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Ex-lawyer to be extradited, faces murder charges

February 16, 2011

By Staff Reporter

By Andrew Bushe

DUBLIN – A former public defender from Hartford, Conn., is expected to be extradited to the U.S. later this week to face charges in connection with the murder of her brother-in-law in 1994.

The extradition of Beth Ann Carpenter, 35, had originally been ordered by the Dublin District Court in February 1998, but she had appealed the decision to the High Court, which last June ordered the state to produce a range of documents.

The State appealed the High Court order to the Supreme Court.

Last week, she withdrew her legal challenge and accepted that the District Court extradition order was valid.

A Garda spokesman said that this cleared the way for her extradition.

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"She will be escorted to America by gardai," the spokesman said. "It is now a question of timing but we do not comment on individual arrangements."

Carpenter is alleged to have conspired to hire a hitman to kill her brother-in-law Anson "Buzz" Clinton, 28, who was shot dead on the interstate highway near Hartford in 1994.

She was arrested in a Dublin gym in November 1997 after a five-day Garda stakeout of an apartment in Booterstown, Dublin.

She is wanted to face charges of capital felony murder, murder, and conspiracy to murder.

At the District Court hearing, Carpenter’s former colleague and alleged lover, Haiman Long Clein, said in an affidavit that he had hired a man to carry out the killing at her request.

The American authorities had given an assurance that she would not face the death penalty if she were extradited and convicted.

Clinton was shot five times in the chest. The second husband of Carpenter’s sister Kim, he had been fighting for custody of the couple’s 3-year-old girl and had denied Carpenter access to her niece. Clinton was not the natural father of the child.

Police issued an international wanted notice for Carpenter after Clein pleaded guilty to murder and conspiracy to murder in a plea-bargain that spared him a possible death sentence. He is married with five children.

It is alleged that Clein hired Mark Despres and another man, Joseph Fremut, to kill Clinton. Police claim Despres was the man who did the shooting.

Clein claims Carpenter told him, "I am not going to get anywhere with Clinton while he is still alive. Will you kill him for me?"

He says he asked Despres, from whom he bought $1,000 worth of cocaine a week, if he "could make somebody disappear." Despres allegedly agreed to carry out the killing for $5,000.

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