February 10, 2004

Jury Asked to put Justice Back on Track

   By Oliver Mackson
   Times Herald-Record
   omackson@th-record.com
   
   White Plains – A prosecutor yesterday urged a federal jury to punish a lawyer and a private investigator for cooking up "a carefully conceived plan to derail the wheels of justice," and described the lawyer as the in-house counsel to a Newburgh crime family.
 

   Today, the jury may begin deciding the fate of Donald Roth, 34, and David St. John, 41, a private investigator who's worked with Roth. The Dutchess County duo are accused of conspiring to persuade a government informant to change his story about buying crack from Newburgh dealers Raymond "Ray Love" Bryant and Timothy "Big Tim" Cherry.
 

   "Put the wheels of justice back on the rails," Assistant U.S. Attorney Glenn C. Colton implored the jury in his closing argument yesterday. "It is illegal to tamper with a witness."
 

   He hammered at Roth's credibility, showing the jurors copies of vouchers that Roth submitted to Dutchess County for court-appointed defense work. One voucher had him working 24 hours in a day, another showed 24.6 hours and, "on May 25, 2001, Donald Roth became Superman, and billed 25 and a quarter hours in a day," Colton told the jury.
 

   Roth's lawyer will make his closing argument today. St. John's lawyer slammed the government's witnesses as a crew of liars and thugs who ripped off drug houses around Newburgh and were prone to other acts of violence.
 

   "They are not credible witnesses," said St. John's lawyer, William Aronwald. He said that St. John's job wasn't to persuade anyone to change their story; it was to collect as much information as possible about Bryant, Cherry and the transaction between them and Charles "Flip" Melvin, who was later revealed in open court as a federal informant.
 

   Bryant hired Roth after the Poughkeepsie lawyer got a deal for Bryant's brother, Antonio, in 2002: Antonio Bryant was charged with murdering a Newburgh man over $30 worth of pot. He copped a plea to manslaughter after witnesses changed their stories about the identity of the shooter. He got five years in prison instead of 25 to life for murder.
 

   The shooting case has been a factor in the trial of Roth and St. John because of the way witnesses changed their stories in the shooting case – the same thing Roth and St. John are accused of trying to do in the federal case.

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