A few months after state attorneys called for the courts
to put Zacke away for 180 years, he became Brevard prosecutor's
star witness in trials against Gerald Stano and Wilton Dedge
-- two cases in which the state had poor luck in first trials.
Stano's first trial for the murder of a Brevard County woman
ended in a mistrial. Dedge's 1982 conviction for the rape
of a Brevard County teenager was overturned by an appeals
court.
Then, a curious thing happened: Stano and Dedge spent just
enough time with Zacke for him to testify against them --
saying they had confessed their crimes. Second trials for
both ended in convictions.
Dedge spent 22 years behind bars, unwaveringly proclaiming
his innocence. He was freed in August, after DNA evidence
cleared him. Stano, who some say was mentally ill and confessed
to things he did not do, was not as lucky. He was executed
in March 1998.
Hand-picked witness:
Dedge's attorneys say Zacke was hand-picked by prosecutors
in the case, coached on what to say and then lied to convict
Dedge.
"We're going to prove in court the conspiracy that put
him there," Cheney Mason, one of Dedge's attorneys said
recently, adding that he was preparing to sue those who put
Dedge in prison.
Zacke's contact in the state attorney's office in both the
Dedge and Stano cases was John Dean Moxley, now a judge. Moxley
declined to be interviewed for this story.
Nina Morrison, another Dedge attorney with the New Yorkbased
Innocence Project, said there are not too many places where
Zacke could have received such detailed information regarding
her client's case.
"When you look at the wealth and type of detail he had,
there are only three places that he could have received that
information from: Wilton, Wilton's attorneys or from prosecutors,"
she said. "We know it didn't come from Wilton or his
lawyers. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to connect the
dots."
Dedge himself had little to say about Zacke after his release
except that he was totally blindsided by the convicted felon's
testimony.
"I couldn't believe it," Dedge said. "I lost
a lot of faith in people. He got up there and lied and he
knew things that I didn't know."
Zacke refused to be interviewed by FLORIDA TODAY without
compensation. He wanted free newspaper subscriptions and copies
of photographs taken by the paper. FLORIDA TODAY does not
pay for its interviews and turned him down.
"Too bad. No deal!" Zacke responded in a letter
to the newspaper. "Your (sic) on your own. Ya'll missed
out on learning a new fact that never came up at trial. One
that only Dedge and I know about that took place in that van."
Ordering the hits:
Clarence Zacke was once a successful West Melbourne junk
dealer.
But in May of 1980, he ran into trouble. Police arrested
him for smuggling marijuana from Jamaica. Zacke panicked.
Instead of taking his chances in court, he decided to have
witnesses against him eliminated.
He was found guilty of trying to hire a man to kill Kenneth
Merithew, a police informant who helped foil Zacke's drug
smuggling operation. But the hired assassin, Richard Lee Hunt,
lied to Zacke. He told him he had killed Merithew and his
two twin boys. In truth, they had been placed under police
protection.
"Business is business," Zacke chillingly replied,
according to wiretaps of the conversation.
Then, weeks before he was to testify against Zacke, Hunt
vanished. Years later, Zacke accepted a second-degree murder
plea for Hunt's death. It was there that Zacke learned he
could get his sentence reduced by testifying against others.
Zacke also was found guilty of ordering a hit on Brevard's
chief prosecutor at the time, Douglas Chesire. In all, four
juries found Zacke guilty of conspiring to commit murder.
He was sentenced to 180 years. His sentence was reduced to
60 years in exchange for fingering the two hit men involved
in the Hunt murder.
Ironically, the drug charges against Zacke were dropped because
of a technicality. He would have gone free.
Zacke testifies:
Geraldo Stano, who already had been convicted of eight murders
elsewhere in the state, went on trial in 1982 for the Brevard
County murder of Cathy Lee Scharf. But the case ended in a
mistrial when Stano's confession did not match details of
the case.
Some familiar with the case say Stano was a serial confessor
whose mental capacity should have been questioned.
"It's my understanding that Stano was mildly retarded,"
said Sandy D'Alemberte, a former state legislator who is working
to secure compensation for Dedge.
Still, a judge ordered a retrial in the Scharf case.
Enter Zacke, who claims he struck up a friendship with Stano
while behind bars.
During the retrial in 1983, Zacke testified that Stano confessed
the murder to him in the prison courtyard. This time, the
details matched the murder and Stano was convicted.
Later, though, Zacke may have recanted his testimony in an
interview with a freelance journalist. The interview became
a critical part of a bid for a new trial in the Stano case.
The freelancer, Nash Rosenblatt, gave Stano's attorney tapes
of the conversation. According to court documents, they showed
that "Zacke told him in a telephone interview that Stano
never really confessed to killing Scharf. Zacke also stated
in the interview that Stano's prosecutors offered him certain
rewards in exchange for his testimony against Stano. . . .
prosecutors then coached Zacke on what he should say."
In its decision denying the new trial, the Supreme Court
of Florida said it didn't consider the argument because Zacke
was not under oath when he spoke to Rosenblatt.
Transcripts of the interview, obtained by FLORIDA TODAY,
quote Zacke saying he was "programmed" by the State
Attorney on what to say.
"What was the State Attorney's name?" Rosenblatt
asked.
"Chris White and Dean Moxley," Zacke replied.
Spoon-fed informant?
After Zacke testified against Stano, then-Assistant State
Attorney Moxley wrote a letter to the Department of Corrections
asking that Zacke be put somewhere safe. He would be needed
again.
"Given the fact that Zacke has testified against Gerald
Stano and will testify against others, I'd appreciate any
assignment decision which will protect him," Moxley wrote.
Zacke was back in Brevard the following year to testify against
Wilton Dedge.
Citing problems with dog scent evidence used to convict Dedge
in 1982, an appeals court ordered a new trial in 1984. Prosecutors
Chris White and Moxley needed more evidence to go with a pair
of blonde pubic hairs and shaky eyewitness testimony.
Enter Zacke, again. He wound up on a transport van with Wilton
Dedge.
Zacke testified that Dedge talked to him and confessed, saying
he "had cut some old hog." He also said that Dedge
told him he would kill the rape victim if he ever got released.
Critics, though, insist Zacke must have been spoon-fed information
about Dedge and Stano -- especially since DNA evidence irrefutably
cleared Dedge later.
Prosecutors deny wrongdoing.
State Attorney Norman Wolfinger, though, said there never
has been any evidence supporting wrongdoing in the cases.
Dedge, he said, would have been convicted even without Zacke's
testimony.
"Zacke knew how to use the system," Wolfinger said.
"It makes sense to me that perhaps Dedge spoke to Zacke
after the first trial and then Zacke exaggerated the story."
Prosecutor Chris White said "Zacke was promised nothing
for Dedge."
White's theory: "Zacke is a big man in the DOC and has
some certain folklore to him in Brevard County. Maybe Dedge
wanted to look like a big man in front of Zacke. Who knows?
Sometimes people will admit to a crime to look tougher."
Dedge attorney Nina Morrison insists that an investigation
is needed.
"This is the criminal justice system's equivalent of
a major disaster," she said. "We have been calling
for one but so far there has been no response."
Contact Torres at 242-3649 or jtorres@flatoday.net
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