Feds: Ex-cop tried to arrange murder of key witness

Source: Chicago TribuneAug.迷你倉出租 22--A former Death Row inmate awaiting trial in a bizarre plot to murder and dismember a businessman tried to solicit the execution of a key witness shortly after he was removed from solitary confinement at a Loop federal jail earlier this summer, prosecutors alleged in court today.It's the latest strange twist in the case of Steven Mandell, who was a Chicago police officer in the 1970s and early 1980s and is now suspected by authorities in four murder plots in the last year.The Tribune reported last week that officials had without explanation placed Mandell back in the Special Housing Unit of the Metropolitan Correctional Center less than two months after a federal judge had lifted the restrictive custody. Detainees are held in solitary confinement there for up to 23 hours a day and given limited contact with visitors and other inmates.Today federal prosecutors disclosed that the move came after they learned Mandell had allegedly tried to solicit the murder of a witness in his case following his release in late June from the special unit to general population. Mandell was placed back in the special unit after prosecutors informed U.S. District Judge Amy St. Eve of the latest allegation on Aug. 9.No additional charges have been filed against Mandell, and prosecutors provided no details of how he allegedly solicited the murder of the witness.Against the advice of his own attorney, Mandell spoke out in court today, calling the accusations "ridiculous" and accusing prosecutors of "playing games."Mandell then identified the key informant against him as Chicago realtor George Michael, insisting Michael was not in any danger from him. Michael made headlines a few years ago for claiming that his suburban lakefront mansion was an Armenian church in order to qualify for a nearly $80,000 break on his annual property tax bill."This man is to be left in peace," Mandell, dressed in a jail jumpsuit and shackled at the ankles, said of Michael. "I want my trial. I want the government's witness to be on the stand."Mandell indicated that the new accusations involve members of the Latin Kings street gang who are locked up at the MCC with him."What I tell other i儲存倉mates at the MCC is utter nonsense. What I say here is the truth," he told the judge. "The Latin Kings are not fooling anyone."Last October federal agents arrested Mandell and a second man as they allegedly prepared to abduct a businessman from a Northwest Side office that the Tribune has previously identified as Michael Realty, a business co-owned by Michael and his brother. Prosecutors alleged that Mandell and Gary Engel planned to take the victim to a nearby vacant office space they referred to in undercover recordings as Club Med, extort him of his cash, force him to sign over his real estate holdings, then kill and dismember him.Engel hanged himself in his jail cell shortly after his arrest, authorities said.In a new indictment filed earlier this year, Mandell was also charged with conspiring to murder an heir of the businessman if the heir made a claim on the businessman's properties after his slaying. He also plotted the murder of yet another victim in exchange for a cut of proceeds from a strip club, authorities charged.After his arrest, Mandell called his wife from the jail and asked her to get rid of evidence in the case, the indictment alleged.Mandell, who once went by the name Steven Manning, spent more than eight months in the special housing unit, but the conditions aggravated his heart disease and diabetes, according to his attorneys.In lifting the restrictive custody on June 27, St. Eve said she heard no evidence that Mandell had tried to contact the informant in his case and noted that Mandell's medical issues had worsened during his time in restrictive custody. The judge, though, barred Mandell from using the jail's email system or trying to persuade other inmates to send messages for him.Mandell was sent to death row for the 1990 slaying of a truck driver, but his murder conviction was overturned on appeal. He sued the FBI for allegedly framing him, winning a landmark $6.5 million in damages from a federal jury. However, a judge later threw out the award, and Mandell did not receive any money.Jmeisner@tribune.comCopyright: ___ (c)2013 the Chicago Tribune Visit the Chicago Tribune at .chicagotribune.com Distributed by MCT Information Services迷你倉沙田