Now that the man accused of the murder of a Providence police detective has legal representation, the judge schedules a bail hearing for July 25.

09:08 AM EDT on Tuesday, June 21, 2005

BY GREGORY SMITH
Journal Staff Writer

PROVIDENCE -- Esteban Carpio, charged with killing Providence police Detective Sgt. James L. Allen, has gained a local lawyer and shed his spit shield.

Journal photo / Mary Murphy

Flanked by correctional officers, Esteban Carpio appears via teleconference for a court hearing yesterday. Correctional officials said Carpio's face was swollen from his pounding his head against his cell wall.

Kirsten M. Wenge, a Massachusetts lawyer who was admitted to the Rhode Island bar only last Tuesday, entered her appearance as Carpio's local counsel in District Court yesterday.

Carpio's family had hired Boston lawyer Robert L. Sheketoff, for whom Wenge works. But Rhode Island court rules require that a Rhode Island lawyer be responsible for each criminal and civil case litigated in the state courts. As long as that requirement is met, an out-of-state lawyer may lead the case.

After Carpio's last court appearance about a month ago, Wenge said that because of the notoriety of his case, only one Rhode Island lawyer of about 30 who were solicited was willing to represent the defendant.

That lawyer could not be employed because he lacked a Rhode Island office, which also is a requirement, she said then.

Yesterday, Wenge said Carpio's representation is no longer an issue because she coincidentally passed the bar exam and was sworn in by the Rhode Island Board of Bar Overseers last Tuesday.

Other Rhode Island lawyers offered their services for Carpio after his last court appearance, she said, but Sheketoff decided their help would not be necessary after all because she was about to join their bar.

As for the Rhode Island office -- neither she nor Sheketoff has one -- Wenge said she has learned that the office requirement no longer is in effect.

District Court Judge Elaine Bucci held a brief hearing on Carpio's status yesterday in which she noted Wenge's appearance and scheduled a bail hearing for July 25. Carpio participated from the Adult Correctional Institutions via a two-way video teleconference and said he wants a bail hearing.

Journal photo

Kirsten M. Wenge, a Massachusetts lawyer who was admitted to the Rhode Island bar only last Tuesday, entered her appearance as Carpio's local counsel in District Court yesterday.

With his eyes nearly swollen shut again, Carpio looked worse than he did in his last court teleconference on May 16, when his legal representation was at issue. His relatives and friends, who were present in the courtroom at the Garrahy Judicial Complex yesterday, alleged after the hearing that he had been beaten anew.

ACI spokeswoman Ann Fortin attributed his appearance to fresh self-inflicted bruising that occurred last week when Carpio repeatedly struck his head against the concrete wall of his cell in the ACI segregation unit. He has done that before, according to ACI officials.

When Carpio was present at his arraignment April 18 on the charge that he murdered the detective and assaulted three ACI correctional officers, his swollen and cut face and the unusual plastic spit shield that he was wearing drew national attention.

Carpio's family and friends alleged then that he was brutalized by law-enforcement officers. But a subsequent investigation by the FBI concluded that officers used only the force necessary to apprehend a struggling Carpio after he shot Allen at police headquarters. The FBI said that force included a punch to his face with a closed fist, among other punches, and was legal.

Carpio now has a much fuller beard and mustache than were apparent in arrest photos that the police made public after the FBI investigation. That was noticeable because the lower half of his face was not covered by the plastic spit shield or the so-called spit hood that swathed his mouth with cloth at the last teleconference.

Fortin, acting assistant to the ACI director, said that although Carpio's spitting at correctional officers had prompted the use of the spit shield and spit hood, their use is a precaution that is constantly reevaluated.

Carpio had not lashed out at correctional officers for weeks, so it was decided that they were not necessary, she said. He had a correctional officer at each elbow during his appearance yesterday.

Kenneth Kaiser, FBI special agent in charge of the Boston office, disclosed last month that Carpio had written in his own blood on the wall of his cell that he had an infectious disease; Kaiser would not identify it. Law enforcement and correctional officers exposed to Carpio's bodily fluids had taken medicine in order to ward off infection, Kaiser said.

Fortin declined to comment on whether Carpio, in fact, has an infectious disease.

Carpio is mentally unstable, according to his family. Fortin said the prisoner is under 24-hour video surveillance and is regularly monitored, but not treated for the time being, by a psychiatrist or psychologist.

If he is placed in an isolation cell, as he was after hitting his head against the wall, a mental health professional sees him daily, she said.

Some news reporters and others who wanted to attend yesterday's hearing were barred from the courthouse for nearly a half-hour after a bomb threat. While more than 100 people milled outside, Capitol police searched the building interior and exterior but did not evacuate those inside.

Stephen Tocco, Capitol police chief, said the bomb threat was called in to the state 911 emergency line and there was no reason to believe it had anything to do with the Carpio matter.

With a projo.com staff report by Jack Perry.

See what suspect Esteban Carpio looked like in previous court appearances and in police photos, look back at coverage of the shooting of Detective Sgt. James Allen, at:

http://projo.com/extra/2005/detectiveallen/