MISTRIAL SEEN AS TRIUMPH FOR LAROUCHE

DOCUMENTS ISSUE CRUCIAL TO DEFENSE

Although lawyers for political extremist Lyndon H. LaRouche Jr. say that nothing short of acquittal is a victory for the defense, it is clear that the mistrial declared in Boston Wednesday by U.S. District Judge Robert E. Keeton was a flat-out triumph for LaRouche.

The prosecutors' actions in the case -- including failure to give the LaRouche defense potentially relevant documents until well into the five-month-long trial -- gave a crucial opening to LaRouche lawyers, who are known for their aggressive, time-consuming maneuvers.

When Keeton held seven weeks of hearings on whether the government knowingly withheld the documents, the case's entire center of gravity shifted away from the alleged obstruction of justice by LaRouche and six associates, and toward the terrain where the LaRouche group feels most at home -- murky allegations of government misdeeds and anti-LaRouche plots.

Keeton and Assistant U.S. Attorney John Markham said they plan to reschedule the case as soon as possible. But LaRouche attorneys will argue against a new trial on the grounds that it would amount to double jeopardy. That legal principle bars a person who has been aquitted from being tried again for the same offense.

Hearings on the defense argument will focus on who is responsible for the delays: the government or the defense. The hearings could last many months.

Delays are nothing new in this case. Since the FBI began its investigation of the LaRouche group in October 1984 for allegedly ripping off contributors to his presidential campaign, LaRouche group lawyers have filed objections, motions and appeals of every description, effectively derailing the probe and the trial schedule for months at a time.

LaRouche and his associates were on trial for allegedly trying to stifle the FBI's probe of their finances by hiding witnesses, burning subpoenaed documents, and otherwise trying, in their own words, to "spike" or "quash" the investigation.

LaRouche lawyers filed more than 400 motions, making wild allegations of anti-LaRouche conspiracies involving the Soviet KGB, the CIA, the FBI, Vice President Bush, Henry Kissinger and many others. Keeton threw out almost all these legal filings -- until March.

Two months ago, in the middle of the trial, prosecutors said government agencies had found documents that could be relevant to the case. The documents concerned a number of former federal informants, some of whom had dealings with associates of former White House aide Oliver North.

In response to defense requests, Keeton then held seven weeks of hearings on possible government misconduct in the LaRouche case.

Finally, on Wednesday, Keeton declared a mistrial, citing the lengthy hearings as a cause of the trial delays that were causing hardship to several jurors who never expected the trial to last so long. Several jurors expressed frustration with the delays -- one told Keeton the whole trial was "half-assed" -- and said they had to get on with their lives.

Several jurors told reporters after the mistrial ruling that they felt they were in the dark because they had not received all the evidence. Some said that, based on what they'd heard so far, they would have acquitted LaRouche.

"We would have acquitted everybody at this point," juror Roman Dashawetz told the Boston Herald. "There was too much question of government misconduct in what was happening in the LaRouche campaign."

LaRouche expressed glee about those statements at a press conference yesterday.

"Okay, boys, there's egg on your face," LaRouche said, directing his comments to prosecutors. He repeated allegations that the case is a result of massive conspiracies against him by Bush, North and others. He added that nothing short of exoneration would please him.

"We were cheated out of an acquittal," LaRouche said, "by dilatory tactics of the government."

But government officials have said it was not they but the LaRouche defense that caused delays. LaRouche lawyers, echoing the conspiracy-minded rhetoric of LaRouche himself, have made countless accusations of U.S. misconduct, and have requested reams of U.S. documents, many of them classified. They continually alleged the government was lying when it said it had turned over all relevant information about the case.

In March, the tactic paid off.

Prosecutor Markham acknowledged then that the federal government had some documents about some longtime Texas-based informants for federal agencies who had offered the FBI some information about LaRouche. Markham turned the documents over to the defense; later FBI testimony revealed that the FBI repeatedly threatened to prosecute Markham for releasing these documents, which the FBI considered to be still classified.

In addition, 55 days into the trial, Markham gave the defense a number of documents about a Loudoun County-based FBI informant named Ryan Emerson, who had briefly infiltrated the group in 1986 for the FBI. The judge said Markham should have released the documents earlier.

Markham also discovered that the FBI had other files, going back to the 1960s, about Emerson's FBI work. The defense said this was more evidence of government coverup.

The recent seven weeks of hearings -- during which the jury was removed from the courtroom -- dealt largely with whether these classified files should be turned over. Keeton concluded they did not, but the delay helped irritate the jury and cause the mistrial.

Articles appear as they were originally printed in The Washington Post and may not include subsequent corrections.