"NOW COMES WORD THERE MAY BE A FOURTH: ANOTHER MAN STILL IN PRISON MORE THAN TWO DECADES AFTER PRESTON AND HIS GERMAN SHEPHERD PROVIDED THE KEY EVIDENCE ALLEGEDLY TYING HIM TO THE SCENE OF THE CRIME.
"THERE ARE A LOT OF SIMILARITIES BETWEEN THIS CASE AND THE OTHERS," SAID BREVARD-SEMINOLE'S ASSISTANT PUBLIC DEFENDER, MIKE PIROLO. "I MEAN, IT'S SCARY HOW SIMILAR MANY OF THESE CASES ARE.""
ORLANDO SENTINEL COLUMNIST SCOTT MAXWELL;
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Background: Bill Dillon, was 22 when he was sentenced to life in prison in 1981, for killing a man in Canova Beach on the eastern coast of the state. During the trial, Dillon was adamant that he had not committed the crime. But a man named John Preston testified in court that he and his scent-tracking German-Shepherd connected Dillon to the killer’s bloody t-shirt. Preston, who billed himself as a "scent-tracking expert", said his dog, “Harrass 2,” even tracked Dillon’s scent repeatedly in later tests. Nearly three decades later, in 2007, DNA testing proved that Dillon’s DNA did not match the DNA on the killer’s shirt. The dog was wrong. Just eight months ago, after 26 years behind bars, Bill Dillon walked out of prison a free man. Preston was exposed by a Florida judge in 1984, who became suspicious of Preston and set up his own test for Harrass 2. The dog failed terribly. CNN unearthed documents which demonstrated that Harrass 2 could not even follow a scent for one-hundred feet. The judge determined the dog could only track successfully when his handler had advance knowledge of the case. Preston and his four-legged so-called expert were discredited in 1987 - but according to CNN, "the state of Florida never reviewed cases on which he’d testified . And nobody ever told Bill Dillon – who sat in prison another 20 years before he ever knew a thing about it. It wasn’t until 2006 that he heard Preston was a fake." The Dillon case is now attracting massive media attention in response to the Florida’s Innocence Project's well publicized concerns that dozens of inmates around the country may have been wrongly convicted as a result of John Preston and his dog. The focus now shifts to Florida's response to the Innocence Project's call for an investigation of those cases. Meanwhile, CNN informs us that Preston, the dog’s handler, died last year. He was never charged with perjury or convicted of a crime."
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"In hindsight, it's hard to believe that John Preston and his magical dog were ever allowed to testify in court" columnist Scott Maxwell asks in his column which appeared on June24, 2009, under the heading, "Did magical dog jail a fourth innocent man?"
"Preston's claims — that his dog could track scents through water, even years after a suspect supposedly left them — were preposterous. And Preston was, ultimately, discredited in court," the column continues;
"Since then, three of the Brevard County men whom Preston helped convict subsequently had their convictions overturned.
Now comes word there may be a fourth: another man still in prison more than two decades after Preston and his German shepherd provided the key evidence allegedly tying him to the scene of the crime.
"There are a lot of similarities between this case and the others," said Brevard-Seminole's assistant public defender, Mike Pirolo. "I mean, it's scary how similar many of these cases are."
What's also scary is how many of these cases have yet to be scrutinized
Preston testified in dozens of Central Florida cases in the early '80s. A judge would later say prosecutors retained Preston and his act "to confirm the state's preconceived notions about cases."
And yet, until now, there has been no thorough check to see whether others were wrongfully convicted as well.
That, however, is starting to change.
•A national legal group has taken up the cause of the fourth person.
•The Public Defender's Office in Brevard opening a broader inquiry of its own.
•And this tale of perverted justice will get a national audience tonight when Anderson Cooper is slated to spotlight Preston and his cases during his 10 o'clock show on CNN.
Meanwhile, as others search for justice, some of Florida's highest-placed officials — Gov. Charlie Crist, Attorney General Bill McCollum and Brevard-Seminole State Attorney Norm Wolfinger — remain uninvolved and unmoved.
A gruesome murder
The biggest news is the emergence of nationally renowned Centurion Ministries, a faith-based legal group in Princeton, N.J., that has helped exonerate more than 40 people.
Centurion is taking on the case of Gary Bennett, a Palm Bay man convicted in the 1983 murder of 54-year-old Helen Nardi.
Nardi's death was a gruesome one.
According to Sentinel reports from the time, she was found stabbed 26 times in the neck, chest and back with an ice pick, steak knife, screwdriver and pair of scissors. The ice-pick blade and scissors were left embedded in her nude body.
Prosecutors, however, needed to tie Bennett to the weapons, which Preston and his dog helped do. The dog first sniffed Bennett and then, according to Preston, found the same scent on crucial evidence.
Prosecutors also relied upon fingerprints in the victim's house, which Bennett argued he probably left three days earlier when visiting the victim, whom he knew. They also used testimony from jailhouse snitches — who were promised leniency in exchange for their help.
Centurion Ministries attorney Kate Germond did not want to discuss details of Bennett's case this week, saying she hoped she could work hand in hand with local officials. If she does, she might not be working with Wolfinger, who as a public defender briefly represented Bennett before he was elected state attorney in 1984.
At Wolfinger's request, Gov. Charlie Crist assigned another prosecutor to handle any new developments in the case: Orange-Osceola's Lawson Lamar.
A new inquiry
Meanwhile, Brevard-Seminole Public Defender James Russo is launching an inquiry of his own.
Russo's goal is to try to find out how many other people Preston helped convict. And he received some help last weekend from Florida Today, the Melbourne-based newspaper that did an impressive job scanning its archives to uncover the names of about a dozen more cases in which Preston was involved.
The public defender had hoped Wolfinger's office would actually pursue this matter.
Said Pirolo: "He has an obligation from a legal, moral and ethical standpoint."
Wolfinger knows that some of Preston's cases, which predate his tenure, went bad. He has not only admitted it; he apologized on his office's behalf after much-belated DNA tests directly contradicted some of the state's prior claims. But he has refused to conduct an investigation to see whether others were improperly convicted, essentially arguing that the burden is on the convicted to mount their own defense.
That line infuriates Gary Bennett's niece, Rebecca, 27, who was a toddler when her uncle went to prison — and whose family has always believed her uncle is innocent.
"You know, that sounds good, saying we should just take care of it ourselves," Rebecca Bennett said. "But we're a middle-class family. We can't afford top-notch lawyers. And this has just been awful."
The recent spate of attention has given the Bennetts the first hope they've had in years.
I certainly don't know for sure whether Bennett was wrongfully convicted.
But I do know that three of John Preston's cases have already been overturned — and that Preston was involved in dozens more cases that have not yet been scrutinized.
And those facts alone are enough to know that justice demands better."
The article can be found at:
http://www.orlandosentinel.com/news/local/orl-asecorl-maxwell-preston-062409062409jun24,0,6590313.columnScott Maxwell can be reached at 407-420-6141 or smaxwell@orlandosentinel.com.
Harold Levy15@gmail.com;
