OSWEGO, N.Y. -- A judge today shot down Gary Thibodeau's request to overturn his conviction in the 1994 kidnapping of Heidi Allen in Oswego County.

Acting Oswego County Judge Daniel King rejected a request from Thibodeau to reverse the 1995 jury verdict and grant him a new trial. Thibodeau's lawyers claimed new evidence implicated three other men, and that prosecutors withheld evidence from Thibodeau before his trial.

Read the full decision.

King, in a 64-page decision, said evidence implicating three new possible suspects to the crime was inadmissible. Much of that evidence was witnesses testifying that one or more of the three men had made admissions to them. The judge ruled that was hearsay.

At least 14 witnesses testified at a hearing last year that James Steen, Roger Breckenridge or Michael Bohrer made admissions to them about their involvement in the kidnapping or disposal of Allen's body.

"Despite the plethora of information by a multitude of sources who claimed to be close to these three suspects, none of their testimony can be corroborated or deemed credible," King wrote.

None of the new witnesses could place Steen, Breckenridge or Bohrer at the scene of the kidnapping on the morning Allen went missing, King said.

"The evidence presented is too remote and disconnected to show that someone other than defendant kidnapped Heidi Allen," the judge wrote.

King discredited the key piece of new evidence: a secretly recorded phone call between two former friends, Tonya Priest and Jennifer Wescott. Wescott, unaware that police were monitoring the call, told Priest that Breckenridge, Steen and Bohrer brought a woman she later came to believe was Allen to Wescott's home in 1994, but left her in a van outside.

The evidence established that Breckenridge, Steen and Bohrer didn't know each other at the time, so they could not have gotten together to commit the crime, King wrote.

Even if he accepted Wescott's claims as true, that doesn't prove Allen was dead or that the three men killed her afterward and hid her body, the judge said.

Priest came forward three years ago with information that Steen had confessed to her in 2006 to killing Allen. But the judge found that Priest's written statement "lacks any merit."

The judge said he could not attach any evidentiary value to the testimony of Bill Pierce, who came forward during the trial to say he'd seen Steen punch a woman at the D&W Convenience store and drag her into a vehicle on the day Allen was kidnapped.

King also denied Thibodeau's claim that prosecutors had withheld evidence from him.

The judge said he found "no reason to doubt" the testimony of former prosecutor Donald Dodd, who said he turned over all evidence to the defense before Thibodeau's trial. That included evidence that Allen might have been a confidential informant for the sheriff's office, the judge said.

Thibodeau's lawyer at the 1995 trial, Joseph Fahey, testified that he never received sheriff's reports about Allen's work as a CI, and about one deputy dropping an index card with her CI information on it in the parking lot where she was later kidnapped.

King said a finding that prosecutors withheld evidence could not be based on Fahey's "understandable inability to recollect certain documents."



"Based on the evidence presented at the hearing, this court finds that the state did not obtain defendant's conviction through fraud and misrepresentation, nor did it fail to disclose critical Brady material which would warrant this court to vacate defendant's judgment of conviction," the decision said.

Thibodeau's lawyer, Lisa Peebles, said she'll ask permission from the Appellate Division of state Supreme Court to have that court hear an appeal. If that court doesn't take the case, Peebles said she'll take the case to federal court.

Thibodeau, 62, is serving 25 years to life in prison. His brother Richard was acquitted in a separate trial.

Allen, 18, was kidnapped from her job at the D&W Convenience store on Easter morning 1994. She's presumed dead. Her body has never been found.

King heard from 52 witnesses in a hearing that started in January 2015 over Thibodeau's request.

Syracuse.com will update this story with details from the decision when they become available.

Contact John O'Brien anytime | email | Twitter | 315-470-2187