ARTICLE # 62  

February 6, 1999 - Warren, PA

Judge Paul Millin denied Michael R. Brown leniency on two perjury charges in his resentencing Friday, but did credit him with time served on prior related charges.

Brown, 27, Jamestown. N.Y., the discredited "eyewitness" in the Kathy Wilson murder, was resentenced to three and a half to seven years in state prison with additional credit for 879 days served that wasn't originally credited.

He had already been sentenced to three and a half to seven years in a state prison on Oct. 9. He had previously admitted he lied in implicating Jay William Buckley for the 1988 kidnapping, rape and murder of Wilson, Jamestown. Buckley was acquitted on all counts. Brown subsequently filed motions to withdraw his guilty plea and for reconsideration of his sentence

On Dec. 17, Millin denied the first motion and granted the second, voiding the Oct. 9 sentence.

In granting the motion to change Brown's sentence, Millin wrote that in violation of case law, "The defendant and defense counsel were not afforded an opportunity to review the victim impact statements submitted to and considered by the court... Likewise, the court failed to give the defendant credit for time served on prior related charges for which the defendant had never received credit." Brown previously had pleaded guilty to two perjury counts. The following other charges were withdrawn through plea negotiations: perjury (making inconsistent statements), making false reports to law enforcement agencies, tampering with or fabricating physical evidence, felony hindering apprehension or prosecution, obstructing administration of law or other governmental functions, and making unsworn falsifications to authorities.

Brown's attorney, Elliot Segel of Erie, said his client had already served two years plus another 149 days in prison prior to the Oct. 9 sentencing. On Friday, Segel asked the court to consider the entire amount of time he had spent in jail and the length of his sentences. "Mr. Brown is the only person who tried to put an end to it, and he's the only one sentenced," Segel said in court Friday. "He was not the director, choreographer; he was only a part," Brown said, "I made every attempt I could to steer the course through. I tried every way I possibly could to get someone to listen. I was forced. I had no other option."

Millin disagreed and resentenced Brown on Friday to "stand committed to a state correctional institution for a minimum period of three and a half to a maximum period of seven years which will run concurrently because the court considers that this was one continuous activity, one continued chain of events."

Continuing to address Brown, he said, "You will be given credit for time served both on this charge and on the prior charge, and the court will make a finding... that the time that you spent in custody on the prior charge is as a result of the conduct on which this charge is in fact based. That is your continuous chain of perjurious conduct on which this charge is in fact based. That is your continuous chain of perjurious statements."

Millin said he still feels that the sentencing guidelines did not reflect the crime. "There's been a lot said recently about the effect of perjuring in the judicial system,"

Millin said to Brown. "You, through perjury, destroyed a criminal prosecution so much, in fact, that the truth may never be learned."