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Secret tapes, tables turned
By GRAHAM BRINK, Times Staff Writer TAMPA -- The state agent and prosecutor knew all about Peter Allen Bonk's wide-ranging burglary ring. Now their questions were about Bonk's wife, a prosecutor herself. How much did she know about his criminal activities? Very little, Bonk said. You're lying, countered the agent, who pulled out a tape of telephone conversations that Bonk had secretly recorded at his home. Maybe this will refresh your memory, the agent said, pressing play. At that moment -- and other times they played the tape -- the agent and the prosecutor may have violated state law. Without legal authorization, it's illegal to secretly tape telephone calls in Florida. Moreoever, it's illegal to disseminate the contents of tapes known to be recorded illegally. That's where the agent and prosecutor may have misstepped. The prosecution team denies any wrongdoing. They say the law was never intended to hinder legitimate police investigations. But law officers and prosecutors have to play by the same rules as everyone else, said defense attorney Steve Romine, who represents Cathy Harrison, Bonk's now ex-wife. "The agent and the prosecutor either didn't know the law, didn't understand it or deliberately broke it," Romine said. "None of those scenarios should be acceptable." The tape controversy isn't the only twist in this curious case. An admitted racketeer ended up with probation. A prosecutor became the prosecuted. And stolen toothpaste can be blamed for starting the whole mess. The tale begins in the late 1990s, when Peter Bonk wore two hats. He was a businessman spending long hours running a fledgling pizza company. He was also the leader of a burglary ring that targeted hotel and convenience stores in central Florida. Bonk used the boys who distributed his pizza coupons at hotels to steal shaving products, batteries, disposable cameras, shampoo, towels and lots of toothpaste, according to court documents. Bonk and his henchmen also pinched some bigger items, including a commercial-style mixer, an air conditioner and a barbecue grill. Bonk said he told his wife he bought the stuff at flea markets or garage sales. He hid some things in the garage or away from the home. Harrison, 28, said she wasn't suspicious because her husband had always been a pack rat and a penny pincher. He would buy 5-gallon tubs of peanut butter or haggle with the manager at Foot Locker to buy 10 pairs of shoes at a deep discount. Later, when Harrison figured out what was going on, she was upset and tried to remove the items. Bonk admitted he threatened her into bringing them back, according to court records. Eventually, she moved out and went to live with her sister for several months. Harrison, who had just joined the Pinellas-Pasco State Attorney's Office as a prosecutor, returned home in April 2000 after Bonk promised to stop stealing. She didn't know that her husband, suspicious that she might be trying to divorce him, had rigged the phone with a voice-activated recording device. About 10 days later, the police burst through the front door of their Temple Terrace home. During the raid, they found the tapes. Harrison lost her job at the State Attorney's Office. She also filed for divorce. "I didn't know things were about to get even worse," she said. Several months after the raid, Troy Walker, a five-year FDLE veteran, went to assistant statewide prosecutor Lisa McLean and said they had probable cause to charge Bonk with illegally taping the conversations. McLean, a long-time prosecutor and public defender in Hillsborough County, decided not to file charges. Instead, she chose to use the tape to go after Harrison. For the most part, bystanders are under no legal obligation to report a burglary or that someone is in possession of stolen goods. But people can be charged if they participate in the burglary or use property they know is stolen. Walker acknowledged that there was no evidence Harrison participated in the burglaries. But he and McLean thought the conversations on the tapes indicated she knew about the thefts and had used goods she knew were stolen. But the tape alone, Walker said later, was not enough to charge her. They needed corroboration. Bonk's tape had recorded Harrison speaking with his sister, Lisa Grey. When Walker questioned Grey, he played the tape to help her remember what she had said. Grey said last week that Harrison was distraught and angry. She called her a "very honest person" who never condoned what her husband was doing. "It was obvious Walker didn't like what I was saying: that Cathy played no role in the criminal stuff, that she was upset about it," Grey said. "He wanted me to change what I was saying." Walker and McLean then went to Bonk with a proposal. Bonk was facing charges of racketeering, grand theft and dealing in stolen property. The two racketeering charges came with sentences of up to 30 years each. But Walker and McLean offered Bonk just five years probation in return for his complete and truthful cooperation. During the first part of his interview on Dec. 10, Bonk said his wife didn't know much about his illegal activities since he tried to keep them secret, according to court records. Walker told Bonk he didn't believe him. Walker said he would give Bonk another chance. With McLean in the room, Walker played excerpts from the tape that they said showed his wife knew more about the criminal activity than he was saying. Bonk then changed his story and said his wife had used some of the stolen items, according to court records. Because they were illegally recorded, the tapes are not part of the public record in the case, which means the Times could not review them. Romine, Harrison's attorney, said Bonk provided scant details about how his wife actually used any property she knew was stolen. "It seemed more like Peter Bonk knew after they called him a liar that he had to change what he was saying or face 30 years in prison," Romine said. On Feb. 7, McLean charged Harrison with grand theft. Romine isn't the only defense attorney skeptical of McLean and Walker's conduct in the case. Tampa attorney Jeffrey Shelquist, who represented Lisa Grey, said McLean told him "point blank" that she knew it was an illegal tape and she could not give him the copy he requested without violating the law. Then at a court hearing in March, McLean told the judge she didn't know "whether or not those conversations may have been surreptitiously taped." The prosecutor seemed to want it both ways, Shelquist said. "It seemed to me that they couldn't figure out how to get out of this problem they had gotten into," Shelquist said. "All the things she has said during the case are hard to reconcile." At that point, the gloves came off. Romine questioned Walker under oath in May. The agent said he had not done any research on the statutes before playing the tape for Peter Bonk and the others. Walker said he thought he was on solid legal ground since the police seized the taped conversations legally from the home and he was using them in a legitimate investigation. In retrospect, Walker said, he realized that disclosing the contents of illegally recorded tapes is a violation of the law. Neither he nor McLean had any "malicious intent," he said. "I think we were both extremely surprised," Walker told Romine. After the deposition, Romine submitted motions to suppress the tape as evidence and to dismiss the case. He questioned how two educated law officers could know that Bonk's secret taping broke the law but not know that disseminating those conversations was also a crime. The subsections are right next to each other in the statutes, he pointed out. Chief assistant statewide prosecutor Joe Larrinaga acknowledged that the dissemination section makes no formal exception for law officers investigating crimes. But the intent of the law was to keep people from benefiting from recording other people, he said, not to hinder police investigations. "The Legislature never contemplated this scenario," Larrinaga said. Romine disagreed. The law is "very explicit" and even defines specifically the steps police need to follow, he said. "You don't have to guess at the legislative intent when the statute is clearly written," he said. "Simply put, they didn't follow the law." The case was headed for a hearing last week, but the showdown never materialized. Five days earlier, Larrinaga dropped the charge against Harrison. He said his decision had nothing to do with the allegations surrounding the tape. Rather, he had just found out that his main witness, Peter Bonk, had made on-the-record statements to Romine and another member of the Cohen, Jayson & Foster firm that directly contradicted what he had told McLean and Walker. "His credibility was shot at that point," Larrinaga said. Romine said he told McLean several months earlier about Bonk's statement that he had tried to keep his criminal activity secret from his wife. They did not seem to care about it then, Romine said. A few days after Larrinaga dropped the charge, a letter from Romine arrived at his office. "I have received a copy of the (dismissal) filed by your office in this case," Romine wrote. "This letter shall confirm my representation to you that my client has agreed not to institute any civil action against the Office of the Statewide Prosecutor or Assistant Statewide Prosecutor Lisa McLean." Larrinaga said the waiver was not part of a quid pro quo for him dropping the charges. He said Romine offered the waiver not to sue and he wasn't going to say no. "If I can protect the office from a frivolous lawsuit I will do that," he said. Harrison, who now has her own legal practice, saw it differently. "They were so confident they needed me to agree not to sue them," Harrison said. "You decide what that says about their case." -- Times news researcher John Martin contributed to this report. Graham Brink can be reached at (813) 226-3365 or brink@sptimes.com.
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