February 19, 2021 • 27 mins
Jonathan’s last case goes sideways on him when it is discovered that his cooperating witness was dealing drugs and terrorizing the neighborhood while working for the FBI.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:04):
Somebody Somewhere is a production of Rainstream Media Incorporated. This
podcast investigates the unsolved death of federal prosecutor Jonathan Luna
in two thousand and three. It is a true story,
but the opinions of the hosts and interviewees are simply
that opinions, not facts, and the credibility of the witnesses
and what they say is to be determined by the listener.
(00:27):
Everyone is presumed innocent until proven otherwise in a court
of law. Previously on Somebody Somewhere.
Speaker 2 (00:40):
Basically could not come to the office, like he was
locked out, escorted out of Parmaent of Justice space and
could not come back in.
Speaker 3 (00:48):
And at that point Jonathan is like really pressing me
to work this case out.
Speaker 4 (00:54):
It just seems like bombs were bursting in there.
Speaker 5 (00:57):
The day you've for Jonathan wentnessing.
Speaker 2 (00:59):
He had reached out and said, hey, you'll want to
be in court in the morning.
Speaker 3 (01:03):
And to my surprise, Judge Quarrels ordered pre trial to
sit down with the two of us and go through
pre trial's fall.
Speaker 6 (01:14):
This is episode three of season three Amazing Grace. I'm
your host, David Payne. It's been ten years since the
Feberal prosecutor was found deadnor Boro and Lecaster County.
Speaker 5 (01:35):
We will find out who did this.
Speaker 1 (01:37):
Was he trying to stage some sort of attack and went.
Speaker 5 (01:40):
To far.
Speaker 2 (01:52):
I remember this very vividly, and they're both like standing
there like there's urgency to this, and they're really kind
of excited. And told them right away, you are not
getting the stile, you're not getting this file, you're not
getting these documents, but you get asked questions.
Speaker 6 (02:11):
As a pre Trial Services supervisor, Barbara Skidmore played an
unusual role in our federal court system. Her job was
to act as a neutral agent of the court to
assess the risk profile of people awaiting trial and to
recommend conditions for their possible release. And on the evening
of December two, two thousand and three, at the end
(02:32):
of the second day of the Stash House records trial
and just thirty six hours before Jonathan Luna's mysterious death,
Skidmore found two prominent defense attorneys at her door with
a court directive ordering her to tell them about cooperating
witness Warren Grace.
Speaker 2 (02:48):
We were notified by the court that the judge was
going to let them talk to us, but I remember
that this was critical.
Speaker 5 (02:58):
This was after hours.
Speaker 2 (02:59):
It was kind of like six or seven o'clock at night.
I remember it was controversial and it was a big
deal because this is not something we would typically do
divulge information that was otherwise confidential.
Speaker 6 (03:20):
It's a dark December night, and Skidmore and her colleague
would be awaiting the tag teaming by two of Baltimore's
leading defense attorneys on a court ordered fishing expedition on
Warren Grace. Jonathan Luna was either directed by the court
or chose not to attend. The record is not clear.
Speaker 2 (03:39):
So they are in the room. I mean, it's not
a large office, and they're both pretty high strung. Ravenow
a little bit more. I mean I vividly remembered this.
Speaker 5 (03:49):
I was like, whoa.
Speaker 6 (03:51):
I envisioned him as kind of the Johnny Cochrane of Baltimore.
Speaker 5 (03:55):
He was in.
Speaker 2 (03:56):
I would say, Ken is slick, you know, represents a
lot of people, always dressed to the nines, you know,
put together, you know, had a real presence about him.
But you know, he was smart and Archie was more
of a easy going kind of guy, not more self deprecating,
whereas Ken had a little bit more stature.
Speaker 6 (04:18):
But as the defense attorneys started digging that night, it
was the easy going to Manelli who would get amped
up at what they would find.
Speaker 3 (04:27):
I mean, I was shocked, and that's what I've said
to Quarrels. I'm really shocked that, you know, this happened.
Our interests was what occurred, if anything, that resulted in
him being released.
Speaker 5 (04:43):
Without pre trial supervision.
Speaker 3 (04:46):
Subject to the supervision of the you know, government agents.
Speaker 6 (04:54):
And what the attorneys found out was that Grace had
not been a model citizen well under either of the
or the FBI's supervision, so much so that the Pre
Trial Services Division wanted to wash their hands of him.
Speaker 2 (05:08):
He had violated the terms of his release, and we
had sent some confidential amendments to the court because it
involved the FBI and their relationship with the defendant and
sort of not being truthful with us about what Warren
Grace was doing. I mean, it was crazy. We knew
(05:28):
that Warren Grace was not truthful and he was not
a good guy, so.
Speaker 6 (05:33):
We had it wasn't just that Grace wasn't a good
guy that defense counsel learned, though, It was that Grace
was slipping his electronic bracelet and terrorizing his neighborhood, all
while under the supervision of the FBI.
Speaker 2 (05:47):
That was not a typical scenario. That people actually were
able to take the bracelet off without a tamper showing.
Speaker 5 (05:53):
It was unbelievable.
Speaker 2 (05:54):
Really, I mean, that created a whole investigation of its
own about how that happened.
Speaker 6 (06:00):
Did you all talk to the agent about him being
off the bracelet too?
Speaker 2 (06:04):
Or I think we did talk with the agent because
we thought that the agent was a partner with us
to assure his safety of the community. But it was
clear that the agents and the particular agent didn't seem
to be on the same page of supervising Warren Grace.
Speaker 6 (06:23):
Were they cutting him more slack or were they just yes, yes, okay, I.
Speaker 2 (06:28):
Mean yeah, crazy stuff he was getting, like privileges that's
not part of the deal. They're supposed to be in
your office or you know, under your surveillance, under your supervision.
Cooperation didn't mean you got to go to the record
store or you know, go to the movies with your girlfriend. No,
And I think I remember telling the officer.
Speaker 5 (06:49):
Tell him he can't do that. You know, that's not.
Speaker 6 (06:51):
Acceptable, and it wasn't acceptable for another reason that the
defense attorneys would soon discover buried in Skidmore's files and
not previously disclosed to the defense, a reason that would
make the FBI, the US Attorney's Office, and Jonathan Luna
by extension, look very bad.
Speaker 3 (07:17):
The agents has set up a second buy from Smith,
and the agents searched the car that Graces in and
what would behold over the sunrisor there is a plastic
package that had capsules of heroin in it. And the
(07:38):
incredible thing was all three of the prior purchases, the
drugs were always packaged the same way.
Speaker 6 (07:48):
So when you got this information from pre trial services,
what's the import of that?
Speaker 3 (07:53):
The import is that like immediately he's going out to
buy the drugs and he already has drugs in his car,
packaged identically to what he has previously turned in that
supposedly he's purchased from Coindexter and Smith and he's got
this cash. Is clear to me at least he's going
(08:14):
to keep the cash, He's going to turn in what's
over the visor and give them the drugs. It would
have been the best offense I ever had. And I
think Jeurie's got to conclude you know, there's no way
you proved me out a reasonable doubt.
Speaker 2 (08:34):
That bit of fact that excited them, frankly, not that
it wasn't a big deal. But for us, I mean,
these are drug offenders. Of course they're doing this thing.
This is why you don't trust them. So I get
their excitement, But the thing for us is that, yeah,
he was doing that, plus he clipped his bracelet, Plus
he's supposed to be working with the FBI, and he's
(08:55):
a rogue criminal out there.
Speaker 6 (08:58):
To take a step back here, the reason this Inside
Baseball detailed about the handling of government witness Warren Grace
is so critical is that it goes directly to whether
Jonathan had a reason to take his own life or
if someone else had a reason to take it from him.
You see, defense counsel were ecstatic they found reasonable doubt
for their case in Skidmore's files. But if you're Jonathan Luna,
(09:22):
or his boss, Tom Debaggio, or the FBI, this disclosure
is not going to look very good. For one thing,
it is about to become public that the Law and
Order US attorney's primary witness has been dealing drugs and
threatening people while under FBI's supervision. Moreover, the prosecutor's office
(09:42):
was complicit and the FBI's desire to keep Warren Grace
out of jail to make their case stronger, and they
convinced a federal judge to go along.
Speaker 4 (09:51):
You know, the.
Speaker 2 (09:51):
Government would go to that for people that they had cooperating,
but it just seemed they really went to that for
this guy.
Speaker 6 (09:59):
There was a memo in the file to Judge smulk
It that basically said, Judge, we don't want you to
provoke his bail or his pre trial conditions of release
because we need him to work with the FBI on
this case and it would hurt our case if you
did revoke his bail. Do you remember that.
Speaker 2 (10:20):
I don't remember it specifically, but I remember that the
government wanted him out and we thought he was dangerous
and that he was so dangerous and not a good
person to be out that we weren't. You go ahead, Judge,
you let him out, but we're not going to serivize him.
This guy was so dangerous that I was endangering the
(10:42):
officer who was supervising him in the community.
Speaker 6 (10:49):
The memo, written by Jonathan's colleague Jackie Rodriguez, cause to
the Judge Handling Warren Grace's pending case was remarkable for
several reasons, but for Jonathan's persist and for understanding his
state of mind the night before he died. Perhaps the
biggest question was why hadn't he disclosed its existence to
defense counsel? Did Jonathan even know about the memo? If
(11:13):
he didn't, he was probably negligent in his trial preparation.
But if he did, he was about to be publicly
exposed in Judge Quarrel's courtroom as a prosecutor who hid
the ball. And the only way to make either situation
go away was to sweep an alleged related conduct murder
under the rug.
Speaker 3 (11:32):
As soon as we walk out of there, you know,
I thought to myself, Jonathan has got to go to
his supervisors and say, look, you got to give me
approval to get rid of that potential murder. Not only
was there a problem with Grace, but clearly there's this
letter that Jackie. You know that's all going to come out,
(11:55):
is you know what the government and so I, you know,
essentially told him that. I'm assuming that Jonathan went back
and talked to whoever he talked to, And Jonathan knows
what's in the file?
Speaker 6 (12:08):
Why do you say Jonathan knows what's in the file?
It's a pre trial services file.
Speaker 3 (12:12):
What is your Because Jonathan was in the case from
the beginning against these guys, and while Jonathan and Rodriquez
are handling this case, the issue with Grace occurs, they
know that that's originally the reason he was taken off
of pre trial release.
Speaker 5 (12:32):
I think that got reported the pre trial.
Speaker 6 (12:35):
Services And there is further evidence beyond too Manelli's supposition
that Jonathan was aware of what was in pre trial's files.
Speaker 2 (12:47):
But it was odd that Jonathan wasn't in the meeting
with the defense attorneys, you know, in our office. He
didn't come there. Obviously it was because he already knew
what we knew. The government had acts us to that
information because he was cooperating with the government. I also
remember Jonathan coming to our office, not with Archie and Ken,
(13:09):
but separately about this. I think it was that same night.
It may have been either before or after they came.
Speaker 6 (13:17):
Would you have shown him the file, allow him to
flip through the file, or just he ask questions.
Speaker 5 (13:22):
I think he just asked questions.
Speaker 2 (13:25):
Quarrels knew Warren Grace was shady, shady dude who you
know had some issues and that Jonathan should have known
about it. Only in hindsight did it was like, oh
my god, he was just in our office.
Speaker 6 (13:39):
This is crazy, and hindsight is how we all are
evaluating the last few days and hours of Jonathan's life,
searching for clues as to whether something could possibly drive
Jonathan Luna to stab himself thirty six times thirty six
hours later. Somebody somewhere will return right after this break.
(14:12):
When Jonathan left the office that night after a difficult
day two of his trial in the Stash House Records case,
he was met with an additional stressor at home, a
stressor that would spill over to the next day.
Speaker 3 (14:25):
What happens first is Jonathan was late and Judge Quarrels
was one of these judges that was.
Speaker 5 (14:33):
A sick or. If you were like a thirty seconds late,
we'd find you. And so Jonathan came in court.
Speaker 6 (14:41):
Reporter Ned Richardson explains how the judge reacted when Jonathan
would explain the reason he was late was because as
one year old was so sick he had to be
taken to the emergency room.
Speaker 4 (14:52):
But I thought he was really very compassionate with him
for about two minutes, and I thought he said something
of out Jonathon had a sick kid, and I think
he asked him, how's your kid? And that was very
nice and very polite exchange. And then we went downhills
from there. And I don't know what I kept thinking
(15:13):
through the whole trial. Jonathan was so distracted he couldn't
keep it together, and I thought, something is wrong, something
is really bad. I mean, he kept losing it. We'd
be going down one row and he'd jumped onto another thing,
and I thought, oh my heavens.
Speaker 6 (15:36):
And the question was why was it his sick child?
Was it the stress of the trial, was it the
stress of his job being in jeopardy. Whatever the root
caused Jonathan's Day three of the trial would get off
to a rough start. He would put Warren Grace back
on the stand to finish up his testimony, and in
(15:56):
doing so, he would try to take the sting out
of what he expected defense to bring up the government's
mishandling of Warren Grace, a strategy that would infuriate the
blindsided defense attorneys and ultimately the judge as well.
Speaker 3 (16:12):
This is after the judge knows that we know about Grace.
Speaker 5 (16:16):
We're at the bench and him saying what he's saying.
We're saying, this was never disclosed.
Speaker 3 (16:22):
And I'm saying, Judge, you know, in all the years
I've been here, I have never seen anything like this.
Speaker 6 (16:30):
Is Jonathan caught in a lie? He hasn't disclosed this information.
So you've potentially got a Brady issue, You've got a
Jinx issue. I mean, is he embarrassed by it? Is
he obsessed that he's been caught?
Speaker 3 (16:42):
He is? You'd think that there would be some kind
of response from Jonathan, but he was like, expressionalless. I mean,
it was like he knew it was. It was clear
that he knew there was a problem and that he
had a problem.
Speaker 5 (16:56):
This was all improper.
Speaker 3 (16:58):
I mean, he should be apologizing, but he's not going
to do that.
Speaker 6 (17:02):
Jonathan may not have been in the mood or the
position to apologize that afternoon, but he did set about
to Salvage's case with a plea. After the lunch break,
he would tell the judge that he and defense counsel
had reached a plea agreement, only to have that plea
break down again because of the alleged related murder case
against Poindexter. Frustrated and frankly angered by Jonathan's failure to
(17:27):
be able to resolve the issues, the judge would make
a series of rulings. First, he would allow the defense
to interview Warren Grace without the government being present on
the day after next, and he would direct Jonathan to
turn over all the documents and preach all services files,
including the memo by Jackie Coss by the end of
(17:47):
the day.
Speaker 3 (17:48):
And Jonathan was standing there because Jackie rod Rigeys wasn't there,
But he's standing there, and he was a party to this,
and you've got to consider like dismissing the damn and
here we are, well, not only they don't disclose it
under Brady, but they're trying to put my client away
potentially for a life, knowing that he may not have
(18:11):
been Sullivan, that Grace Strong who knows.
Speaker 5 (18:14):
Jonathan didn't say a word.
Speaker 3 (18:17):
He just had this look like, how the hell do
I get out of this?
Speaker 6 (18:26):
By the time court ended that third day, Jonathan thought
he may have a plan to get out of the
jam he was in, and he reinitiated the plea negotiations
with defense attorneys as they left the courtroom, and from
court reporter Ned Richardson, we get the next inkling of
the stress Jonathan may have been under as this case
went sideways.
Speaker 4 (18:47):
Well, the part that I remember most is where we
had stopped for the day and my office adjoined the courtroom,
just a little hallway, and I'm more right than in
my office. They were standing outside of my door, and
they started out it seemed pretty amicable, but then they
(19:08):
got louder and louder. Hey, I remember Archie to Minnelli,
and I remember all I could see was his feet.
They were right in my door, these two with Jonathan,
and they were going at it, and I thought, oh
my god, I mean this is a ruckus. I don't
need this, so I told him move. And that's the
(19:30):
last time I saw Johnathan alive.
Speaker 5 (19:41):
I don't remember that.
Speaker 3 (19:42):
But I'm not surprised because I was the one that
felt really agreed because Penn's client. Up until that point,
they're offering him a deal that his client wants. But
I'm really agreed because Jonathan's doing everything he can to
avoid what he's be doing. So yeah, I'm not surprised.
Speaker 6 (20:02):
With less than eleven hours to live, Jonathan does what
he surely must have done reluctantly taking an aggrieved defense
attorney upstairs to meet with his supervisor to see how
they might work around this alleged related murder charge.
Speaker 3 (20:16):
So I go up to his office and Jonathan's in there.
Now you've got to remember, he's telling me all along
that you can't get approval. He can't get approval, he
can't get approval to give up the murder. And the
first thing, you know, I realized he's there with an
assistant US attorney named Jim Warwick. So I go start
(20:39):
to explain to him what's happening, and I tell him, look,
he's talking about ten years, but he won't give up
this murder. And Warwick, I mean didn't take long. You know,
he hears this in about five minutes. He looked at
Jonathan and he said, that's not a problem. What's the problem.
He said, there's no reason you can't agree to that.
(20:59):
And so John Nathan said, oh, all right, I'm assuming.
Speaker 6 (21:03):
And of course you had to wonder why the US
Attorney's office would give up an alleged related murder charge
so quickly, Whose interest was that in and what was
going on behind the scenes.
Speaker 3 (21:14):
It's like it never happened. That he was telling me
that he couldn't do it, he couldn't do it, and
all of a sudden he knew before I even walked
in that room that Warwick knew what was going on
and that they're going to like agree to it, because
he wasn't surprised when Warwick says, you can agree to that.
And I think the only thing that changed is that
(21:36):
they knew in that office that we had now seen
what the hell's in that fall?
Speaker 6 (21:49):
So why do you think Jonathan was holding onto that murder?
Speaker 5 (21:53):
Did he not want to be embarrassed with Warwick?
Speaker 3 (21:56):
I think Jonathan's holding on to it because that's what
the office would ignore had done up until that information
disclosed to Minoi doesn't know anything about any of this, So.
Speaker 5 (22:07):
Why should we give up the murder?
Speaker 6 (22:09):
I mean, ethically, they're obligated to provide that information.
Speaker 5 (22:12):
So let me ask you this.
Speaker 6 (22:14):
Jonathan didn't strike me as a person to be somebody
who would hide the ball unless there was a reason.
Speaker 4 (22:20):
To do it.
Speaker 6 (22:21):
But I just wonder if the fact that he was
concerned about his job and didn't want to rock the
boat and played into.
Speaker 5 (22:28):
That, I would imagine it would.
Speaker 3 (22:30):
I mean, look the Baggio from everything I was told,
and this was through the great rind coming from prosecutors,
that the Poggio wanted to fire him.
Speaker 6 (22:44):
And I had to imagine that. That weighed on Jonathan
as he drove home from the courthouse to have dinner
with his wife, his mother in law, his daughter, and
a sick baby. But could it explain a complete mental
breakdown five hours later or would something else happened to intervene?
Speaker 3 (23:01):
And when I leave, my understanding is he's going to
do the plea agreement, and he says, I'm going to
stay here and finish that and I'll see you tomorrow.
I think I probably talked to him and then he
left the message that consistent with what you.
Speaker 6 (23:16):
Say, what I have is the meeting breaks up around
six pm. Yeah, at about six point thirty, he goes
home for dinner with his wife and his mother in
law to Elkridge. Yeah, comes back to the office at
eight forty eight. At nine oh six, my note say
tim Minelli says he received a call it home from
(23:37):
Luna telling him he had finished Smith but needed.
Speaker 5 (23:40):
To finish Point Dexter.
Speaker 6 (23:42):
Also said he had to go home again.
Speaker 5 (23:44):
But would return to finish. Is that ring a bell?
Speaker 3 (23:47):
Well, yeah, it does, and I believe it was from
a voicemail and it was one of those older machines.
Speaker 5 (23:56):
Where you had a little tape. So here's a real
critical question, and do you have that tape? So you
know what I did?
Speaker 3 (24:03):
I remember?
Speaker 5 (24:03):
Now?
Speaker 3 (24:04):
Do you ask me that there was a fireplace with
mantel and there was like a quos in a Chinese
vase and had a lid on it, and I put
that tape in there for safe keeping.
Speaker 5 (24:17):
But we moved like two and a half years ago.
Speaker 3 (24:20):
I will look and see if it's still there. You
know what, You're right about one thing. I wouldn't have
thrown it away.
Speaker 5 (24:28):
That could have been the last call that he made.
Speaker 3 (24:31):
I mean it was I'm pretty sure from the FBI
that was the last contact anyone had from Jonathan.
Speaker 6 (24:40):
Or was it Allegedly Raveno got a call from him
as well that night around the same time, but there's
no record of that.
Speaker 5 (24:50):
You definitely, yeah, I guess.
Speaker 3 (24:51):
You probably did tell raph Yeah, but because I know
what he did when I left, he's going to stay
there and finish.
Speaker 5 (24:57):
The plea agreements.
Speaker 3 (24:59):
And then I got information that he was leaving to
go homes. He's going to have dinner and do whatever,
and then he was going back to the courthouse and
finish that evening.
Speaker 6 (25:13):
Of course, we know now that never happened. Jonathan returned
to the office that night after dinner at eight forty
eight pm. He finished one plea agreement, the one for
Ken Ravenel's client, but left the more difficult one for
Archie's client unfinished when he got up from his desk
without his glasses or cell phone and drove out of
(25:34):
the courthouse building at eleven thirty eight pm. He would
be found dead five hours later. Next time on somebody somewhere, I'll.
Speaker 4 (25:52):
Talk to a couple of the court security officers, and
somebody said, well, there was another car right behind me.
Speaker 2 (26:00):
I was concerned almost immediately. I mean, a missing federal
prosecutor is a missing federal prosecutor.
Speaker 6 (26:06):
The initial inclination of the US Attorney's office was somebody
from this case had something to do with Jonathan.
Speaker 5 (26:12):
Not showing up.
Speaker 3 (26:14):
And I said, the last person in the world that
wants Jonathan Luna to be killed was my client.
Speaker 7 (26:24):
There it goes the devil telling me to lie again,
says I'm around Me says it's all right to Britain
that you can get more then you give.
Speaker 6 (26:43):
Somebody Somewhere is a production of Rainstream Media Incorporated. Sound design,
editing and mixing has been provided by Resonate Recordings. Original
score and voiceover work provided by Hallie Payne. Artwork provided
by Evan McGlenn and Kendall Payne. Do you have any
information regarding the Jonathan Luna case, please contact us via
(27:04):
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It really helps and we really appreciate it. Thank you
for listening.
Speaker 2 (27:22):
Here.
Speaker 7 (27:22):
God I hey, you say, I'm sig.
Speaker 2 (27:29):
Good.
Speaker 3 (27:29):
I just work.
Speaker 4 (27:32):
He love.
Speaker 5 (27:35):
EB still love money.
Speaker 7 (27:41):
I need more money.
Somebody Somewhere is a production of Rainstream Media Incorporated. This
podcast investigates the unsolved death of federal prosecutor Jonathan Luna
in two thousand and three. It is a true story,
but the opinions of the hosts and interviewees are simply
that opinions, not facts, and the credibility of the witnesses
and what they say is to be determined by the listener.
(00:27):
Everyone is presumed innocent until proven otherwise in a court
of law. Previously on Somebody Somewhere.
Speaker 2 (00:40):
Basically could not come to the office, like he was
locked out, escorted out of Parmaent of Justice space and
could not come back in.
Speaker 3 (00:48):
And at that point Jonathan is like really pressing me
to work this case out.
Speaker 4 (00:54):
It just seems like bombs were bursting in there.
Speaker 5 (00:57):
The day you've for Jonathan wentnessing.
Speaker 2 (00:59):
He had reached out and said, hey, you'll want to
be in court in the morning.
Speaker 3 (01:03):
And to my surprise, Judge Quarrels ordered pre trial to
sit down with the two of us and go through
pre trial's fall.
Speaker 6 (01:14):
This is episode three of season three Amazing Grace. I'm
your host, David Payne. It's been ten years since the
Feberal prosecutor was found deadnor Boro and Lecaster County.
Speaker 5 (01:35):
We will find out who did this.
Speaker 1 (01:37):
Was he trying to stage some sort of attack and went.
Speaker 5 (01:40):
To far.
Speaker 2 (01:52):
I remember this very vividly, and they're both like standing
there like there's urgency to this, and they're really kind
of excited. And told them right away, you are not
getting the stile, you're not getting this file, you're not
getting these documents, but you get asked questions.
Speaker 6 (02:11):
As a pre Trial Services supervisor, Barbara Skidmore played an
unusual role in our federal court system. Her job was
to act as a neutral agent of the court to
assess the risk profile of people awaiting trial and to
recommend conditions for their possible release. And on the evening
of December two, two thousand and three, at the end
(02:32):
of the second day of the Stash House records trial
and just thirty six hours before Jonathan Luna's mysterious death,
Skidmore found two prominent defense attorneys at her door with
a court directive ordering her to tell them about cooperating
witness Warren Grace.
Speaker 2 (02:48):
We were notified by the court that the judge was
going to let them talk to us, but I remember
that this was critical.
Speaker 5 (02:58):
This was after hours.
Speaker 2 (02:59):
It was kind of like six or seven o'clock at night.
I remember it was controversial and it was a big
deal because this is not something we would typically do
divulge information that was otherwise confidential.
Speaker 6 (03:20):
It's a dark December night, and Skidmore and her colleague
would be awaiting the tag teaming by two of Baltimore's
leading defense attorneys on a court ordered fishing expedition on
Warren Grace. Jonathan Luna was either directed by the court
or chose not to attend. The record is not clear.
Speaker 2 (03:39):
So they are in the room. I mean, it's not
a large office, and they're both pretty high strung. Ravenow
a little bit more. I mean I vividly remembered this.
Speaker 5 (03:49):
I was like, whoa.
Speaker 6 (03:51):
I envisioned him as kind of the Johnny Cochrane of Baltimore.
Speaker 5 (03:55):
He was in.
Speaker 2 (03:56):
I would say, Ken is slick, you know, represents a
lot of people, always dressed to the nines, you know,
put together, you know, had a real presence about him.
But you know, he was smart and Archie was more
of a easy going kind of guy, not more self deprecating,
whereas Ken had a little bit more stature.
Speaker 6 (04:18):
But as the defense attorneys started digging that night, it
was the easy going to Manelli who would get amped
up at what they would find.
Speaker 3 (04:27):
I mean, I was shocked, and that's what I've said
to Quarrels. I'm really shocked that, you know, this happened.
Our interests was what occurred, if anything, that resulted in
him being released.
Speaker 5 (04:43):
Without pre trial supervision.
Speaker 3 (04:46):
Subject to the supervision of the you know, government agents.
Speaker 6 (04:54):
And what the attorneys found out was that Grace had
not been a model citizen well under either of the
or the FBI's supervision, so much so that the Pre
Trial Services Division wanted to wash their hands of him.
Speaker 2 (05:08):
He had violated the terms of his release, and we
had sent some confidential amendments to the court because it
involved the FBI and their relationship with the defendant and
sort of not being truthful with us about what Warren
Grace was doing. I mean, it was crazy. We knew
(05:28):
that Warren Grace was not truthful and he was not
a good guy, so.
Speaker 6 (05:33):
We had it wasn't just that Grace wasn't a good
guy that defense counsel learned, though, It was that Grace
was slipping his electronic bracelet and terrorizing his neighborhood, all
while under the supervision of the FBI.
Speaker 2 (05:47):
That was not a typical scenario. That people actually were
able to take the bracelet off without a tamper showing.
Speaker 5 (05:53):
It was unbelievable.
Speaker 2 (05:54):
Really, I mean, that created a whole investigation of its
own about how that happened.
Speaker 6 (06:00):
Did you all talk to the agent about him being
off the bracelet too?
Speaker 2 (06:04):
Or I think we did talk with the agent because
we thought that the agent was a partner with us
to assure his safety of the community. But it was
clear that the agents and the particular agent didn't seem
to be on the same page of supervising Warren Grace.
Speaker 6 (06:23):
Were they cutting him more slack or were they just yes, yes, okay, I.
Speaker 2 (06:28):
Mean yeah, crazy stuff he was getting, like privileges that's
not part of the deal. They're supposed to be in
your office or you know, under your surveillance, under your supervision.
Cooperation didn't mean you got to go to the record
store or you know, go to the movies with your girlfriend. No,
And I think I remember telling the officer.
Speaker 5 (06:49):
Tell him he can't do that. You know, that's not.
Speaker 6 (06:51):
Acceptable, and it wasn't acceptable for another reason that the
defense attorneys would soon discover buried in Skidmore's files and
not previously disclosed to the defense, a reason that would
make the FBI, the US Attorney's Office, and Jonathan Luna
by extension, look very bad.
Speaker 3 (07:17):
The agents has set up a second buy from Smith,
and the agents searched the car that Graces in and
what would behold over the sunrisor there is a plastic
package that had capsules of heroin in it. And the
(07:38):
incredible thing was all three of the prior purchases, the
drugs were always packaged the same way.
Speaker 6 (07:48):
So when you got this information from pre trial services,
what's the import of that?
Speaker 3 (07:53):
The import is that like immediately he's going out to
buy the drugs and he already has drugs in his car,
packaged identically to what he has previously turned in that
supposedly he's purchased from Coindexter and Smith and he's got
this cash. Is clear to me at least he's going
(08:14):
to keep the cash, He's going to turn in what's
over the visor and give them the drugs. It would
have been the best offense I ever had. And I
think Jeurie's got to conclude you know, there's no way
you proved me out a reasonable doubt.
Speaker 2 (08:34):
That bit of fact that excited them, frankly, not that
it wasn't a big deal. But for us, I mean,
these are drug offenders. Of course they're doing this thing.
This is why you don't trust them. So I get
their excitement, But the thing for us is that, yeah,
he was doing that, plus he clipped his bracelet, Plus
he's supposed to be working with the FBI, and he's
(08:55):
a rogue criminal out there.
Speaker 6 (08:58):
To take a step back here, the reason this Inside
Baseball detailed about the handling of government witness Warren Grace
is so critical is that it goes directly to whether
Jonathan had a reason to take his own life or
if someone else had a reason to take it from him.
You see, defense counsel were ecstatic they found reasonable doubt
for their case in Skidmore's files. But if you're Jonathan Luna,
(09:22):
or his boss, Tom Debaggio, or the FBI, this disclosure
is not going to look very good. For one thing,
it is about to become public that the Law and
Order US attorney's primary witness has been dealing drugs and
threatening people while under FBI's supervision. Moreover, the prosecutor's office
(09:42):
was complicit and the FBI's desire to keep Warren Grace
out of jail to make their case stronger, and they
convinced a federal judge to go along.
Speaker 4 (09:51):
You know, the.
Speaker 2 (09:51):
Government would go to that for people that they had cooperating,
but it just seemed they really went to that for
this guy.
Speaker 6 (09:59):
There was a memo in the file to Judge smulk
It that basically said, Judge, we don't want you to
provoke his bail or his pre trial conditions of release
because we need him to work with the FBI on
this case and it would hurt our case if you
did revoke his bail. Do you remember that.
Speaker 2 (10:20):
I don't remember it specifically, but I remember that the
government wanted him out and we thought he was dangerous
and that he was so dangerous and not a good
person to be out that we weren't. You go ahead, Judge,
you let him out, but we're not going to serivize him.
This guy was so dangerous that I was endangering the
(10:42):
officer who was supervising him in the community.
Speaker 6 (10:49):
The memo, written by Jonathan's colleague Jackie Rodriguez, cause to
the Judge Handling Warren Grace's pending case was remarkable for
several reasons, but for Jonathan's persist and for understanding his
state of mind the night before he died. Perhaps the
biggest question was why hadn't he disclosed its existence to
defense counsel? Did Jonathan even know about the memo? If
(11:13):
he didn't, he was probably negligent in his trial preparation.
But if he did, he was about to be publicly
exposed in Judge Quarrel's courtroom as a prosecutor who hid
the ball. And the only way to make either situation
go away was to sweep an alleged related conduct murder
under the rug.
Speaker 3 (11:32):
As soon as we walk out of there, you know,
I thought to myself, Jonathan has got to go to
his supervisors and say, look, you got to give me
approval to get rid of that potential murder. Not only
was there a problem with Grace, but clearly there's this
letter that Jackie. You know that's all going to come out,
(11:55):
is you know what the government and so I, you know,
essentially told him that. I'm assuming that Jonathan went back
and talked to whoever he talked to, And Jonathan knows
what's in the file?
Speaker 6 (12:08):
Why do you say Jonathan knows what's in the file?
It's a pre trial services file.
Speaker 3 (12:12):
What is your Because Jonathan was in the case from
the beginning against these guys, and while Jonathan and Rodriquez
are handling this case, the issue with Grace occurs, they
know that that's originally the reason he was taken off
of pre trial release.
Speaker 5 (12:32):
I think that got reported the pre trial.
Speaker 6 (12:35):
Services And there is further evidence beyond too Manelli's supposition
that Jonathan was aware of what was in pre trial's files.
Speaker 2 (12:47):
But it was odd that Jonathan wasn't in the meeting
with the defense attorneys, you know, in our office. He
didn't come there. Obviously it was because he already knew
what we knew. The government had acts us to that
information because he was cooperating with the government. I also
remember Jonathan coming to our office, not with Archie and Ken,
(13:09):
but separately about this. I think it was that same night.
It may have been either before or after they came.
Speaker 6 (13:17):
Would you have shown him the file, allow him to
flip through the file, or just he ask questions.
Speaker 5 (13:22):
I think he just asked questions.
Speaker 2 (13:25):
Quarrels knew Warren Grace was shady, shady dude who you
know had some issues and that Jonathan should have known
about it. Only in hindsight did it was like, oh
my god, he was just in our office.
Speaker 6 (13:39):
This is crazy, and hindsight is how we all are
evaluating the last few days and hours of Jonathan's life,
searching for clues as to whether something could possibly drive
Jonathan Luna to stab himself thirty six times thirty six
hours later. Somebody somewhere will return right after this break.
(14:12):
When Jonathan left the office that night after a difficult
day two of his trial in the Stash House Records case,
he was met with an additional stressor at home, a
stressor that would spill over to the next day.
Speaker 3 (14:25):
What happens first is Jonathan was late and Judge Quarrels
was one of these judges that was.
Speaker 5 (14:33):
A sick or. If you were like a thirty seconds late,
we'd find you. And so Jonathan came in court.
Speaker 6 (14:41):
Reporter Ned Richardson explains how the judge reacted when Jonathan
would explain the reason he was late was because as
one year old was so sick he had to be
taken to the emergency room.
Speaker 4 (14:52):
But I thought he was really very compassionate with him
for about two minutes, and I thought he said something
of out Jonathon had a sick kid, and I think
he asked him, how's your kid? And that was very
nice and very polite exchange. And then we went downhills
from there. And I don't know what I kept thinking
(15:13):
through the whole trial. Jonathan was so distracted he couldn't
keep it together, and I thought, something is wrong, something
is really bad. I mean, he kept losing it. We'd
be going down one row and he'd jumped onto another thing,
and I thought, oh my heavens.
Speaker 6 (15:36):
And the question was why was it his sick child?
Was it the stress of the trial, was it the
stress of his job being in jeopardy. Whatever the root
caused Jonathan's Day three of the trial would get off
to a rough start. He would put Warren Grace back
on the stand to finish up his testimony, and in
(15:56):
doing so, he would try to take the sting out
of what he expected defense to bring up the government's
mishandling of Warren Grace, a strategy that would infuriate the
blindsided defense attorneys and ultimately the judge as well.
Speaker 3 (16:12):
This is after the judge knows that we know about Grace.
Speaker 5 (16:16):
We're at the bench and him saying what he's saying.
We're saying, this was never disclosed.
Speaker 3 (16:22):
And I'm saying, Judge, you know, in all the years
I've been here, I have never seen anything like this.
Speaker 6 (16:30):
Is Jonathan caught in a lie? He hasn't disclosed this information.
So you've potentially got a Brady issue, You've got a
Jinx issue. I mean, is he embarrassed by it? Is
he obsessed that he's been caught?
Speaker 3 (16:42):
He is? You'd think that there would be some kind
of response from Jonathan, but he was like, expressionalless. I mean,
it was like he knew it was. It was clear
that he knew there was a problem and that he
had a problem.
Speaker 5 (16:56):
This was all improper.
Speaker 3 (16:58):
I mean, he should be apologizing, but he's not going
to do that.
Speaker 6 (17:02):
Jonathan may not have been in the mood or the
position to apologize that afternoon, but he did set about
to Salvage's case with a plea. After the lunch break,
he would tell the judge that he and defense counsel
had reached a plea agreement, only to have that plea
break down again because of the alleged related murder case
against Poindexter. Frustrated and frankly angered by Jonathan's failure to
(17:27):
be able to resolve the issues, the judge would make
a series of rulings. First, he would allow the defense
to interview Warren Grace without the government being present on
the day after next, and he would direct Jonathan to
turn over all the documents and preach all services files,
including the memo by Jackie Coss by the end of
(17:47):
the day.
Speaker 3 (17:48):
And Jonathan was standing there because Jackie rod Rigeys wasn't there,
But he's standing there, and he was a party to this,
and you've got to consider like dismissing the damn and
here we are, well, not only they don't disclose it
under Brady, but they're trying to put my client away
potentially for a life, knowing that he may not have
(18:11):
been Sullivan, that Grace Strong who knows.
Speaker 5 (18:14):
Jonathan didn't say a word.
Speaker 3 (18:17):
He just had this look like, how the hell do
I get out of this?
Speaker 6 (18:26):
By the time court ended that third day, Jonathan thought
he may have a plan to get out of the
jam he was in, and he reinitiated the plea negotiations
with defense attorneys as they left the courtroom, and from
court reporter Ned Richardson, we get the next inkling of
the stress Jonathan may have been under as this case
went sideways.
Speaker 4 (18:47):
Well, the part that I remember most is where we
had stopped for the day and my office adjoined the courtroom,
just a little hallway, and I'm more right than in
my office. They were standing outside of my door, and
they started out it seemed pretty amicable, but then they
(19:08):
got louder and louder. Hey, I remember Archie to Minnelli,
and I remember all I could see was his feet.
They were right in my door, these two with Jonathan,
and they were going at it, and I thought, oh
my god, I mean this is a ruckus. I don't
need this, so I told him move. And that's the
(19:30):
last time I saw Johnathan alive.
Speaker 5 (19:41):
I don't remember that.
Speaker 3 (19:42):
But I'm not surprised because I was the one that
felt really agreed because Penn's client. Up until that point,
they're offering him a deal that his client wants. But
I'm really agreed because Jonathan's doing everything he can to
avoid what he's be doing. So yeah, I'm not surprised.
Speaker 6 (20:02):
With less than eleven hours to live, Jonathan does what
he surely must have done reluctantly taking an aggrieved defense
attorney upstairs to meet with his supervisor to see how
they might work around this alleged related murder charge.
Speaker 3 (20:16):
So I go up to his office and Jonathan's in there.
Now you've got to remember, he's telling me all along
that you can't get approval. He can't get approval, he
can't get approval to give up the murder. And the
first thing, you know, I realized he's there with an
assistant US attorney named Jim Warwick. So I go start
(20:39):
to explain to him what's happening, and I tell him, look,
he's talking about ten years, but he won't give up
this murder. And Warwick, I mean didn't take long. You know,
he hears this in about five minutes. He looked at
Jonathan and he said, that's not a problem. What's the problem.
He said, there's no reason you can't agree to that.
(20:59):
And so John Nathan said, oh, all right, I'm assuming.
Speaker 6 (21:03):
And of course you had to wonder why the US
Attorney's office would give up an alleged related murder charge
so quickly, Whose interest was that in and what was
going on behind the scenes.
Speaker 3 (21:14):
It's like it never happened. That he was telling me
that he couldn't do it, he couldn't do it, and
all of a sudden he knew before I even walked
in that room that Warwick knew what was going on
and that they're going to like agree to it, because
he wasn't surprised when Warwick says, you can agree to that.
And I think the only thing that changed is that
(21:36):
they knew in that office that we had now seen
what the hell's in that fall?
Speaker 6 (21:49):
So why do you think Jonathan was holding onto that murder?
Speaker 5 (21:53):
Did he not want to be embarrassed with Warwick?
Speaker 3 (21:56):
I think Jonathan's holding on to it because that's what
the office would ignore had done up until that information
disclosed to Minoi doesn't know anything about any of this, So.
Speaker 5 (22:07):
Why should we give up the murder?
Speaker 6 (22:09):
I mean, ethically, they're obligated to provide that information.
Speaker 5 (22:12):
So let me ask you this.
Speaker 6 (22:14):
Jonathan didn't strike me as a person to be somebody
who would hide the ball unless there was a reason.
Speaker 4 (22:20):
To do it.
Speaker 6 (22:21):
But I just wonder if the fact that he was
concerned about his job and didn't want to rock the
boat and played into.
Speaker 5 (22:28):
That, I would imagine it would.
Speaker 3 (22:30):
I mean, look the Baggio from everything I was told,
and this was through the great rind coming from prosecutors,
that the Poggio wanted to fire him.
Speaker 6 (22:44):
And I had to imagine that. That weighed on Jonathan
as he drove home from the courthouse to have dinner
with his wife, his mother in law, his daughter, and
a sick baby. But could it explain a complete mental
breakdown five hours later or would something else happened to intervene?
Speaker 3 (23:01):
And when I leave, my understanding is he's going to
do the plea agreement, and he says, I'm going to
stay here and finish that and I'll see you tomorrow.
I think I probably talked to him and then he
left the message that consistent with what you.
Speaker 6 (23:16):
Say, what I have is the meeting breaks up around
six pm. Yeah, at about six point thirty, he goes
home for dinner with his wife and his mother in
law to Elkridge. Yeah, comes back to the office at
eight forty eight. At nine oh six, my note say
tim Minelli says he received a call it home from
(23:37):
Luna telling him he had finished Smith but needed.
Speaker 5 (23:40):
To finish Point Dexter.
Speaker 6 (23:42):
Also said he had to go home again.
Speaker 5 (23:44):
But would return to finish. Is that ring a bell?
Speaker 3 (23:47):
Well, yeah, it does, and I believe it was from
a voicemail and it was one of those older machines.
Speaker 5 (23:56):
Where you had a little tape. So here's a real
critical question, and do you have that tape? So you
know what I did?
Speaker 3 (24:03):
I remember?
Speaker 5 (24:03):
Now?
Speaker 3 (24:04):
Do you ask me that there was a fireplace with
mantel and there was like a quos in a Chinese
vase and had a lid on it, and I put
that tape in there for safe keeping.
Speaker 5 (24:17):
But we moved like two and a half years ago.
Speaker 3 (24:20):
I will look and see if it's still there. You
know what, You're right about one thing. I wouldn't have
thrown it away.
Speaker 5 (24:28):
That could have been the last call that he made.
Speaker 3 (24:31):
I mean it was I'm pretty sure from the FBI
that was the last contact anyone had from Jonathan.
Speaker 6 (24:40):
Or was it Allegedly Raveno got a call from him
as well that night around the same time, but there's
no record of that.
Speaker 5 (24:50):
You definitely, yeah, I guess.
Speaker 3 (24:51):
You probably did tell raph Yeah, but because I know
what he did when I left, he's going to stay
there and finish.
Speaker 5 (24:57):
The plea agreements.
Speaker 3 (24:59):
And then I got information that he was leaving to
go homes. He's going to have dinner and do whatever,
and then he was going back to the courthouse and
finish that evening.
Speaker 6 (25:13):
Of course, we know now that never happened. Jonathan returned
to the office that night after dinner at eight forty
eight pm. He finished one plea agreement, the one for
Ken Ravenel's client, but left the more difficult one for
Archie's client unfinished when he got up from his desk
without his glasses or cell phone and drove out of
(25:34):
the courthouse building at eleven thirty eight pm. He would
be found dead five hours later. Next time on somebody somewhere, I'll.
Speaker 4 (25:52):
Talk to a couple of the court security officers, and
somebody said, well, there was another car right behind me.
Speaker 2 (26:00):
I was concerned almost immediately. I mean, a missing federal
prosecutor is a missing federal prosecutor.
Speaker 6 (26:06):
The initial inclination of the US Attorney's office was somebody
from this case had something to do with Jonathan.
Speaker 5 (26:12):
Not showing up.
Speaker 3 (26:14):
And I said, the last person in the world that
wants Jonathan Luna to be killed was my client.
Speaker 7 (26:24):
There it goes the devil telling me to lie again,
says I'm around Me says it's all right to Britain
that you can get more then you give.
Speaker 6 (26:43):
Somebody Somewhere is a production of Rainstream Media Incorporated. Sound design,
editing and mixing has been provided by Resonate Recordings. Original
score and voiceover work provided by Hallie Payne. Artwork provided
by Evan McGlenn and Kendall Payne. Do you have any
information regarding the Jonathan Luna case, please contact us via
(27:04):
our website sbswpodcast dot com. And finally, if you enjoyed
this podcast, please rate and review us on Apple Podcasts.
It really helps and we really appreciate it. Thank you
for listening.
Speaker 2 (27:22):
Here.
Speaker 7 (27:22):
God I hey, you say, I'm sig.
Speaker 2 (27:29):
Good.
Speaker 3 (27:29):
I just work.
Speaker 4 (27:32):
He love.
Speaker 5 (27:35):
EB still love money.
Speaker 7 (27:41):
I need more money.
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