FBI, state police inves­ti­gat­ing Wambaugh’s $45,000 pay­ment to Holtz
By Pete Shellem and Laird Leask 

April 5, 1992

The Patriot News

The lead inves­ti­ga­tor in Susan Reinert ​‘s slay­ing was paid at least $45,000 by an author the same year that Jay C. Smith was con­vict­ed of her murder.

Documents obtained by The Sunday Patriot-News show that state Trooper Jack Holtz received the mon­ey in 1986 from Joseph Wambaugh, who wrote ​“Echoes in the Darkness,” a best sell­er that was the basis for a high­ly rat­ed CBS miniseries.

Records also show that Holtz, a 23-year vet­er­an of the state police, pur­chased a Porsche 944 and a resort home on North Carolina’s Outer Banks in the year after the tri­al while earn­ing a annu­al salary of about $35,000.

Agents from the FBI’s Harrisburg office have launched an inves­ti­ga­tion into Holtz’s actions, accord­ing to sources famil­iar with the probe. In addi­tion, the state police are con­duct­ing an internal investigation.

State police reg­u­la­tions pro­hib­it inves­ti­ga­tors from accept­ing out­side mon­ey for police work unless specif­i­cal­ly approved by the commissioner.

“A mem­ber shall not seek or accept any form of reward or renu­mer­a­tion exclud­ing wages paid by the depart­ment as a result of his or her con­duct while act­ing with­in the author­i­ty of his or her badge except as direct­ed by com­mis­sion­er,” accord­ing to state police field reg­u­la­tions adopt­ed in 1975.

Furthermore, the reg­u­la­tions pro­hib­it dis­sem­i­na­tion of con­fi­den­tial infor­ma­tion, espe­cial­ly that which might com­pro­mise the judicial process.

David J. Malarney, res­i­dent agent in charge of the FBI’s Harrisburg office, would not con­firm or deny the exis­tence of an inves­ti­ga­tion, but said: ​“The FBI would look into any vio­la­tions that it has juris­dic­tion over and fol­low the inves­ti­ga­tion to wher­ev­er the evi­dence may lead.”

Holtz declined to comment.

“I’m in a very uncom­fort­able posi­tion and all releas­es are being han­dled by the depart­ment,” Holtz said when con­tact­ed at his home late last week.

State police offi­cials declined to com­ment on whether Holtz ever had agency approval to accept pay­ment or on oth­er aspects of the case. They not­ed that Holtz is under inter­nal inves­ti­ga­tion and it is depart­ment pol­i­cy not to com­ment on such matters.

Wambaugh did not respond to inter­view requests made through his pub­li­cists and agent.

The lat­est devel­op­ments fol­low the dis­cov­ery of a dis­card­ed box from Holtz’s home two weeks ago that Smith ​‘s attor­ney said in a court motion con­tained excul­pa­to­ry evi­dence against Smith .

According to Dauphin County Court papers filed by Lemoyne lawyer William C. Costopoulos, the box con­tained a comb found under Reinert ​‘s body and inves­ti­ga­to­ry notes that con­tra­dict­ed trial testimony.

A sim­i­lar comb was used at the tri­al to con­nect Smith to the crime scene. All evi­dence used at the tri­al was sealed by court order and is now in the hands of the state attor­ney general’s office.

The box of evi­dence, which was found by a junk deal­er con­tract­ed to clean out Holtz’s attic and base­ment, also con­tained a let­ter show­ing that Wambaugh had offered Holtz’ late part­ner, Sgt. Joseph Van Nort, $50,000 in January 1981. William S. Bradfield Jr., Smith ​‘s accused co-con­spir­a­tor, and Smith weren’t arrest­ed until 1983 and 1985, respectively.

Costopoulos sharply crit­i­cized Holtz and Wambaugh, and said the state attor­ney gen­er­al’s office should recon­sid­er its case against Smith .

“The attor­ney gen­er­al’s office has done what they could to pro­tect the rep­re­hen­si­ble pros­e­cu­tion of Jay Smith ‚” Costopoulos said. ​“The integri­ty of the crim­i­nal jus­tice sys­tem is now also at stake. Maybe now they will reconsider.”

A fed­er­al 1099 tax form shows Wambaugh paid Holtz $45,000 in 1986, but oth­er doc­u­ments raise more ques­tions about when and how much he
received. A draft copy of Holtz’ 1987 fed­er­al income tax return, for exam­ple, bears the nota­tion “$1,000 New World Direction Inc. Echoes in the Darkness,” with an arrow point­ing to the income line.

The 44-year-old troop­er was instru­men­tal in the pros­e­cu­tion of Smith , a for­mer prin­ci­pal at Upper Merion High School, and Bradfield, Reinert ​‘s fel­low English teacher at the school. The pair were con­vict­ed of killing Reinert and her two chil­dren in 1979 in order to col­lect $750,000 in insurance money.

Bradfield was con­vict­ed in 1983 of con­spir­a­cy to com­mit mur­der and is serv­ing three life sen­tences in the Graterford state prison.

Smith , who has been incar­cer­at­ed at the State Correctional Institution at Huntingdon since his 1986 con­vic­tion, was grant­ed a new tri­al in 1989 on grounds the tri­al court allowed inad­mis­si­ble hearsay tes­ti­mo­ny to be pre­sent­ed. Costopoulos is argu­ing that a sec­ond tri­al would con­sti­tute dou­ble jeop­ardy because of mis­con­duct by the prosecution.

The box con­tain­ing the alleged evi­dence from the case was dis­cov­ered by Wellsville antiques deal­er Mark A. Hughes, who said Holtz had con­tract­ed with him to clean out the attic and base­ment of his Swatara Twp. home. Hughes gave the evi­dence to Costopoulos on March 17.

A hear­ing has been sched­uled for April 27 on Costopoulos’ peti­tion demand­ing an expla­na­tion from the prosecution.

Along with ques­tion­ing why the evi­dence was in Holtz’ home, Costopoulos is expect­ed to ask who else was paid and when.

Former Deputy Attorney General Richard L. Guida, who pros­e­cut­ed Smith and Bradfield, said he was not paid any­thing from Wambaugh.

However, he said he received about $2,000 for legal work he per­formed for New World Television, the com­pa­ny that pro­duced the minis­eries a year after Smith ​‘s conviction.

“I was a salaried employ­ee of anoth­er lawyer at the time,” Guida said. ​“So that mon­ey went to him and not me. I had no knowl­edge of the pur­port­ed let­ter to Van Nort and I had no knowl­edge of any­one being paid any­thing oth­er than direct­ly relat­ed to the pro­duc­tion of the film.”

In a 1987 arti­cle about the movie, Guida said he and Holtz were sched­uled to be tech­ni­cal advis­ers for the film. However, the direc­tor did not want real char­ac­ters on the set.

Prosecutor William Behe, who assist­ed Guida in the Bradfield case, and Trooper Jack Lotwick, who par­tic­i­pat­ed in the inves­ti­ga­tion, went to the set instead, accord­ing to Guida.

Behe, who is now an assis­tant U.S. attor­ney in Middle District Court, said he was paid in cash for his help, but would not say how much.

“I don’t think that’s any­body’s busi­ness,” he said. ​“After every­one was con­vict­ed and they were putting this thing togeth­er was the first I heard they were going to do any­thing. I did­n’t see any­thing even remote­ly inap­pro­pri­ate with being con­tact­ed more than a year after it was over.”

Lotwick, who received approval from for­mer State Police Commissioner John K. Schafer for his advice on the film, declined comment.

Jim Zemmelman, an attor­ney for New World Pictures, said he did not know who was paid for their help with the movie. Individual pro­duc­ers decide their own expens­es, he said.