Re: 3/12/00 - Man Serving Time For Double Murder Seeks Lie Detector Test
Man Serving Time For Double Murder Seeks Lie Detector Test
The Associated Press
March 12, 2000
NEW HAVEN, Conn. (AP) A man convicted of a double murder who claims he was framed has asked authorities to give him a lie detector test to help establish his innocence.
Scott Lewis, 33, wrote a letter to Police Chief Melvin Wearing from the Cheshire Correctional Institution.
In the letter, dated March 3 and obtained by the New Haven Register, Lewis notes that Wearing allowed James Van de Velde, a suspect in the slaying of Yale student Suzanne Jovin, to take a polygraph. Lewis said he wants the same chance to clear his name.
Lewis is serving a 120-year sentence for the Oct. 11, 1990, murders of former city Alderman Ricardo Turner and his lover, Lamont Fields.
A second man, Stefon Morant, 31, is serving a 70-year sentence.
Both Lewis and Morant maintain they were framed by a corrupt police detective who himself had become embroiled in the city drug trade. Their claims are bolstered by a controversial report by the federal Bureau of Investigation that suggests former Detective Vincent Raucci Jr. might have set them up.
During the trial of the two men, the man who said he drove the getaway car testified Morant and Lewis were the murderers. He later recanted, saying Raucci coerced him into framing the pair.
Morant is due to take the witness stand April 11 during a petition for a new trial in Superior Court.
Wearing could not be reached for comment.
AP-ES-03-12-00 1454EST
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