LARAMIE, Wyo.—A U.S. appeals court must decide whether federal agents are immune from a lawsuit filed by a woman who claims she was illegally wiretapped in a case that connects her to the 1996 Arizona car-bombing that killed her former husband.
Pamela Phillips, formerly of Aspen, Colo., sued Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives agents Fred Bell and Andrew Lluberes in federal court in Colorado in 2007.
A three-judge panel from Denver’s 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals heard arguments last week in Laramie on an appeal by Bell and Lluberes. The agents are challenging the ruling of a lower court that said they’re not immune from the lawsuit.
Phillips, 52, claims in her lawsuit that the agents broke federal wiretapping laws and it was improper for them to alert Colorado news organizations in 2006 to allegations that she was involved in the death of her former husband, Tucson businessman Gary Triano, 52.
Authorities in 2005 seized tape recordings from Ronald Young, a former business associate of Phillips’, in Florida. Based on the recordings, authorities searched Phillips’ home in Aspen in 2006.
An affidavit supporting the search warrant for Phillips’ home says Young’s recordings indicate Phillips might have hired him to kill Triano. Young, 67, is scheduled to stand trial in February in Tucson on murder charges in Triano’s death.
Phillips’ lawsuit says the BATF agents alerted news organizations to the affidavit, which had been filed in court.
Clifford L. Beem, a Denver lawyer who represents Phillips in her case against the agents, argued that Young’s recordings violated a Florida law that requires all parties to a conversation to consent to any recording. Beem also claimed Young violated federal wiretap laws by recording Phillips for the purpose of committing a criminal or improper act against her.
Beem said the BATF agents broke the law by disclosing the contents of such illegally intercepted recordings.
Irene Solet, a lawyer with the U.S. Department of Justice argued that the agents are immune from Phillips’ suit because federal wiretap law makes exceptions for law enforcement officers working on investigations. She also disputed that Young made the recordings for an improper purpose.
Pima County, Ariz., Sheriff Clarence Dupnik held a news conference last October to announce Young’s arrest. Dupnik said then that authorities also were searching for Phillips and that she also would face murder charges.
Dupnik said detectives believed Phillips paid Young $400,000 to kill Triano so she could collect a $2 million life insurance policy.
Lt. Michael O’Connor of the Pima County Sheriff’s Department said last week that there is still a warrant outstanding to arrest Phillips on a charge of conspiracy to commit first-degree murder in Triano’s death.
“We are working with the United States Marshals Service and the Swiss authorities because we believe she’s actually in Switzerland,” O’Connor said.
U.S. District Judge William Downes of Wyoming sat with two judges from the Denver appeals court last week to hear arguments on the wiretapping case at the University of Wyoming College of Law.
Downes asked Beem if the search warrant affidavit mentioning Young’s recordings was available to the public in open court files.
“An AP wire reporter could have gone the courthouse and disclosed this information?” Downes asked Beem.
“He could, but he didn’t,” Beem responded.
Solet emphasized to the judges that the affidavit was a matter of public record.
“It was available at the courthouse to anybody who wanted to see it,” she said.
In a court filing, Justice Department lawyers have stated that if Phillips’ lawsuit is allowed to proceed, the government may argue it should be dismissed because of her status as a fugitive.
Beem said after the court hearing that he has no direct knowledge of a warrant for Phillips’ arrest.
Triano and Phillips had been married for seven years and had two children together. They divorced in 1993.
Triano, a real estate broker and developer, had made millions investing in Indian bingo halls and slot-machine parlors in Arizona and California. He filed bankruptcy in 1994 after the real estate market declined and his Indian gaming business ended.
Triano was killed Nov. 1, 1996, when his borrowed Lincoln Town Car exploded at the La Paloma Country Club in Tucson.
Sheriff Dupnik said last year that someone within “line of sight” of Triano remotely detonated a pipe bomb that had been placed on the car’s passenger seat.
