, he refused to shake my hand and started the conversation with "Listen Keating." I got angry and on several occasions turned around to leave. He told me that he had been beaten his last four arrests, that he should be a lawyer himself, and that he had planned to have his private attorney handle this case but decided it was easy enough for a public defender to handle it. He said he knew nothing about my background or me. He insisted upon interrupting me and talking all the time. He explained to me that Claris Williams, a black, 16-year old, female co-defendant, had entered a plea in Juvenile Court and received two years probation, all of which I already knew. He told me that she would nottestify against him. He told me he didn't do this, but if he had, he would have done it properly and received the $100,000! He said he was not interested in probation, that he wanted the case tried by a jury, and that he wanted to be found guilty or not guilty. He said that if he was found guilty, he wanted the maximum sentence of 10 years and he wanted to serve every day because he was not the kind of person who would walk around with something hanging over him. He was irrational and inconsistent. On the one hand, he said he didn't care if he got a record. On the other hand, he said he wanted to be a free man, meaning he wouldn't have to report to the probation officer once a week or possibly a parole officer. I lied and told him I admired his courage. I actually thought he was an idiot. I told him I was ready to go to trial on Tuesday and that I would not bother to talk to the prosecutor abbout his case. He was adamant that he would not accept a "stet" since that would also be hanging over his head.
On April 2, 1976, the police went to St. Wenslaus Convent located at 814 North Collington Avenue in Baltimore. Kathleen had received a letter addressed to Mother Superior of the St. Wenslaus Nun Home dated April 1, 1976. It read:
"We are an underground newspaper. Our company's job is to print embarrassing articles and to take nude and erotic photographs, all of which we have on most of your nuns. Our magazine is very widely read around the world. We go all out for filthy stories, for which your nuns make filthy headlines, and very shocking photographs. We have pictures of your nuns making several very ungodly house calls. We have pictures of your nuns in living color performing sexual acts such as sucking and ass fucking, with some of your respected priests and nuns meeting elsewhere. We have lesbian photos and homosexual photos, and many outside affairs. All these and more. Pictures we have in bold living color print, clearly identifying all of you. We are a large organization and our newspaper is owned by the Italian Mafia. We mean business. If you think that you can trick us, listen. We have many policement on our payroll working at all branches. If there are any calls to them, they will notify us immediately. If you are thinking of contacting the Baltimore FBI, we have many agents on our payroll who will notify us the minute you call. We own many large banks in the City of Baltimore and the surrounding counties. We have bankers who work for us. Tellers, bank presidents, all who are standing by for only a sign of trouble. We have special machines that can determine whether the money is marked or traced, and we will have men spend the bills to see if they are legitimate. We have direct taps not only on your phones day and night, but on the priests' phones day and night also. We have our men posted in buildings around you. We have men who are constantly watching your home on ground patrol. We have policemen patrolling the area night and day. Anyone that leaves the home for any reasons will be followed to and from their destination, meaning priests, nuns, civilians, anyone. This is a direct warning from Don Vito himself. If you still think that you can outsmart us after all these months of planning and thinking, try us. We will not only print this filth and put it in our newspaper, which will come out on Monday, April 4, 1976, showing color photos of your vulgarity, but if we do not receive your payment for the sum of one hundred thousand dollars by Saturday, April 2, 1976, at 5:00 am sharp without any delay, we will immediately wage war against you. Here are our demands: 1) We want $50,000 in hundreds. 2) We want $50,000 in thousands, totaling a sum of $100,000. 3) Drive out in West baltimore alone tot he corner of Baltimore and Monroe Street, take a left on Monroe, go down half a block on the left-hand side of Monroe Strret. There you will see an alley. Go all the way down the alley to its end. On your right-hand side in the alley, go to the last lamppost against the wall. Place the money behind the lampost, get into your car, and drive away slowly to attract no attention. Our people will be following behind so that there is no failures. Our men will deliver four photographs, with no other strings or copies attached. the minute we receive shipment. Do not fail."
The letter was taken to the Evidence Control Unit and the U.S. Postal Inspector was notified. A policewoman posed as a nun and left a box of rags under the lamppost. Detective James Russell, whom I had worked against on the Smith case, watched the pickup with another officer. Claris Williams showed up and recovered the box, carrying it halfway down the street. The detectives arrested her and her boyfriend Dana Williams. The girl lived with Williams at 19 S. Fulton St. Williams was a black male, age 19, who had been arrested three times, but had no convictions. The couple were taken back to their house. Permission was received from the girl's father to search the premises. They found a telephone book in a common area of the house with the St. Wenslaus Convent's telephone underlined. In William's room, on top of a bureau drawer, they found an envelope on which was written, "Our retirement plan Ha Ha Ha Ha." Inside, the police found various drafts of the blackmail letter sent to the convent. Dana Williams' prints were found on the copies of the letters. Among the notes, the police found the following:
"Such filth from your mouths is unbelievable. We will print it, and we have also had a chance to get into your home and post our private monitoring systems: cameras and planted tape recorders. So you see, we mean business. If you are wondering whether this letter is true or false, try us, and we will no longer be nice. If we do not get your money, we will have a few of our boys kill you one by one. We see you nuns night and day. We hear you night and day, so if you try to go to any authorities, please keep in mind that we have bugged each room in your building and have a mini camera hidden so we can see her and you. In case you are wondering who we really are, we are the Italian Mafia. We will stop at nothing to get you! Follow these instructions. We want $20,000 in cash. If you try to get these bills marked in any way, we will no longer be nice and just embarrass you. We will kill each one of you, one by one." (I appreciated that they had reduced the amount).
Claris admitted writing it. She maintained that Dana Williams had nothing to do with her scheme to make a hundred thousand dollars. Sister Kathryn Cornell and Sister Victoria Andrews were named as witnesses forthe State. I had been assured by Dana Williams that Claris would not testify against him. I checked the Clerk's office, and no search and seizure warrant was on file there. Since no warrant had been obtained to search 19 S. Fulton, I felt that I had a chance to suppress any evidence coming from the house and that the consent to search had been coerced. The case against Williams would be simply his presence at the scene near where Claris picked up the "spoils".
Since Judge Liss in Part 3 was also responsible for arraignments, I had set Andrew Watford in for rearraignment so that I could withdraw from his case. His belligerence and rudeness compelled me to discharge him. I went into Chambers to explain to Judge Liss about the problem client and joked that we had an interesting case about extortion and nuns. He told me that he would have no juries in his court since the jury room had no air-conditioning, and it was much too hot. He also had several other cases on his docket.
I met with the prosecutor and he pointed out that the five or six witnesses he had present in Court. Two nuns were sitting in the back of the court in civilian clothes but with large white rosaries protruding over their white blouses. I joked with Detective Russell for a little while and with other lawyers waiting to hear their cases. He told me what a goof my client was, but asshole was more like it. The prosecutor told me that Sister Victoria Andrews had been shipped to Hawaii and that she was not available, and that he did not have the original letter since that was in the file in the Juvenile Court. I was relieved to see him busy and distracted with other cases, and after a short time, he said he would offer a "stet". I wanted to avoid seeing Williams for as long as possible, so I sat chatting with attorneys and police before going downstairs to talkto Williams in the bullpen. I explained what a "stet" was and told him that if I wer him, I would accept it. Or perhaps the case would be nol prossed. Then there would be nothing hanging over his head. He agreed, and I went back to the prosecuotr, who at first balked and said that we would have togo to trial. I told him that if we had to, okay. About twenty minutes later, after Watford had been arraigned, Williams was suddenly brought up, and the prosecutor told me that he was going to nol pros his case. Williams came into court with his hands in his pockets. He was immediately told to remove him by the judge. I cheered silently.
The prosecutor explained the reasons for the nol prosses. Just before the case was announced, the prosecutor and I approached the bench. The prosecutor explained to the judge what was going to happen. The judge asked where the photos were and if we had seen them. We smiled and returned to the trial table. I explained everything to Claris outside the Court. She gave me a big smile and left the building. Meanwhile, Dana had been taken downstairs to the bullpen and I went down there to meet him. I arranged through the desk sergeant to check and see if there were any outstanding warrants or charges against him so that he could be released right from the bullpen. Within fifteen minutes, he was in the Sergeant's office, answering the regular identification questions. Since he knew his own telephone number, date of birth, grade in school, social security number, and address without fault, the Sergeant gave him the $3.94 that he had had with him when first arrested and told Williams he was free to go. I smiled at the group of guards who were sitting having coffee outside the bullpen as the passageway turnkey let us out. After he had thanked us and shook our hands a couple of times, he was on his way. We watched him walk down the street with his shopping bag full of clothes, a free man. It was a great high to see even completely unappealing people walk.
