DEL.ICIO.USUpdated: 10:36 p.m. November 17, 2008
Nichols’ pen pal: Defense conspired in escape plan
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Monday, November 17, 2008
A key prosecution witness testified Monday that a member of Brian Nichols’ defense team helped him with escape plans while he was awaiting trial for murdering a Fulton County judge, a court reporter, a sheriff’s deputy and a federal agent.
Lisa Meneguzzo, a Connecticut businesswoman who developed a romantic attachment to Nichols, testified at Nichols’ trial in Superior Court that she conspired with Tamela Hysten, a paralegal assisting Nichols’ lawyers, to get $1,500 in bribe money to an unidentified deputy at the Fulton County Jail.
John Spink/jspink@ajc.com
Lisa Meneguzzo responds to questions from prosecutor Clint Rucker.
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The deputy was a member of an elite jailhouse unit guarding Nichols, but she didn’t know his name, she said.
“Brian was trying to gain his trust” to help him escape, Meneguzzo said.
The deputy was dating Hysten, Meneguzzo said, and Nichols wanted him as a replacement for another corrupt guard, David Ramsey, who had demanded too much money to help with the escape, Meneguzzo said.
Hysten served as a go-between in smuggling letters to Meneguzzo in which Nichols outlined escape plans, Meneguzzo testified. She also said Hysten smuggled Nichols a book, “The Special Forces Guide to Escape and Evasion,” to help in his plans.
Hysten, no longer on the defense team, has denied being a co-conspirator in Nichols’ futile escape plans.
Her lawyer, Akil Secret, declined to comment Monday and said Hysten also would be mum.
Ramsey testified last week he took as much as $2,500 to keep a cellphone charged that Meneguzzo had smuggled in for Nichols and for other favors, such as getting the prisoner a DVD player. He said Meneguzzo offered him $78,000 to smuggle a masonry saw and other tools to Nichols, but that he refused to help with any escape plans.
Meneguzzo said she never intended to help Nichols escape but went along with the plans to give him hope.
Escape was all Nichols talked about, she said.
“He would say it was not in his DNA to be stuck in a cell for the rest of his life,” Meneguzzo told the Fulton County jury. “He would say, ‘I won’t let them put a needle in my arm, I’ll go out on my own terms.’ “
Prosecutors hope the testimony will persuade the Superior Court jury to sentence Nichols to death for the four murders he committed after escaping custody at the Fulton County Courthouse where he was on trial for rape on March 11, 2005.
During a break in Meneguzzo’s testimony, lead defense lawyer Henderson Hill asked Superior Court Judge James Bodiford to let the defense team withdraw from the case and grant Nichols a mistrial because of the allegations of misconduct by former and current members of the defense team.
In court papers, the defense team said Meneguzzo’s testimony had made the defense lawyers “divided in their loyalties, as between representing their client and his interest, on the one hand, and face-saving for their own careers, reputations and personal and professional interests on the other.”
The request prompted a tongue-lashing from Superior Court Judge James Bodiford, who denied the motion as “just a delaying tactic.”
The jury has convicted Nichols of all 54 crimes alleged in his indictment, including four murders, robberies, aggravated assaults and kidnappings. Nichols had pleaded not guilty by reason of insanity. The panel is now hearing evidence on whether Nichols, 36, should be put to death by lethal injection or receive life in prison.
Meneguzzo, 39, who manages a family printing business, is testifying under a grant of immunity. She is subject to prosecution if she lies during testimony.
She began testifying Friday and continues testifying Tuesday. She said she began writing Nichols shortly after the Fulton courthouse shootings.
She said she developed love for him during numerous phone calls, more than 100 letters and occasional visits. She spent as much as $20,000 on him for bribes and money sent to Nichols’ mother to buy him suits. Their physical contact was a kiss and hand-holding during the couple of times she was able to visit Nichols in jail. They were able to exchange nude pictures via cellphone, she said.
He told her that as soon as he escaped, they could be together.
“Baby girl, if you only knew the way I fight. Sometimes in a fight you can lull your opponent to sleep and catch him off guard with that right hook. I’m just waiting for that right hook.”
Meneguzzo said she eventually realized Nichols didn’t reciprocate her feelings and began to suspect he was having an affair with Hysten. Nichols always tried to steer their conversations back to aiding in his escape and asking her for money, she said. “I was nothing more than a dollar sign for Brian Nichols.”
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