The Workers League calls upon the entire labor movement to support the deepening of the investigation into the serious unanswered questions arising from the assassination of Tom Henehan and the wounding of Jacques Vielot, both leading members of our party, on October 16, 1977.

The conviction of Angelo Torres and Edwin Sequinot by a Brooklyn Supreme Court jury on July 22, 1981 as the gunmen who carried out the attack at the Ponce Social Club is a major advance in the struggle to expose and bring to justice those who murdered Tom Henehan because of his socialist beliefs.

The tens of thousands of trade unionists, youth, housewives, students and civil rights activists who signed petitions demanding that the police apprehend Torres and Sequinot will certainly join with the Workers League in welcoming the sentences imposed on the convicted killers.

On August 6, 1981, Torres was sentenced by Judge Sybil Hart Kooper to consecutive terms of 12½ to 25 years for the attempted second degree murder of Vielot and 25 years to life imprisonment for the second degree murder of Henehan. He was also sentenced to serve a concurrent term of 7½ to 15 years for criminal possession of a deadly weapon: the gun used to shoot Henehan to death.

Judge Kooper imposed two consecutive terms of 12½ to 25 years on Sequinot for first degree manslaughter in the death of Henehan and attempted second degree murder in the wounding of Vielot. He was also sentenced to serve a concurrent term of 7½ to 15 years for criminal possession of a deadly weapon.

This trial would never have been held and the convictions would never have been obtained had it not been for the mass support within the labor movement mobilized by the Workers League and the Young Socialists behind the demand that the killers of Tom Henehan be apprehended.

However, the conviction of the killers completes only the first stage of the Workers League’s investigation into the assassination. The decisive task which lies ahead is the exposure of those who hired Torres and Sequinot to murder Henehan.

The Office of the Brooklyn District Attorney insists that the case is closed and that there is nothing to investigate. It maintains that Henehan’s death was merely a “senseless killing.” This “theory,” however, is directly contradicted by the very facts which the prosecuting attorney, Ms. Barbara Newman, presented to the jury. These facts demonstrated that Torres and Sequinot did not act “senselessly” but “in concert” – that is, in premeditated collaboration. It was on this legal basis that the jury found Torres and Sequinot mutually responsible for each other’s actions.

This point is decisive. The attempt to dismiss the crime as a “senseless killing” was bound up entirely with the three-year-long refusal of the police and the Brooklyn District Attorney to acknowledge Sequinot’s role in the murder of Henehan and the wounding of Vielot. The arrest, indictment and conviction of Sequinot has totally shattered the foundation of the official explanation of Henehan’s murder. Nevertheless, the Office of the Brooklyn District Attorney refuses to budge from its original explanation of the crime as “senseless.”

From the start, the designation of Henehan’s murder as “senseless” has been employed in order to deny any possible political motivations behind the events of October 16, 1977.

But the testimony given at the trial, along with the new information obtained by the Workers League, raises more questions about the murder of Tom Henehan and the ensuing police investigation than it answered.

Information that has come to light as a result of the trial strongly indicates that both Torres and Sequinot evaded arrest and prosecution for three years because they enjoyed high-level protection.

Moreover, evidence presented at the trial proves that there was a third man involved in the killing of Henehan and the wounding of Vielot whom the Brooklyn District Attorney, for reasons which have not been explained, refuses to prosecute.

The testimony also established that there was, for all intents and purposes, no investigation into the murder of Henehan by the Brooklyn District Attorney.

Finally, testimony given by doctors indicates that Henehan was denied standard medical treatment after he was shot that might have saved his life.

Before the Office of the Brooklyn District Attorney declares that the Henehan case is closed, it must provide answers to the following questions:

1. The Release of Angelo Torres

Why was Angelo Torres released from jail within hours of his arrest by New York City Police on June 7, 1979, although a murder warrant for his role in the killing of Tom Henehan had been issued in November 1977?

On October 16, 1980, exactly three years after the assassination of Tom Henehan, the Workers League was notified by Detective Frederick Nelson of the 90th Precinct that Angelo Torres had finally been located and arrested in Brooklyn the day before. Nelson stated that he had apprehended Torres while riding a Brooklyn bus on Rockaway Avenue, only a few miles from the actual scene of the crime.

The arrest was described as the result of an heroic three-year nationwide manhunt. Several months after Henehan’s death, a detective from the 90th Precinct suggested that Torres might have fled to Puerto Rico. In May 1978, Lt. Hunt from that precinct told the Workers League that a nationwide search was in progress, and that the information required for the identification and apprehension of Torres had been fed into the national police computer network. This meant, we were told, that Torres would be held for the murder of Henehan by local police no matter where he “surfaced” in the United States.

When he testified under oath in the Brooklyn Supreme Court on July 21, 1981, Detective Nelson described the search for Torres in less dramatic terms. In the course of the examination by Assistant District Attorney Newman, the following exchange took place:

Q: Detective Nelson, did you assist in the search for Angelo Torres in this case?
A: Yes I did.
Q: When did the search for Mr. Torres commence?
A: Within a week of the shooting.
Q: And will you tell us, please, what efforts were made to locate him?
A: We went to various locations in Brooklyn, Bronx, Queens in an effort to apprehend him, many jobs, where he worked.
(Court Transcript, p. 207)

According to Nelson’s testimony, the police waited several days before even starting their official search for Torres (“within a week”). This confirms the charge made by the Workers League, in a letter to District Attorney Eugene Gold, dated May 11, 1978, that the police did not act on information received within hours of the shooting which told them where Torres could be located and arrested.

Torres was even able to pick up his wages at his workplace the day after shooting Henehan.

Far from being completely in the dark about Torres’s whereabouts, the detectives of the 90th Precinct knew his home address. Nelson testified that he questioned Carmen Sequinot, the common-law wife of Torres and the sister of Edwin Sequinot. In 1979, Carmen Sequinot gave birth to a daughter whom she sought to bring into the courtroom at Torres’s trial in order to elicit jurors’ sympathy for her husband.

No evidence was presented at the trial to indicate that the police conducted a serious search for Torres or that the killer was even in hiding.

In the course of his testimony, Detective Nelson never indicated that Torres had fled to Puerto Rico or to anywhere else in the country.

On the basis of Nelson’s testimony, Judge Kooper was obliged to issue a ruling that Torres could not be accused of having fled to avoid arrest.

She stated:

“You have a defendant who is alleged to have committed the act in 1977 and was apprehended in 1980. All the detective testified to was that he made efforts to locate him.

“I don’t have enough to charge flight. All he [Nelson] said was he tried to find him and couldn’t. I don’t see any flight here. He may have legitimately moved from one address to another. I wasn’t planning to charge flight.”
(Court Transcript, p.221)

The evidence now available indicates that Angelo Torres actually lived at home in Brooklyn with his common-law wife from October 1977 until his arrest for the murder of Henehan on October 15, 1980.

New information which was not introduced at the trial, but which the Workers League has obtained, strongly suggests that Torres enjoyed high-level protection against being arrested for shooting Tom Henehan.

On June 7, 1979, Angelo Torres was picked up by police in Queens County, which borders Brooklyn, for armed illegal entry with criminal intent.

He identified himself as “Julio Lopez,” although he gave his correct birthdate: October 23, 1955. The police took “Lopez” down to the precinct for a standard identification check before taking him to the court house for arraignment. Working on fingerprints, which the New York Police Department considers the only valid identification, the police computer should have flashed back the real identity and record of “Julio Lopez” within a matter of minutes.

Torres’s fingerprints should have been on file because of his prior criminal record. He was paroled from Elmira Correctional Center on July 19, 1977 where he had been serving a sentence for manslaughter. The standard computer check should have identified Lopez as Angelo Torres and notified Queens police that this individual was wanted in neighboring Brooklyn for the murder of Tom Henehan.

However, in this case, the computer check neither exposed “Julio Lopez” as a phony identity nor did it indicate any outstanding warrants.

Therefore, Torres was arraigned before a Queens County judge who set low bail for this “first offender.” He was released from custody and given a court date for a future trial on the illegal entry charge.

When Torres–Lopez failed to show up, a judge issued a bench warrant on June 11, 1979 for the arrest of “Julio Lopez.”

Why did the computer check fail to show that Julio Lopez was, in fact, Angelo Torres? The fact that the police in Queens were unable to discover any connection from the computer check is established by their assignment of a brand-new state identification number to Julio Lopez: #4426468-Z. The already existing New York State Identification number of Angelo Torres was #2734204-K. It should be stressed that the police in Queens and Brooklyn are part of the same city-wide force: the N.Y.P.D.

The fact that nothing came up on the computer when “Julio Lopez’s” fingerprints were fed into the system clearly indicates that the criminal file of Angelo Torres as well as data used for standard identity checks were simply wiped out. This could not have been done without the intervention of powerful forces who were in a position to alter police records and who made it their business to protect Torres.

If there exists another and more plausible explanation, it should be presented by the Office of the Brooklyn District Attorney.

2. The Refusal to Arrest Edwin Sequinot

Why did District Attorney Eugene Gold refuse for three years and two months to order the arrest of Edwin Sequinot for the murder of Henehan and the attempted murder of Vielot?

Why was Sequinot paroled from prison three months after participating in the shooting at the Ponce Social Club?

On July 22, 1981, after two days of testimony, it took the jury only a little more than three hours to find Edwin Sequinot guilty of first degree manslaughter and attempted second degree murder. The jury’s decision was based almost entirely on the eyewitness testimony of Jacques Vielot, who had survived the serious wounds inflicted by Sequinot. His photographic reconstruction of the crime provided the Assistant District Attorney, Barbara Newman, with the factual foundation of the prosecution’s case.

In her summation, Ms. Newman lavished praise on Vielot as she reviewed his testimony before the jury. Referring to him as a “precise person,” Newman stated that “it’s clear from the way he testified that he knew exactly what was going on during that incident.” (Court Transcript, p. 311)

Evaluating his credibility, Newman continued, “there are people like Jacques Vielot, and he has a personality trait of being able to observe. He’s clearly an observant person, to store what he observes and then, when need be, when called on here to testify, to recollect. How do we know he was so precise? Consider, ladies and gentlemen, the little details, if you have his testimony reread, if you care to, the little details.” (311)

But “the little details” which led to Sequinot’s speedy conviction were exactly those which Vielot related to Detective John Mohl of the 90th Precinct and officials from Eugene Gold’s office in October 1977, while still a patient at Wyckoff Heights Hospital recovering from emergency surgery.

Nor was that the only information given to the police concerning Sequinot’s involvement in the murder of Henehan and the wounding of Vielot. On the afternoon of October 16, 1977, less than 12 hours after Henehan’s death, Young Socialist leader Paul Scherrer and another eyewitness identified Sequinot as a gunman and as the individual who initiated the provocation at the Ponce Social Club which set up the assassination of Henehan.

The identification was made at the headquarters of the 90th Precinct on Union Street in Brooklyn, to which Sequinot had been brought after being picked up by police for questioning in the killing of Henehan and the wounding of Vielot.

Viewing Sequinot through a one-way mirror, Scherrer specifically identified him as the man he had seen with a gun after hearing a fusillade of gunshots.

Paul Scherrer also testified at the trial and contributed important details in the conviction of Sequinot.

Ms. Newman referred to his testimony in her summation:

“What did Paul Scherrer say? He said, ‘I saw Jacques on one knee with his shoulder into the chest of the fellow who had earlier identified himself with the paper,’ and that’s Edwin Sequi-
not.”
(Court Transcript, pp. 308–309)

All the evidence which ultimately led to the conviction of Sequinot on July 22, 1981 was on the desk of Eugene Gold and his assistant in charge of homicide investigations, Ronald Aiello, by October 20, 1977.

But Sequinot was not taken into custody for his involvement in the shooting of Henehan and Vielot until December 28, 1980!

The detective who arrested Sequinot, Nelson, admitted in court (Transcript, p. 211) that it was not necessary to search for the killer. They knew where he lived all along.

In fact, at the time of his involvement in the shooting at the Ponce Social Club, Edwin Sequinot was officially in the custody of the New York State Department of Correction. He was still serving a five-year sentence for second-degree robbery. The date of his conviction was February 25, 1976. Sequinot made it to the Ponce Social Club only because he was out of jail for the weekend on a program called “Prison Work-Release.”

Several hours after the shooting, the police picked up Sequinot and brought him to Union Street where he was identified by Scherrer and a second eyewitness.

That should have been, one would naturally assume, the end of “Work-Release” for Sequinot.

But that is not what happened. Sequinot’s murderous acts at the Ponce Social Club did not impede his rapid progress out of the prison system.

On January 26, 1978, just 14 weeks after the shooting of Vielot and acting as Torres’s accomplice in the murder of Henehan, Sequinot was paroled from prison although his robbery conviction could have kept him behind bars for another two years and three months.

Under “normal” circumstances, by simply being at the scene of a crime, Sequinot could have been expected to run into trouble with the Parole Board.

But in this case, he commits murder and attempted murder while technically still a prisoner … and he is rewarded with parole!

As in the case of Torres’s mysterious release from custody in June 1979, Sequinot’s parole could not have been granted without the intervention of powerful forces behind the scenes.

It cannot be argued by either District Attorney Gold or his assistant, Mr. Aiello, that they were unaware of the evidence against Sequinot.

On May 11, 1978, a letter addressed to Gold was sent by Workers League National Secretary David North. It included the following passage:

“But it is not simply the failure to apprehend Torres which raises serious questions about the handling of the investigation by the police in Kings County, Mr. District Attorney.

“The police have refused to arrest and file charges against Edwin Sequinot even though he is, by all accounts, an accomplice in the murder of Henehan.

“Moreover, Jacques Vielot has told police repeatedly that it was Sequinot who fired the bullets which wounded him.

“The police have totally disregarded Vielot’s statements even though he is, you must agree, the most authoritative eyewitness to the crime.

“Why are the police refusing to take any action against Sequinot? Is it because proof of his involvement in the murder of Henehan would shatter the Police Department’s ‘one-gun’ and ‘senseless killing’ version of the crime?

“Or do the police of the 90th Precinct have perhaps some other reason for wanting to protect Sequinot? Let it be noted that the homicide detectives have also refused to provide any information regarding the arrest and prison record of Sequinot. This is particularly strange as we have received unofficial reports that Sequinot was on a prison work-release program at the time of Henehan’s murder.”

Workers League
540 West 29 St.
New York, N.Y. 10001

May 16, 1978
In reply, refer to
I.D. No. 108

Re: INVESTIGATION INTO THE DEATH OF
TOM HENEHAN FROM NO. 324–1

Attention: David North
National Secretary

Dear Mr. North:

This is to acknowledge receipt of your letter to the District Attorney, Kings County. Please be advised that on November 14, 1977, this office authorized an arrest for the crime of homicide of one Angel Torres. As of this date, Mr. Torres remains unapprehended. If you or your organization have any information as to his whereabouts, this office will appreciate your imparting of that information to us.

After an extensive investigation by the Police Department in conjunction with this office, no other arrest has been authorized thus far.

I hope this information is of value to you.

Very truly yours,

EUGENE GOLD
District Attorney

(signed)

RONALD J. AIELLO
Assistant District Attorney
Chief, Homicide Bureau

RJA/md

A photostatic copy of the letter from Brooklyn District Attorney Eugene Gold’s office, written by Homicide Chief Ronald Aiello.

With the exception of the last letter of the criminal’s name, everything in those paragraphs has stood the test of time.

A reply to this letter was sent from the Office of Mr. Gold on May 16, 1978. It was signed by Mr. Aiello. It stated:

“This is to acknowledge receipt of your letter to the District Attorney, Kings County. Please be advised that on November 14, 1977, this office authorized an arrest for the crime of homicide of one Angel Torres. As of this date, Mr. Torres remains unapprehended. If you or your organization have any information as to his whereabouts, this office will appreciate your imparting that information to us.

“After an extensive investigation by the Police Department in conjunction with this office, no other arrest has been authorized thus far. (Emphasis added)

“I hope this information is of value to you.

“Very truly yours.”

From the date of that letter to the date of Sequinot’s conviction, no new evidence relating to the crime was added to that which the District Attorney already had in his possession. That evidence would ultimately put Sequinot behind bars for a minimum of 25 years.

But for three years and two months following the murder of Henehan and the shooting of Vielot, the District Attorney did not seek any indictment of Sequinot. Nor did it block his release from prison on parole on January 28, 1978.

Who was protecting Sequinot and why?

3. The Suppression of Physical Evidence

Why was physical evidence related to the murder of Henehan and the wounding of Vielot suppressed?

Testimony by detectives and police at the trial completely disprove the assertion made by Mr. Aiello in his letter of May 16, 1978 that “an extensive investigation by the Police Department in conjunction with this office” was undertaken. Their testimony establishes that the police and the District Attorney’s office concocted the “senseless violence — one gunman” theory without even attempting to seriously investigate bullets fired in the course of the attack.

Steven Colangelo, the police ballistics expert, testified that two bullets were recovered at the scene of the crime on October 16, 1977. Both were .38 caliber, but they were of different type. One was a lead bullet and the other was copper-jacketed. Aside from determining this difference, Colangelo could not determine whether the bullets had been fired from one gun or two guns. He stated:

“They were both too deformed. They had no value for comparison purpose.”
(Court Transcript, p. 238)

On the basis of Colangelo’s testimony, neither the police nor the District Attorney had the slightest factual grounds for their insistence that only one gunman was involved. On the contrary, the different types of .38 caliber bullets discovered at the Ponce Social Club — one copper-coated and the other lead — would tend to support the claim that there were two gunmen loading their weapons with different ammunition.

In the course of their “extensive investigation,” did the District Attorney’s office and the police attempt to resolve the problem of determining how many guns were used in the attack? This was quite possible to do because there were more than two bullets fired and subsequently located.

The testimony of Detective Nelson under questioning by Ms. Newman deserves careful consideration.

Q: Detective Nelson, in connection with that investigation, did you in November of 1980 take some official police action with respect to physical evidence?
A: I did. I went to Wyckoff Heights Hospital and met Mrs. Smith, who works in hospital records. I picked up a bullet. I took the bullet to the 83rd Precinct and vouchered it and requested that this bullet be compared with bullets that were recovered at the scene.

Q: And from whom had the bullet that you picked up in 1980 been removed?
A: From Jacques Vielot.

Q: By whom?
A: Dr. Limb.

Q: And that was in …
A: 1977.
(Court Transcript, p. 200)

Detective Nelson did not explain, nor was asked, why the Police Department delayed for three years before attempting to recover the bullet removed by surgeons from the body of Vielot. Considering the fact that the two bullets recovered from the Ponce Social Club shortly after the murder could not be used for purposes of comparison, the bullet extracted from Vielot was of great importance. Why was the bullet ignored for three years?

In fact, the question of this very bullet was raised by the Workers League in its letter of May 11, 1978 to the District Attorney:

“More than a week after the shooting, doctors at Wyckoff Heights Hospital in Brooklyn extracted a bullet from Vielot’s body. It had passed downward through the wall of his abdomen and lodged beside the bone inside his thigh. (Would it not be correct procedure, Mr. District Attorney, to compare the trajectory of this bullet with the trajectories of the bullets which passed through Henehan?)

“The bullet, according to a doctor present at the surgery, was recovered virtually intact. At Vielot’s request, the doctor measured the bullet and found that it was smaller than a .38 caliber bullet. The doctor told Vielot that the bullet would have to be turned over to the authorities investigating the shooting.

“After Vielot was discharged from the hospital, he spoke to the homicide detectives about the discrepancy between their insistence that only one gun was involved in the crime and the fact that he himself had not been wounded by a .38 caliber bullet. The police answered by claiming that they knew nothing about the bullet extracted from Vielot’s body.”

In his reply to this letter, Mr. Aiello ignored this issue entirely. But in November 1980 Detective Nelson went to Wyckoff Heights Hospital to retrieve a bullet which, as we pointed out, he and his colleagues had maintained they knew nothing about. This discrepancy is even more puzzling than that we referred to in the 1978 letter.

There was another curious admission made at the trial. Frank Gargano, a policeman who searched the Ponce Social Club for evidence as a member of the Crime Scene Unit, testified that a fourth bullet was located at the Club but was never recovered. He gave the following explanation:

“Well, upon removal, it had apparently fallen through the baseboard and we would have to dismantle the entire wall, or that portion of it, to get it.”
(Court Transcript, p. 239)

In fact the construction of the Club is such that removing several planks would have been a relatively simple job. But it was considered too extensive a task for this “extensive” investigation conducted by the police “in conjunction with” the District Attorney’s office. So, out of four known bullets, only two were recovered in 1977. The third was not recovered from Wyckoff Heights Hospital until 1980, and the long delay makes its authenticity open to serious doubt. And the fourth bullet is still lodged somewhere in the Ponce Social Club.

It remains to be explained why Mr. Aiello claimed that his office had conducted an “extensive investigation” when the Police Department, with which it was supposedly working, had failed— for reasons never given— to recover essential physical evidence. Mr. Aiello’s statement was false. Why did the Office of the District Attorney insist that there existed no evidence to warrant the arrest of Sequinot when it knew that no serious investigation had even been conducted?

4. The Protection of Angel Rodriguez

Why has the office of the district attorney refused to seek the indictment of Angel Rodriguez for the murder of Tom Henahan and the attempted murder of Jacques Vielot?

The evidence presented by the prosecuting attorney at the trial irrefutably established that a third man, Angel Rodriguez, acted in concert with Torres and Sequinot in the murder of Henahan and the attempted murder of Vielot. But, for reasons never explained by the prosecutor, Rodriguez has not been indicted for any crime. He was not even called upon to testify as a prosecution witness. This eliminates the possibility that Rodriguez was not indicted in order to obtain his cooperation in the case against Sequinot and Torres.

Rodriguez’s role in the crime was definitely established by Ms. Newman. In her opening statement to the jury, the prosecutor outlined the case as follows:

“You will hear the chronology of what occurred, that some time after midnight, Edwin Sequinot came back with Angel Rodriguez, was in the club, and in walked Angelo Torres, the other defendant; that words were exchanged, which you will hear, and a fight broke out wherein Jacques Vielot was being fought with by Rodriguez, Angel Rodriguez, who is not a defendant here, and Edwin Sequinot; that Torres took out a gun and started firing; that Vielot saw him shoot at Tom Henehan, who came from an interior room to aid Jacques Vielot, and he saw blood gushing out of Tom Henehan’s neck when he was shot by Torres; that Vielot himself was shot from a location where only Sequinot was in the room; that he was hustling and fighting with Sequinot, with Angel Rodriguez, and then he was tussling and fighting with the defendant Torres, during which time Torres took the gun and put it to Vielot’s head and clicked it, but it didn’t go off. So Torres took the gun and bashed in the side of the face of Mr. Vielot. Several other shots had been fired at Mr. Henehan.

“Torres fled, Sequinot fled, Angel Rodriguez fled.”
(Court Transcript, pp. 109–110)

Under direct questioning by Newman, Vielot explained the role of Rodriguez:

“And there was another one with them (Torres and Sequinot) who came at me with a stick and he hit me across the chest and I was about to block it and the stick broke in two pieces and I grabbed them.”
(Court Transcript, p. 129)

During the cross-examination of Vielot by John Corbett, attorney for Sequinot, the following exchange took place:

Q: It wasn’t Sequinot who punched you?
A: No.
A: This is the one I held between myself and the other man’s gun, and he was the one who hit me with a stick.
Q: He had a stick and he was hitting you with a stick. And how about Angel Rodriguez, what was he doing?
A: I came to know later that Slade is Angel Rodriguez, or not Slade but Snake. That’s the sound I picked up that night. I wasn’t sure whether it was Snake or Slade, so I said Slade, S-L-A-D-E.
Q: And Slade was in front of you hitting you with a stick?
A: Yes.
(Court Transcript, pp. 142–143)

During the cross-examination of Vielot by Richard Goldberg, attorney for Torres, the following exchange occurred:

Q: You were trying to get Sequinot off your back?
A: Yes. And the other one came with a stick.
Q: That’s not Mr. Torres, but one of the other two persons?
A: Yes, that was Snake or Slade, or Angel Rodriguez.
(Court Transcript, p. 161)

In her summation, Ms. Newman referred repeatedly to Rodriguez’s participation in the attack which resulted in the shooting of Henehan and Vielot. She states at one point:

“You heard Mr. Vielot say that just prior to the incident he was sitting on a table which was surrounding the pool room and the dance hall, and that Edwin Sequinot was in the room right by him as well as the other fellow, Angel Rodriguez, who is not here before you, and in walks Torres.
(Court Transcript p.304)

Why wasn’t Rodriguez before the jury?

In her reconstruction of the attack during the summation, Ms. Newman stated:

“So Torres takes a punch at Mr. Vielot and Mr. Vielot is alert and he blocks the punch, at which point he’s jumped from behind and Angel Rodriguez comes at him with this stick.”
(Court Transcript, p.305)

Clearly, Rodriguez was a participant in the attack, whose actions were coordinated with those of Torres and Sequinot. These actions facilitated the murder of Henehan and the wounding of Vielot.

In the continuation of her summation, Ms. Newman reconstructed the escape:

“Then someone says, ‘Let’s go.’ Not ‘I am going to get out of here.’ There is not ‘I’ here, it’s ‘we,’ we. ‘Let’s go’ and out runs Torres, out runs Sequinot,** out runs Angel Rodriguez** and Mr. Vielot goes to the aid of Tom Henehan …”
(Court Transcript, p.309)

The description of the crime given by Ms. Newman proves that there were three individuals directly involved in the actual commission of the crime: Torres, Sequinot and Rodriguez. According to the law, the decisive issue in determining Rodriguez’s guilt is not whether he attacked Vielot with a stick or gun. The decisive fact is that he acted “in concert” with Torres and Sequinot. It was precisely this point that Newman herself made in explaining to the jury that it was not necessary to establish that Sequinot fired a gun to find him guilty of murder. It is enough to prove that he acted “in concert” with Torres.

In the course of its deliberations, the jury sent a note to Judge Kooper requesting that she explain the meaning of “in concert” from the standpoint of law. We quote her entire reply to the jury:

“All right, acting in concert. If this does not answer the questions you had about the definition and about the ramifications, then please go back to the jury room and prepare another question.

“All right?

“I will begin by once again reading the statute with regard to when a person is acting in concert.

“‘When one person is criminally liable for such conduct when, acting with the mental culpability required for the commission thereof, he solicits, requests, commands, importunes,
or intentionally aids such person to engage in such conduct.’

“This means that if two people agreed to commit a crime and each has the same criminal intent, then each person is guilty of the same crime whether each person participates in the crime fifty-fifty or one person does 95 percent of the work, while the other person does five percent of the work.

“Let me give you an example.

“Suppose Leonard Bernstein is conducting the New York Philharmonic Orchestra and all the musicians agree to play the William Tell Overture. All the musicians have parts throughout the entire overture except the cymbals player, who has only one job; to clash the cymbals at the end of the concert.

“Under the law, the cymbals player as well as all the other musicians would be acting in concert because all had the same intent: to play the overture, and all agreed to play it.”

(Court Transcript, pp. 502–503)

Under the law, there is no question of Rodriguez’s guilt. He acted with the two others who were found guilty. But the Office of the District Attorney is allowing him to go scot-free. Why is he being protected, just as Sequinot was protected for three years and two months?

Who is Angel Rodriguez?

That question can be best answered by reviewing his police record. He was born on June 22, 1957, and within the space of 24 years has built up a considerable arrest record.

1. October 23, 1973: petty larceny, possession of stolen property. Charges were dismissed on April 10, 1974.

2. November 1, 1973: burglary third degree; possession of stolen property. Charges were dismissed April 24, 1974.

3. January 25, 1974: burglary, possession of burglary tools. He was not arraigned and the charges were dismissed February 28, 1974.

4. August 12, 1974: possession of burglary tools and dangerous intent.

5. August 27, 1974: burglary; armed illegal entry with criminal intent.

Convicted on October 23, 1974 upon a plea of guilty on the following charges: attempted Class D felony. The sentence was five years probation.

6. April 15, 1975: possession of burglary tools and criminal trespass.

7. June 20, 1975: burglary third degree, possession of burglary tools. Convicted on September 8, 1975 upon a plea of guilty on two counts of possession of stolen property. He was sentenced to a maximum of three years.

It is not clear how long Rodriguez actually served in prison. After an interval of nearly two years, his criminal record resumes.

8. May 7, 1977: attempted robbery, resisting arrest, criminal possession third degree, criminal possession stolen property.

For these offenses Rodriguez was given a “Conditional Discharge.” When asked to explain what this meant, an assistant of the office of the Brooklyn District Attorney stated: “It means the judge gave him some kind of condition.”

9. June 16, 1978: attempted grand larceny second degree, possession of burglary tools, criminal mischief, reckless endangerment of property, possession of stolen property.

On June 20, 1978, several of these charges were dismissed, i.e., resisting arrest and grand larceny second degree.

On July 12, 1978, Rodriguez was convicted upon a plea of guilty to the following charges: possession of burglary tools, petty larceny, criminal mischief, criminal possession of stolen property. He was sentenced to only 60 days in prison.

10. September 19, 1978: attempted burglary third degree, possession of stolen property, possession of burglary tools.

The record shows that he was convicted on June 16, 1979 upon a plea of guilty to the following charges: possession of stolen property, criminal trespass.

On August 17, 1979 he was admitted to Clinton Correctional Facility for a term of 18 to 36 months.

He served less than the official minimum. Rodriguez was released on parole on December 9, 1980.

The date of his parole coincides with the hearings of the grand jury that was considering the evidence against Sequinot. Rodriguez was called as a witness before the grand jury.

It is evident from Rodriguez’s record that he is well known to the police in the area. His treatment by the courts has been extraordinarily and consistently lenient. The question which must arise is: does Rodriguez supply the police with information? In this respect, his conditional discharge on May 7, 1977 — just a few months before Henehan’s death — deserves examination. Why type of deal was fixed to keep Rodriguez on the streets?

The police record of Angel Rodriguez gives his address as 552 Central Avenue in Brooklyn. From the standpoint of the investigation of the murder of Tom Henehan, this is a fact of enormous significance, because it is the address of the Ponce Social Club where Henehan was murdered.

The dance hall and the pool room are on the ground floor of the Club. Rodriguez lived in October 1977 on the third floor of the same building. He obviously knew Edwin Sequinot. Otherwise, his collaboration with Sequinot in the attack would be totally inexplicable.

Was it Rodriguez who originally contacted Sequinot and Torres to tell them about the dance planned by the Young Socialists on the evening of October 15–16, 1977 on the ground floor of the building in which he lived?

Did Rodriguez, who was obviously familiar with the layout of the Ponce Social Club, have the job of “casing the joint” before the arrival of the hitman Torres?

Did Rodriguez, the man who is in and out of the police station, where he is known as “Junior,” tip off the police about the Young Socialists dance at which Tom Henehan was to be murdered?

Rodriguez did not testify at the trial, even though he was an eyewitness to the crime. His testimony against Sequinot and Torres could have been, from the prosecution standpoint, even more devastating than Vielot’s. He was in a position to testify on all the contacts between Sequinot and Torres in the hours leading up to the shooting, their plans, and their motives. He could have provided the inside story.

Why wasn’t Rodriguez called in as a witness? He was in prison at the time Torres was arrested. He faced both the prolongation of the sentence he was then serving, and the danger of an indictment for murder. Surely he had a powerful incentive for cooperating with the Office of the District Attorney.

But Rodriguez never testified. Instead, he was paroled from prison on December 9, 1980, two months after the arrest of Angelo Torres, and 19 days before the arrest of Edwin Sequinot, the two men with whom he worked in the murder of Tom Henehan and the shooting of Jacques Vielot.

Who made the decision not to call Rodriguez as a witness? Who made the decision not to prosecute him for acting “in concert” with Torres and Sequinot? Who made the decision to release him on parole, when he was clearly implicated in murder and attempted murder?

5. The Medical Care for Tom Henehan

Why was emergency surgery not performed on Tom Henehan after he was admitted to Wyckoff Heights Hospital? Were all possible measures taken to save his life?

Tom Henehan suffered three bullet wounds fired from the gun of Angelo Torres. The time of the shooting was set by Ms. Newman, in her opening statement, as “some time after midnight.” (Court Transcript, p. 109) The actual time of the incident was between 12:50 AM and 12:55 AM on October 16, 1977.

CITY OF NEW YORK BUREAU OF VITAL RECORDS

[stamp] OCT 19 1977

Certificate No. 56–77–316045

NAME OF DECEASED
Thomas K. Henehan Sex: Male

MEDICAL CERTIFICATE OF DEATH (To be filed by the Registrar)

PLACE OF DEATH:
New York City — Borough: Brooklyn
Hospital: Wyckoff Heights Hospital

DATE AND HOUR OF DEATH:
October 16, 1977 — 2:50 AM Sex: Male Approximate Age: 26 Yrs.

I HEREBY CERTIFY that I attended deceased from ____ to ____, that I last saw him alive on October 16, 1977, and that death occurred on the date and hour stated above.

CAUSE OF DEATH:
Part I: GUNSHOT WOUNDS OF NECK, CHEST, WRIST, HYOID BONE, LUNG; MASSIVE EXTERNAL HEMORRHAGE.
Part I(a) Due to or as a consequence of: HOMICIDE.
Part II: _______________

(Signature) Monique A. Byser, M.D.
Local Registrar

M.C. Case No. 5812
[Commissioner of Health seal]

PERSONAL PARTICULARS (To be filed by Funeral Director)

Residence: New York, New York

[Other details illegible]

After being wounded, Henehan was carried to Vielot’s car by Vielot, himself seriously wounded, and the son of the owner of the Ponce Social Club.

Vielot drove to the closest hospital in the neighborhood: Wyckoff Heights Hospital. It is about one mile away from the Social Club.

When placed in the car, Henehan was still conscious and told Vielot that Wyckoff Heights was the nearest hospital. They arrived at the hospital no later than 1:15 AM. Henehan was still conscious when Vielot saw him placed on a stretcher by attendants who wheeled him into the emergency room. He died in the emergency room, according to the death certificate, at 2:50 AM, approximately 90 minutes after arriving at the hospital.

The surgeon-on-call when Henehan arrived at the hospital was Dr. Sangjin Limb, and he testified at the trial. Under questioning by the prosecutor, Limb stated that his specialty is general surgery. He graduated from the National University in Seoul, South Korea in 1964. From 1967 to 1968 he served as an intern at the Bronx Lebanon Hospital in the Bronx, New York. From 1968 until 1973, he served as surgical resident at Wyckoff Heights Hospital. In 1973 and 1974 he served as surgical fellow at the La Guardia Hospital in Forest Hills, New York. He is certified by the American Board of Surgeons.

When asked how many operations he has performed in the course of his career, Limb replied, “Over about 2,000.” (Court Transcript, p. 244)

The transcript shows that the prosecutor asked Dr. Limb only one question about Henehan:

Q: Dr. Limb, referring to People’s Exhibit 9, the record of Mr. Henehan, when does the record indicate Mr. Henehan expired or died?
A: The record shows that he expired at 2:50 AM on the 16th of October 1977.

The prosecutor then turned immediately to questions dealing with the treatment of the survivor, Jacques Vielot. But Dr. Limb was not asked a single question about the treatment given to Henehan.

For a murder trial, this is an astonishingly perfunctory treatment of a major question. In seeking a verdict of second degree murder, the prosecutor is obliged to establish that the wounds inflicted on the victim were certain to cause his death. From the opposing standpoint, the defense lawyers would exploit any doubt about the certainty of death created by the wounds inflicted by his client. As we shall see, this issue did arise in relation to Vielot’s wounds.

But neither the Assistant District Attorney nor the defense lawyers, Mr. Goldberg and Mr. Corbett, asked Dr. Limb to describe Henehan’s condition when he arrived at the hospital nor the treatment which was administered in the attempt to save his life.

Dr. Limb made no reference to any life-saving measures. He does not state whether Henehan was in shock or whether he was near death. He does not indicate whether Henehan’s bleeding was uncontrollable. A period of at least 90 minutes transpired from the time Henehan arrived at Wyckoff Heights Hospital and his death.

The grave implications of the complete absence of any testimony by Dr. Limb about Henehan’s condition upon his admittance to Wyckoff and the treatment he received becomes evident when we review the questioning of Limb on the treatment administered to Vielot.

The following exchange occurred under direct questioning of Dr. Limb by Ms. Newman:

Q: Now, prior to performing surgery on Mr. Vielot, was there a substantial risk that he would die as a result of these injuries?
A: It depended on the extent of injury of the abdominal organs. That’s why we had to perform the exploratory laparotomy (surgical opening and examination of the abdominal cavity), to determine the extent of the injury.
Q: Had there been no treatment, was there a substantial risk that Mr. Vielot would have died?
A: We had to operate. There is no way we could not operate and wait and observe in this case.
Q: In order to save his life?
A: It was mandatory, yes.
(Court Transcript, pp. 249–250)

After cross-examination by Mr. Corbett, the prosecutor returned to the same line of questioning:

Q: Had you not performed surgery at that time, was there a risk of — a substantial risk that Mr. Vielot may have died if he had received no medical treatment?
A: If there were no treatment given at all, he would probably survive, but with more possible, say, complications and more disabilities. But he would have survived.
Q: But there was also substantial risk that he would not survive; is that correct?
A: There was some risk, yes.
Q: Substantial risk, if he had no medical treatment?
MR. GOLDBERG: it has been asked and answered.
THE COURT: Strike it. Sustained.
(Court Transcript, pp. 255–256)

First, note the legal issue. Ms. Newman, as the prosecutor, sought to establish that Vielot would have died without medical treatment. The purpose of her questioning was to demonstrate that the gunmen intended to kill him.

She sought to elicit from Limb the opinion that there was not only “some risk” that Vielot would have died without medical treatment. The purpose of her questioning was to demonstrate that there was “substantial risk.” The defense lawyers intervened to prevent Ms. Newman from obtaining that conclusion from Dr. Limb.

However, there was absolutely no concern demonstrated by any of the attorneys on the same legal issue in dealing with Henehan’s wounds, even though his death was the central issue at the trial.

Was an attempt being made to keep certain facts about Henehan’s death out of the courtroom?

Consider again Limb’s testimony. He stated that it was “mandatory” to operate on Vielot. “We had to operate. There is no way we could not operate and wait and observe in this case.”

But in the case of Henehan, the more gravely injured of the two, there was no emergency surgery. He died in the emergency room, not in the operating theater.

In 1977, shortly after the death of Henehan, Dr. Limb told a member of the Workers League that nothing could be done for the victim because of extensive damage to his arterial system. Limb’s explanation of the causes of Henehan’s death was reported in the initial inquiry into the assassination conducted by the International Committee of the Fourth International. (Martyr of the Fourth International, Labor Publications, pp. 12–13)

It must be ascertained whether Henehan’s condition was hopeless to the extent than an operation would have been of no practical use.

However, Dr. Limb maintained, referring to Vielot, that an operation was necessary to determine the extent of the injury. Would this not have been true as well in the case of Henehan?

The autopsy report submitted at the trial does not indicate that the bullets fired by Torres destroyed either any major organ or major artery.

The autopsy report refers to three bullet wounds. It states specifically that the bullet to the neck “passes that area not hitting any of the vital organs.” (Court Transcript, p. 262)

The most serious wound was that described as “Wound number 2.” Medical Examiner Dr. Joseph F. Beress read from the autopsy report originally prepared by Monique A. Ryser. Wound number 2 is described as follows:

“The entrance site is located on the anterior upper chest wall at a distance of 56 inches above the left heel and 6½ inches lateral from the anterior midline.

“This wound is also found sutured. It has an oval like shape, which enters the chest cavity in the second intercostal space on the same side as it enters, it perforates the upper lobe of the left lung, taking a posterior direction, toward the back. And in that chest cavity 800 cc. of fresh fluid blood is found.

“On the back, the third rib is fractured, where an exit wound is located which is exactly found at 57 inches above the left heel.” (Court Transcript, p. 263)

The third bullet entered and exited through the left wrist area and was not life-threatening.

The official cause of death listed on the death certificate is: “GUNSHOT WOUNDS OF THE NECK, CHEST, WRIST, HYOID BONE, LUNG, MASSIVE INTERNAL HEMORRHAGE: HOMICIDE.”

This death certificate lists wounds rather than a real cause of death. The Medical Examiner’s report establishes that neither the neck nor wrist wounds caused death. As for the chest wound, it does not establish anything more than a life-threatening situation. Despite reference to massive internal hemorrhage, Henehan’s survival for approximately one hour and 55 minutes indicates that no major artery such as the aorta or subclavian was ruptured. Death, in such an instance, occurs almost immediately.

Henehan was brought to the hospital alive and conscious, but bleeding heavily. The issue is whether his condition had deteriorated to the extent that an operation could no longer be considered either a useful, appropriate and possible action.

Doctors contacted recently by the Workers League have all indicated that chest surgery is, in fact, the standard response to the type of wounds suffered by Henehan. All expressed amazement that Henehan died in the emergency room 90 minutes after he arrived at the hospital.

We have been repeatedly told that standard procedure calls for the surgical opening of the chest (thoracotomy) as soon as possible.

A well-known example of the standard procedure was the treatment of Reagan’s chest wound as described by U.S. News & World Report:

“The bullet had bounced off a rib and lodged in the lower left lobe of the left lung, causing significant bleeding and collapsing the lung.

“Attendants moved fast. A tube was quickly inserted in his chest to expand the lung and drain off blood pooling inside the chest cavity.”

“Reagan never went into shock, but his blood loss was so great that emergency surgery was essential. He was given a transfusion of 2½ quarts of blood — nearly half the normal volume of blood in the body. Roughly 40 minutes after arriving at the hospital, Reagan was in the operating room …”

“Although the operation is considered a major one, Reagan’s surgery was neither extraordinary nor rare.

“‘It’s a standard type of procedure,’ explains Dr. Gerald Austen, chief of surgery and cardiology at Massachusetts General Hospital. ‘We see it all too frequently.’” (April 13, 1981, p. 30)

The first part of the procedure described in the above article, the insertion of a tube into the victim’s chest, was carried out on Henehan. But Dr. Limb stopped there. The operating theater was not prepared to admit Henehan.

Wyckoff Heights Hospital does have facilities to treat such serious wounds. An administrator told the Workers League that the hospital admits 50,000 cases to its emergency room every year. He estimated that 20 percent of those admitted face a high risk of death. Gunshot and stab wounds are common. The hospital’s surgical facilities perform operations on a 24-hour-a-day and 7-days-per-week basis.

As Henehan was being treated by Dr. Limb, detectives and police from the 90th Precinct walked in and out of the Emergency Room. It was not declared off limits for gawking cops who knew about Henehan’s politics and were talking about it, as Dr. Limb from South Korea directed the medical treatment.

As chest surgery is standard procedure in a case such as that on Tom Henehan, why was he not operated on? Was a decision made not to save Henehan’s life? Did anti-communism and other political considerations play a role in influencing Dr. Limb?

The Investigation Must Continue

The trial of Torres and Sequinot does not end the investigation. The credibility of those who have insisted that the murder of Henehan was a “senseless killing” has been totally discredited. It was under their auspices that Torres roamed free for three years with his fingerprints wiped clean from the police computer. They blocked the indictment of Sequinot for three years and two months. The District Attorney’s Office refused to conduct a serious investigation, and, even to this day, allows the accomplice Rodriguez to roam free.

The “senseless killing” theory has been exposed by the fact that it has been sustained by coverups and suppression of the facts.

The Workers League is convinced that the murder of Tom Henehan was a political assassination. We believe he was assassinated because of his political beliefs, and because he was a leader of the Workers League, which is determined to expose police agents of the US Government operating inside the socialist movement.

We believe that his assassination was carried out to stop the campaign waged by the International Committee of the Fourth International — with which the Workers League is in political solidarity — to expose government agents in the leadership of the police-infested Socialist Workers Party.

As she prepared to pronounce sentence on Torres, Judge Sybil Hart Kooper remarked: “The killing has to stop.”

Her sentence was correct, but the jailing of Torres will not stop state killings unless those who planned and paid for the murder of Henehan are exposed and brought to justice.

By obtaining the answers to the five major questions posed by the Workers League, a major advance will be made toward answering the most decisive question of all: “WHO ORDERED THE ASSASSINATION OF TOM HENEHAN ?”

We call upon all workers and youth to join with the Workers League and Young Socialists in demanding a continuation and deepening of the investigation into the murder of Tom Henehan and the shooting of Jacques Vielot and to work toward the formation of an independent commission of inquiry to uncover and bring to justice all those who are responsible.