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New facts in church arsenic poisoning
Daniel Bondeson, the only person implicated in last year’s arsenic poisonings at a church in northern Maine, visited a lawyer the day before he shot himself to death.
Attorney Peter Kelley of Caribou said Tuesday the information that Bondeson, 53, passed on to him on May 1 could shed light on the mystery that still surrounds the case.
“I would very much like to tell what I know,” Kelley said, explaining that he is obligated to remain silent because of attorney-client privilege that remains in force even after the client’s death.
Kelley said he could turn the information over to authorities and reveal it to the public only if he obtains a waiver from the Bondeson estate. The estate, which thus far has not agreed to a waiver, is made up of Bondeson’s three siblings and the child of a fourth sibling who predeceased him.
Investigators said Bondeson’s suicide note, whose contents have never been released, convinced them that he did not act alone. The investigation remains open, with a detective assigned nearly full time to the case.
Alan Harding, the Presque Isle lawyer hired to settle Bondeson’s estate, stated earlier that the suicide note did not appear to implicate anyone other than Bondeson, although he was not privy to all the evidence.
Harding would not speak on the record Tuesday about the issues raised by Kelley in regard to a waiver. He did say, however, that “the estate isn’t the one preventing Mr. Kelley from talking to the attorney general’s office.”
Kelley and Harding have been at an impasse over the waiver. One stumbling block has been Kelley’s request for an indemnification agreement to protect him from lawsuits that might arise from disclosing what was said. Also at issue, according to Kelley, is whether the waiver would be restricted to the release of information only to authorities and the estate.
Maine State Police Lt. Dennis Appleton, who oversees the investigation into the April 27 poisonings at Gustaf Adolph Lutheran Church in New Sweden, questioned whether Bondeson’s statements to Kelley would move the case forward.
“That carrot has been out there on the stick for a long time, and I wonder if the carrot has any nutritional value to it,” Appleton said.
Appleton said he understood that lawyer-client privilege extends past Bondeson’s death, but the state attorney general’s office would be the one to deal with that aspect of the case.
Deputy Attorney General Bill Stokes, who has been involved in the matter, was on vacation and could not be reached for comment.
Appleton said the investigation was proceeding as if that information never existed. “If Peter Kelley knows something and goes to his grave with it, it becomes a moot issue with us,” he said.
Kelley said he knew Bondeson because the two had cross-country skied together during the 1970s. He said he never did any legal work for Bondeson before his visit.
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