"Two
key witnesses in the state's Tom Monfils murder case lied on the
witness stand 20 years ago, the ex-wife of key defendant Keith Kutska
testified Wednesday. Ardis Kutska was the fifth and last witnesses
to testify in the first of three days of hearings to determine if Keith
Kutska will have a new trial. Kutska, 64, and four others are
serving life sentences for Monfils' death. Monfils, 35, was found in
1992 in a pulp vat at the former James River mill with a 50-pound weight
tied to his neck. Kutska is serving his life term in Columbia
Correctional Institution in Portage. He is arguing his 1995 conviction
was unfair because evidence suggesting that Monfils may have committed
suicide wasn't presented at his trial in Brown County Circuit Court.........Defense
lawyers also called Madison lawyer Stephen Glynn as an expert witness.
Glynn testified that any lawyer who failed to get an expert forensic
pathologist to review Young's findings was deficient. Special
prosecutor Larry Lasee, who was co-prosecutor in the original trial,
asked whether that deficiency label must therefore be applied to the
nearly 20 lawyers who represented all of the defendants at the trial and
all subsequent appeals over the last 20 years. In addition to
Kutska, Michael Hirn, 55, Dale Basten, 74, Michael Johnson, 67, Rey
Moore, 68, and Michael Piaskowski, 66, were convicted in a single trial
of conspiring to murder Monfils. Piaskowski was released from prison in 2001 when a federal appeals judge ruled there was insufficient evidence against him. Glynn
said he hadn't reviewed the work of all the lawyers in the case, but
"from the standpoint that I'm aware of that no trial lawyer sought help
from an expert pathologist, my judgment is that would make them
deficient." Retired Outagamie County Judge James Bayorgeon, who
heard the original case, is presiding over Kutska's hearing, which is
expected to run through Friday. The hearing will resume for a day on
July 22 to accommodate the schedule of retired detective Randy Winkler,
who was unavailable to testify this week."
http://www.greenbaypressgazette.com/story/news/local/2015/07/08/expert-cause-tom-monfils-death-unclear/29862945/
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