Globe Newspaper

Judge: New trial for Brockton man on Fla. death row

Hearings shed light on slaying of citrus dealer

By Shelley Murphy, 

 A federal judge has ordered a new trial for a Brockton man who has spent 18 years on Florida's death row for the 1966 slaying of a wealthy citrus dealer in a case involving Boston's underworld, a love triangle, and secret deals with the law.

William H. Kelley, now 59, may not have been convicted of killing Charles Von Maxcy inside his $1.7 million Sebring, Fla. estate if a Florida state prosecutor had turned over evidence revealing that a key witness had been promised immunity from prosecution for numerous crimes in Massachusetts, according to the judge.

 US District Judge Norman Roettger of the Southern District of Florida ordered a new trial for Kelley on Thursday following lengthy hearings in the case, including one in Boston last year at which two associates of fugitive South Boston crime boss James ''Whitey'' Bulger testified on Kelley's behalf.

 In a 24-page decision, Roettger wrote that if the prosecutor had revealed that Kelley's chief accuser, John Sweet, had been granted immunity then it would have resulted in a ''markedly weaker case for the prosecution and a markedly stronger one for the defense.''

 Boston attorney Joseph Oteri, who worked on Kelley's appeal, said, ''It was a miscarriage of justice. He got framed.''

 Shortly after Von Maxcy was shot and stabbed to death on Oct. 3, 1966, his wife, Irene, confessed that her lover, Sweet, a former Boston area bookie, had hired two hit men to kill her husband.

 Sweet was convicted of the slaying but later freed after an appeals court reversed his conviction because Irene Von Maxcy had lied on the stand and was also allegedly having an affair with a chief investigator on the case.

 In 1981, when Sweet was arrested in Massachusetts on charges of bribery, arson, drug trafficking, prostitution, counterfeiting, loan sharking, and truck hijacking, he identified Kelley as one of the hit men who killed Von Maxcy. He said the second hit man was dead.

 At the time, Kelley was a fugitive, wanted in North Carolina on charges of smuggling 36,500 pounds of marijuana. He was also wanted in Masschusetts for allegedly stealing computer equipment. Kelley was captured by the FBI in 1983 and tried for Von Maxcy's murder. The first trial ended with a hung jury; he was convicted in a second trial and sentenced to death.

 After Florida's highest court upheld the conviction, Kelley's lawyers - including Harvard Law School professor Laurence Tribe and James Lohman of New Orleans - appealed to federal court.

 During a hearing in Boston in April 2001, Hobart Willis, who was convicted of drug charges involving a ring that paid tribute to Bulger, testified that a deceased hit man, Stevie ''The Greek'' Busias, had confessed to him that he killed Von Maxcy.

 Another Bulger associate, Patrick Linskey, testified that Kelley didn't know Sweet and was shocked when he was implicated in the slaying.

 The Florida attorney general's office didn't return a call seeking information on whether they will appeal the ruling or retry Kelley.

 But Oteri said it's unlikely that Kelley will face a new trial because most of the witnesses, including Sweet, are dead.

 This story ran on page B4 of the Boston Globe on 9/21/2002.

� Copyright 2002 Globe Newspaper