He's not trying to smear Jonathan Luna's name, Nacoe Brown insists.

He just wants to get out of jail.

And if that means suggesting that the man who put him in prison — the man who was found dead in a Brecknock Township stream more than four years ago — had something to do with the theft of $38,000 in evidence money from Brown's trial, so be it.

Brown, who was convicted in 2002 of bank robbery in Baltimore, is hoping he can show that his conviction was hopelessly tainted by the missing evidence, and that with one of the federal prosecutors in the case now dead, there's no chance of a fair retrial.

It wouldn't be the first time that questions have been raised about Luna and the money. Anonymous sources have been quoted in newspaper stories suggesting that Luna, an assistant U.S. attorney in Baltimore, might have committed suicide or died during a staged suicide attempt because he had some involvement with the $38,000.

But the accusation still frustrates author Bill Keisling, whose book, "The Midnight Ride of Jonathan Luna," is heading into its fourth edition.

Both Keisling and Ed Martino, a private investigator in Blue Ball who also has been looking into the death, say adamantly that they do not believe Luna had anything to do with the money's disappearance.

"It's just accusing the dead guy," Keisling said.

Martino, meanwhile, said he recently turned over more leads to federal prosecutors and the office of U.S. Sen. Arlen Specter, R-Pa. The private investigator also is asking new county Coroner Dr. Steve Diamantoni for access to some of the records in Luna's file (see related story).

Brown, who's serving a 25-year sentence, said he thinks Luna would want justice to be done, no matter what that might bring out.

He added that digging into the theft of the money might uncover the truth behind Luna's unsolved death.

"I don't think Mr. Luna would mind being called a thief," Brown said, "if it means showing someone else as a murderer."

Evidence mystery
Nacoe Brown calls himself a spiritual person.

He's the son of a pastor who got into trouble as a teenager and served eight years in jail. After his release, he began a career as a Christian rapper. He started a gospel dinner theater.

But then he ran into financial problems and ended up robbing banks to cover his shortfall.

Brown was convicted of robbery in September 2002 in Baltimore federal court. Now 39, he's jailed at the federal penitentiary in Lee County, Va., with a projected release date in 2023.

During his trial, two prosecutors — one of them Luna — introduced into evidence more than $63,000 in money found in the safe of Brown's co-defendant, Kevin Hilliard. Part of the money was packaged in the original bank wrappers, Brown said. While some of the money could be traced to the banks from which it had been stolen, $38,100 couldn't be traced.

While they were deliberating, jurors sent notes to the judge asking to see a list of exhibits and "all the evidence presented."

According to part of the trial transcript, which Brown supplied, federal Judge Andre Davis, before calling the jury back to answer their questions, asked prosecutors whether all the exhibits had been sent into the jury room.

"But all the money has gone in, and so forth?" Davis asked.

"No, Your Honor," Assistant U.S. Attorney Jacabed Rodriguez-Coss replied.

"I didn't think you'd send in the money," Davis said. "What money did you not send in?"

"We didn't send in any of the money," Rodriguez-Coss said.

Later, Davis told the jury, "We didn't send in the money, we didn't send in the exhibit which was described as the pellet gun, and we didn't send in the jewelry that was identified. I think, frankly, the reason we didn't send in those exhibits is pretty obvious. There are certain exhibits that we don't, under court procedures, allow out of the possession of the United States attorney's office and the FBI."

Local attorneys said the practice of sending cash evidence into the jury room varies, depending on the judge. Brown said his research indicates other judges allow money to go to the jury.

During testimony, he said, "Luna was making the point that … they got this out of my co-defendant's safe. The wrappings of the bank happened to be on some of the monies.

"You're making this point and you're submitting this into evidence, why wouldn't you want the jury to see this? Why wouldn't you want the jury to hold this?

"Unless you no longer have it."

When did it vanish?
According to Keisling, in a story posted on www.yardbird.com, money —apparently the untraceable $38,100 —was officially reported missing soon after the trial ended. The (Baltimore) Sun, citing sources, said in a story a week after the trial that "$36,000 to $38,000" was gone.

The problem, Brown said, is that no one knows exactly when the money disappeared. It could have been gone by the time the jury was asking to see the evidence.

"My entire case has been contaminated and I should be given immediate release," Brown said, "because it's no telling what other evidence has been withheld, stolen or concealed."

The Sun story quoted unnamed investigators saying the money was lost between the courtroom and the courthouse's evidence storage vault.

But Keisling said the cash apparently was sitting in Davis' courtroom over a lunch break, and that could be when the money was taken.

He agreed the jury might have been given a false impression that the money was still in the court's possession, and that ought to be grounds for a new trial. It's also "something that should be looked at in terms of Jonathan's murder. Did he know about it? Was he mad about it?"

Luna was one of the court officers responsible for signing legal documents at the close of the trial stipulating that the evidence had gone back into storage. Rodriguez-Coss and Brown's attorney, Kenneth Ravenell, also signed the paperwork.

"At the end of the trial, it's not like they're going over everything," Keisling said, but just signing routine paperwork. "Obviously, for legal reasons it gets Luna in trouble, but I don't think it means he stole the money.

"… If you ask me, it looks like Luna was set up, it looks like he had some theories about it, and that can't be dismissed as a motive for murder."

Martino also shrugged off suggestions that Luna took the money.

A Jan. 9, 2006, letter Brown received from an assistant U.S. attorney in Baltimore, Barbara S. Sale, said she was aware of the missing money and of Luna's death, but "I do not share your view that there may have been some connection between the two events."

Rodriguez-Coss also was quoted in a 2005 Washington Post story saying that she had taken a polygraph in October 2003 and that Luna had said he was willing to take one. She said she does not believe Luna took the money or that he tried to commit suicide.

Keisling noted that FBI agents — the FBI also investigated the money's disappearance — were "the ones really responsible for the money … on a day-to-day basis and hour-to-hour basis."

Brown, though, said he wants it clear that he doesn't suspect the FBI. He also said he has no ax to grind against Luna.

"He seemed to be a quiet type," Brown said. "Not passive, but just a laid-back type of person. Nice; he seemed to be nice. Not mean or abusive. Professional."

Fatal errors?
There are a number of connections between Brown's trial and the case Luna was prosecuting on the night he left the Baltimore courthouse, only to turn up dead early the next morning in Brecknock Township.

Brown's attorney, Ravenell, for instance, also represented Deon Smith, who along with Walter Poindexter was on trial for selling heroin when Luna died.

Midway through the trial, faced with problems with an FBI informant whose testimony was critical, Luna offered to settle the case. He was drafting plea agreements when he left the courthouse soon after 11:30 p.m. on Dec. 3, 2003.

Rodriguez-Coss also was involved with prosecution of the Smith-Poindexter case for a time.

Ravenell and Judge Davis described themselves as friends and mentors to Luna.

Brown is trying to find another attorney to handle his case. He contends that Ravenell refused to raise the issue of the missing money in his sentencing or on appeal, even after federal sources began claiming Luna might have taken the cash.

Ravenell didn't respond to a request for comment last week.

Brown also has been trying unsuccessfully to learn the conclusion of an FBI investigation into the money's disappearance.

Rich Wolf, a Baltimore FBI spokesman, said the investigation is closed. He said the agency does not usually discuss reasons for closing probes.

 "That investigation is closed," Brown said, "so it should be open to the public, but they're not giving it to me. No arrests have been made. They themselves [federal sources] have indicated that [Luna] may have committed suicide or attempted to commit suicide, but they don't go into details why."

Brown argues that the money might the key to Luna's death. Shortly before Luna's body was found, according to news reports, "he was considering getting a lawyer," Brown said.

"If you're getting a lawyer and some evidence turned up missing … someone threatened to take criminal action against you, you're being prosecuted, threatened to be fired, and all of a sudden he turned up dead … I know it has something to do with his death."

Luna reportedly was clashing with his then-boss, U.S. Attorney Thomas DiBiagio, who later resigned, amid suggestions that Luna's job was on shaky ground.

Brown thinks he ought to be freed from prison without a retrial.

"It's the contamination and tainting of the whole process," he said.

"… From a technical point of view, it really would be hard to retry because you have tainted evidence" — the missing money. And "the person in question," Luna, is dead.

Is Brown accusing Luna as a strategy to win release from prison?

"I can't pretend that it wouldn't help me," Brown said. "It would help me and help my situation if we find out there was an inconsistency in the trial, an inconsistency where I didn't have a fair trial, only because an officer of the court took something."

Still, he said, "Let's have an evidentiary hearing. Let's question everybody that was part of this investigation. We may discover that somebody else was involved."

And in the process, he said, find whoever was responsible for the death of Jonathan Luna.

"I pray for his family," Brown said. "I'm not bitter about the situation.

"… A little dirt on his reputation, to expose who did this to him — I don't think he would mind."

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Helen Colwell Adams is a Sunday News staff writer. E-mail her at hcolwell@lnpnews.com, or phone 291-4962.