Monday, April 14, 2008

Two key prosecution witnesses testifying about the tire-slashing incident at Republican Party headquarters on Election Day 2004 said yesterday they heard the five accused Milwaukeeans brag of the deed.

But defense attorneys also were able to get Levar Stoney, of Virginia, and Leshaunda Joy Williams, of New York, to admit they lied to Milwaukee Police Department interrogators shortly after the Nov. 2, 2004 incident in order to safely flee the city. Stoney and Williams both were in Milwaukee to help hype Dem turnout in the final weeks of the Kerry-Edwards presidential bid.

Both Stoney and Williams told the FBI in subsequent interviews that they heard most of the five men brag about their role in the slashing of tires on nearly 100 vehicles rented by the GOP.

On election day, Simmons spoke with Mohammad, who said he was going to get an article about the tire slashing that was on the Journal Sentinel’s Web site and frame it. "Simmons stated that he interpreted this as a sort of 'you can’t catch me' type statement by defendant Mohammad," the complaint reads.

Another election worker, Levar Stoney, told an FBI agent in Virginia that he had been "taunted" for dropping out of Operation Elephant Takeover but that the five defendants talked afterward about how many tires each had stabbed while Mohammad ran interference, the criminal complaint says.

Prosecutors say the five defendants left the Democratic campaign office at about 3:30 a.m. the morning of the election and slashed the tires of the vans around the perimeter of a dirt parking lot to prevent the GOP efforts.

Lawyers for the five defendants, however, say the national "political operatives" are in fact slashed the tires and then, when authorities began speaking with them, pointed their fingers at the five defendants to save their political careers.

The testimony of Smith and her three out-of-state co-workers, Myesha Ward, Levar Stoney and Lashaunda Williams generally echoed previous statements of Opel Simmons III, an earlier witness and the leader of the get-out-the-vote group who told jurors of the defendants' behavior after the alleged slashing.

But like Simmons, the witnesses all admitted to lying to police in the hours after the slashing and then changing their stories in interviews with FBI agents during the months after the election.

posted by Shaun Kenney | 4/14/2008 06:03:00 PM | 0 comments

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