A recent news story gave an update on the murder investigation of Assistant U.S. Attorney Jonathan Luna, found face down in a shallow Pennsylvania creek five years ago today.
Here’s what the combined efforts of an FBI/Department of Justice Investigation have found about Luna’s death: Absolutely nothing. A Pennsylvania coroner ruled Luna’s death a homicide, which didn’t prevent FBI investigators from floating the idea that Luna had committed suicide.
Let’s see here: My Merriam-Webster’s Concise Dictionary defines homicide as “the killing of one human being by another.” It defines suicide as the “act of killing oneself purposely.”
Now I realize I have the disadvantage of getting a public education in Baltimore, and that folks in these parts are called Balti-morons, but even Balti-morons can tell the difference between those words. Note to the FBI: They ain’t the same word, guys.
A brief recap is in order. On Dec. 3, 2003, Luna was in federal court arguing a case against two Baltimore men accused of drug trafficking. The prosecution’s star witness was an FBI informant and known miscreant name of Warren Grace, who was supposed to be at home on a monitoring device when he wasn’t performing his snitching duties.
During Grace’s testimony, he revealed that on an October night in 2002 he had undone his home monitoring device and went for a night drive. Baltimore police stopped him with a vehicle full of drugs. Kenneth Ravenell and another defense attorney cried foul, claiming that prosecutors hadn’t bothered to tell them that important bit of information.
The case went south. Federal prosecutors had to resort to offering a plea bargain to both defendants. Luna was in his downtown Baltimore office hammering out the details of that plea bargain later that night.
For reasons we still don’t know, Luna left before completing the details of the plea bargain, hopped in his car, drove north through Maryland and Delaware, into New Jersey and then got on the Pennsylvania Turnpike and headed into the Keystone State. He was found the next morning with 36 stab wounds — superficial, the FBI claims — lying face down in that creek. His car was nearby with the motor still running.
FBI investigators soon focused on Luna’s personal life: Whether he was having an affair, his credit card debt and whether he was linked to $36,000 that went missing from the evidence room the feds have downtown. Then they floated the suicide possibility. The explanations and theories answered few questions and raised even more.
People have been known to get out of credit card debt without stealing 36 G’s or committing suicide. And if Luna was suicidal, why did he drive over 100 miles through four different states, stabbing himself dozens of times, before pitching himself face first into a shallow creek? Wouldn’t it have been a much shorter drive to the highest point of the Key Bridge, where Luna could have then pitched himself off, making his death more of a certainty?
But let’s assume for the sake of argument that the FBI theory is correct. That only answers the question about Luna. It doesn’t answer the one about Grace, which is who in the FBI was held responsible for their informant undoing his home monitoring device and riding dirty around Baltimore?
I put that very question to an FBI spokesman a few years ago, and his reply was the FBI would never answer questions about an informant. In other words, the FBI certainly wouldn’t be held accountable to the press about the criminal actions of one of its informants.
But the FBI is, or should be, accountable to Congress. But no one in the Maryland congressional delegation seems interested in getting FBI spokespersons to answer questions about Grace, or hold the bureau accountable for his actions.
The FBI says it will answer no questions about informants, and apparently that’s good enough for our congressional delegation. A bunch of whiners from our car companies go before them all but demanding a bailout, and our representatives and senators listen to them.
Frankly, I’d prefer congressmen and congresswomen who would leap over tables and strangle executives making such requests. Then maybe the FBI boys would get the message whenever they’re subpoenaed.
Gregory Kane is a columnist who has been writing about Baltimore and Maryland for more than 15 years. Look for his columns in the editorial section every Thursday and Sunday. Reach him at [email protected].
