Witness in Drumgold case says he made up testimony

March 5, 2008 02:16 PM Email| Comments (0)| Text size – +

(AP photo/Josh Reynolds)

Shawn Drumgold (right) waited today with his brother, Stephen Shanks, and his mother, Juanda Drumgold, outside federal court, where his trial began.

By Jonathan Saltzman, Globe Staff

A key witness who helped convict Shawn Drumgold of murdering 12-year-old Darlene Tiffany Moore in a notorious 1988 Boston slaying testified today that he made up testimony after two detectives fed him information and food, put him up at a hotel free for eight months, and cleared up a handful of outstanding arrest warrants.

Ricky Evans, a 38-year-old former nursing home cook, told a federal jury today that in 2003 he recanted the testimony he gave at Drumgold's murder trial in state court -- helping to free him after 15 years in prison -- out of an excruciating sense of guilt.

''It was constantly on my mind,'' Evans, of Cambridge, said in US District Court in Boston. "I lied....I had something to do with a man being in prison for something he didn't do.''

Evans was the first witness called by Drumgold's lawyer after she and two attorneys defending two retired Boston detectives delivered opening statements in Drumgold's civil rights trial.

Drumgold contends that the two retired detectives, Timothy Callahan and Richard Walsh, withheld evidence that could have cleared him and manipulated witnesses, leading to his wrongful conviction.

"Sean Drumgold spent 15 years in jail because the defendants, Detective Walsh and Detective Callahan, thought they were above the law,'' said Scapicchio. She closed by telling the 13-member jury that the two defendants "should finally be held accountable for their actions.''

Lawyers for Walsh and Callahan countered that both were decent, hard-working veteran detectives who went about the investigation professionally and did nothing wrong.

Mary Jo Harris, a private lawyer hired by the city to defend Callahan, said that the witnesses who recanted their testimony in Suffolk Superior Court five years ago lacked credibility.

"The suggestion that Tim Callahan planted this story [with Evans] is not going to withstand scrutiny,'' she told jurors.

Evans said Callahan and another detective, Paul McDonough, fed him information about the case. McDonough is not being sued, however, because Evans was never able to name him as the detective he alleged did something wrong.

The trial before US District Judge Nancy Gertner is expected to last six to eight weeks.