 Deadbeat dad may hold solution to 2002 bank robbery by Jerry Mitchell March 26, 2007
In recent months, new questions have been raised about that case - questions given increased weight since the former officer, who has maintained his innocence, recently passed a lie detector test. If federal authorities revoke Jon Dan Fasano's passport and return him to the U.S., Jackson lawyer Tom Lowe has some questions he wants answered. "I'd like to know more about his relationship with Mark Westly Hughes," said Lowe, who represents Steve Fasano. In 2000, Hughes was working at the Metropolitan Bank in Little Rock when he stuffed $35,000 into his thermal underwear and left. Hughes became a fugitive. Five years later, he was caught by the FBI and convicted. A day before the Morton bank robbery in 2002, Hughes testified he was in the small Mississippi town with Jon Dan Fasano and the two set out to get a fake ID for Hughes, which Hughes used later to get a passport to Brazil. According to FBI documents, agents were told Hughes paid Steve Fasano's brother $17,000 from a "bag full of money" to drive him to Mexico City. In a taped statement, Jon Dan Fasano told defense attorneys his brother was innocent: "I know he didn't do this. There's no connection here. The only connection is that I put (Hughes) in that place and caused problems for everybody. ... (Hughes) was definitely in a position to rob this bank." During Steve Fasano's trial in 2005, Jon Dan Fasano and other family members testified for him. But when Hughes suddenly showed up as a witness, Jon Dan Fasano became upset, calling the Morton bank robbery "piddly-a-" recalled Steve Fasano's wife, Cindy Bracken. The defense tried to show Steve Fasano was innocent by pointing to palm prints left on the bank's deposit slip counter, demonstrating they did not match his. But the prints also didn't match Hughes, whom the defense tried to blame for the robbery. Steve Fasano was convicted and sentenced to nearly four years in prison. After that conviction, a new team of defense attorneys began to scrutinize Fasano's brother, Jon Dan - given his friendship with Hughes and the fact his appearance is closer to the physical description tellers gave of the bank robber. They have found no physical evidence connecting him to the crime. In a telephone interview from prison, Steve Fasano said the more he asked questions, the angrier family members became. During court hearings in Louisiana, Jon Dan Fasano testified he would leave the country if he was ordered to pay back child support. Jon Dan Fasano's ex-wife, Angela Covey of Baton Rouge, said Friday she's spoken to U.S. Attorney Joe Blackwell of Baton Rouge about the matter. Blackwell could not be reached for comment. Meanwhile, Steve Fasano is spending his days in prison, wondering whether he'll ever have the opportunity to clear his name. He passed the lie detector test on Feb. 22. "It is my opinion Steve Fasano was truthful" when he denied robbing the Morton bank, wrote Michael Smith of Faribault, Minn., deputy director of the Minnesota Department of Corrections, who visited Fasano at the federal medical prison in Rochester, Minn. Fasano retired from the Jackson Police Department in 1991 after suffering a serious brain injury. He recently tested at a 78 IQ. His former therapist said he lacks the short-term memory and abstract thinking to pull off a bank robbery. U.S. Attorney Dunn Lampton of Jackson said he wants a second test, and Fasano is happy to take it. "I'll pass it again," he said. But what he wants most is for federal authorities to clear the way so the shirt and hat the bank robber wore can be tested for DNA - something that has apparently never taken place. Those items, he said, will tell once and for all who the real bank robber is |
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