Attorney Won’t Reveal Name : Tampering Statement Tied to Juror Bohensky

After defense attorney Oscar Goodman criticized a statement last week by foreman Richard Stark that the jury was determined to produce a unanimous verdict in the retrial of Mayor Roger Hedgecock, one of the 12 jurors picked up the phone and called his own lawyer.

At a news conference Thursday, Goodman said that “the juror . . . then questioned himself. He says, ‘My goodness, that’s what the bailiff was telling us.’ ”

What the juror told San Diego attorney John Learnard last Friday opened a controversy that could reverse Hedgecock’s guilty verdict on 13 felony counts and change his announced decision to resign from office today.

The juror’s name is not revealed in a sworn statement by Learnard filed in court Thursday, but Learnard has said that the juror is a client in an unrelated case. Superior Court documents show that Learnard has filed a personal injury suit on behalf of juror Stanley Joseph Bohensky and his ex-wife, Maureen.

Three months ago, during jury questioning, Bohensky said he spent his time working as an engineer conducting radiation tests for IRT Corp., enjoyed sailing his boat on weekends and professed to have little interest in politics, having not voted for “quite a while.”

Today, the 35-year-old bearded father of three apparently is one of the two jurors in Hedgecock’s conspiracy and perjury retrial who have alleged that bailiff Al Burroughs Jr. tampered with the jury during its deliberations. Bohensky’s remarks were included in Superior Court papers filed Thursday by Goodman, who is now requesting a third trial.

After he was contacted by the juror last Friday, Learnard said, he felt obligated to come forward with the information and contacted a friend, J. Michael McDade, who formerly served as Hedgecock’s chief of staff. McDade put Learnard in touch with Goodman.

Learnard and McDade have known each other as practicing lawyers in San Diego. They both graduated from St. Augustine High School in 1959, and Learnard rented his law office from McDade in 1972.

In addition, the divorce attorney whom Bohensky hired in 1982 on Learnard’s recommendation, Nicholas Leto Jr., shared his El Cajon law office with McDade at the time.

McDade said he had no connection with Bohensky before the jury-tampering allegations surfaced.

“The stupid might view it in some context,” McDade said Thursday. “The fact is I never met the man, I never talked about the man . . . I never received any economic benefit from the man. If a coincidence like that is something people want to focus on, let them be my guest.”

According to Learnard’s statement, the juror accused bailiff Burroughs of helping the jury arrive at the guilty verdicts by pressing the jury to reach a unanimous decision and by providing definitions of legal terms such as reasonable doubt. The juror recalled that Burroughs told at least one juror that “there could not be a hung jury,” Learnard’s statement said.

Bohensky instructed a secretary at IRT Corp. on Thursday to tell a reporter that he would not have any comment.

Bohensky lived in New York before he joined the Navy for three years and moved to Long Beach, where he earned a junior college degree in electronic technology in 1978. Bohensky moved to San Diego six years ago. His first wife was involved in a car accident that left her paralyzed in June, 1981. Six months later, Bohensky filed for divorce, and he later remarried. He recently moved to a new house in Chula Vista. During the jury questioning, he said the last book he had read was “Hawaii,” a historical novel by James Michener.

Also during jury questioning in July, Bohensky expressed some confusion with deliberation matters. When asked whether he considered circumstantial evidence sufficient to return a guilty verdict, Bohensky responded, “I do have a question about circumstantial evidence. Is that considered reasonable evidence? I could need instruction on that. It’s awful hard to say yes or no without an example.”

Bohensky told Superior Court William L. Todd Jr. before the trial that he was charged with a misdemeanor in Orange County when he was 20, but, pointing out that “that was 14 years ago,” said the experience did not sour him on the legal system.

At the time, he said his major concern about serving on the Hedgecock jury was his “anxiety about trying to keep eight weeks’ worth of testimony straight.”

Ironically, Bohensky was one of those jurors who from early on in the deliberations voted to convict Hedgecock, according to McDade and Goodman. They said that even after exposing evidence of possible jury tampering, Bohensky still feels strongly that Hedgecock is guilty.