Testimony Focuses on Letter Implicating Pratt

SANTA ANA —  A retired Los Angeles Police sergeant testified Monday that he was “set up” when he was handed a letter implicating former Black Panther Party leader Elmer “Geronimo” Pratt in the December 1968 slaying of a schoolteacher in Santa Monica.

Duwayne Rice said Julius C. “Julio” Butler, who later became the key prosecution witness against Pratt, gave him an envelope Aug. 10, 1969, saying it was an “insurance policy” to be opened only in the event of Butler’s death.

But, Rice testified, FBI agents knew the envelope’s contents the moment Butler gave it to him.

Rice’s testimony came as a hearing on whether Pratt’s murder conviction should be overturned entered its third week before Orange County Superior Court Judge Everett W. Dickey.

The hearing was moved to Orange County to avoid a conflict of interest, because Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Richard P. Kalustian was a witness. Kalustian was the deputy district attorney who prosecuted Pratt in 1972.

Butler’s role lies at the center of Pratt’s efforts to get a new trial. The letter given to Rice said Pratt had confessed to shooting Caroline Olsen to death and critically wounding her husband on a tennis court during a robbery that netted $18.

Pratt, 49, has maintained his innocence for the 26 years he has been behind bars. He says he was in Oakland when the killing took place and that FBI agents knew it because they had him under surveillance. He also says that Butler’s letter was part of a tactic the FBI’s discredited counterintelligence program--COINTELPRO--used to “neutralize” him as a Panther leader.

At Pratt’s 1972 trial, Kalustian compared Butler’s letter to a dying declaration, saying it showed that Butler had no motive to falsely accuse Pratt by making up a confession.

Kalustian said Butler did not want to go to the police with the information in the letter and “at all times he intended to keep it secret.”

Rice testified Monday that the letter was never secret. Seconds after Butler gave him the envelope, Rice said, two men who identified themselves as FBI agents approached him and demanded the letter as Butler walked away, saying it was evidence.

Rice refused to give them the envelope, saying he had given his word to safeguard it. One of the agents shouted, “Julio,” Rice said, but Butler continued back into his apartment.

“How did they know it was a letter?” Rice asked Monday. “The envelope could have contained money. How did they know it was evidence?”

Rice said he found it odd that Butler asked to meet him on the street to turn over the letter. On previous trips to Butler’s apartment, the two men always went inside, Rice said.

Outside court, Rice said he had risked his job rather than turn over the letter. He said of Butler: “The man has no scruples at all. He was looking out for Julius Butler only.”

FBI agents threatened to charge him with obstruction of justice, Rice said, and he did turn over the letter 14 months later after Butler gave him permission to do so. Rice said he asked Butler why, if the letter was so important, did he tell the FBI what was in it, but not tell him?

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He said Butler replied that FBI agents were “jamming him”--putting pressure on him. “Give it to them.”

Rice said he had not confronted Butler with his anger about being set up because “something would have happened. I didn’t want a confrontation with him because I would have hurt Butler.”

During Pratt’s murder trial, Butler testified that he had never been a “snitch” and had never informed on anyone. Pratt’s lawyers say FBI documents released seven years after the trial proved that Butler lied. Those documents show that Butler had 33 contacts with agents in just over two years before Pratt’s trial. Neither Pratt’s defense team nor the jury was aware of Butler’s contacts with the FBI.