Slain Prosecutor Remembered for Dedication

Jonathan P. Luna rose from the tough streets of the Bronx to become a successful lawyer who worked for a major Washington law firm, the Federal Trade Commission and the Brooklyn district attorney’s office before becoming an assistant U.S. attorney in Baltimore.

Friends and colleagues up and down the East Coast called it the ultimate injustice that the 38-year-old federal prosecutor died a violent death. Luna’s body was found Thursday, and he was said to have suffered multiple stab wounds after apparently struggling with a killer who left him to drown face down in a shallow pond in Pennsylvania.

Lancaster County, Pa., coroner Dr. Barry Walp said some of the stab wounds on Luna’s body indicated that he fought with his killer, according to FBI officials in Washington. The coroner also reportedly found creek water in Luna’s lungs and sinus cavities, which suggests drowning as the direct cause of death.

Authorities have yet to announce a motive for Luna’s killing but a law enforcement official told the Baltimore Sun on Friday that investigators suspect the slaying was the result of a personal relationship that turned violent. The source, who requested anonymity, told the Sun that investigators did not think the incident was related to Luna’s work.

The law enforcement official told the Sun that authorities could announce as early as Monday that the slaying would be handled as a murder case by local authorities in Pennsylvania and not as a federal case.

Those who knew Luna were at a loss to explain the slaying of a man they said committed his life to public service.

“Jonathan Luna is the last prosecutor that any offender should feel the need to take out revenge on,” federal Judge Andre M. Davis said Friday in his chambers at the federal courthouse here. “Jonathan Luna? The very picture of fairness and evenhandedness and respect for the defense? It’s unthinkable.”

Luna realized that some laws were bad, but that it was his job to enforce them, Davis said. In the courtroom, for example, he voiced his belief that the federal sentencing guidelines that put dealers and users of crack cocaine in prison for far longer than those who used or sold powdered cocaine were unfair -- particularly to young black men.

“I greatly admired him for that,” Davis said.

At the time of his death, the prosecutor had been trying the case of a Baltimore rapper accused of heroin trafficking.

Luna’s past prosecutions included a case connected with a racially motivated arson fire and another involving a string of violent bank robberies.

Luna, the father of two boys, aged 5 years and 10 months, and the husband of a doctor, was in his Baltimore office as late as 11:30 p.m. Wednesday, according to building records. His body was found at about daybreak in Lancaster County, Pa., about 70 miles from Baltimore.

Arcangelo Tuminelli, a defense attorney for Walter Oriley Poindexter, said he met with Luna from about 5 to 6 p.m. Wednesday in the prosecutor’s office after they had reached a plea agreement in the heroin case. Luna had been prosecuting the case of rapper Deon Lionnel Smith, 32, and Smith’s former associate Poindexter, both of whom were accused of using their Stash House Records studio to operate a violent drug ring and distribute heroin. Both men have been in custody since spring.

Tuminelli said in an interview that he last talked to Luna on his cellphone at 9:06 p.m. The prosecutor said he had gone home but planned to finish the plea agreement at his office, Tuminelli said.

“It’s a tragedy to all of us,” said U.S. District Judge William L. Osteen in Greensboro, N.C., for whom Luna worked as a law clerk in 1992.

Luna grew up in humble surroundings. His father struggled in the restaurant business, while his mother stayed at home to raise two sons, Luna wrote in a letter to the New York Times in 1991.

In his letter, he told the newspaper that he was “offended” by the title of a series on his South Bronx neighborhood titled “Life at the Bottom.” “You and your readers should know that there are decent, hard-working people like my parents who are struggling every day to make a life for themselves and their families in Mott Haven,” he wrote.

Luna went on to Fordham University, graduating with a bachelor’s degree in communications in 1988. He then attended the University of North Carolina School of Law. He took time off from law school to care for his ailing father and then returned, serving as class president before graduating in 1992.

Winston B. Crisp, associate dean for student services at the University of North Carolina School of Law and a classmate of Luna, recalled him as “one of those people that everybody really liked.”

“All of my memories of Jonathan involve him smiling,” Crisp said.

After graduating from law school, Luna went on to clerk for Osteen, who said the young lawyer “really caught my attention from his ability to get along with people. Two weeks after he was here, he knew about the families of the people who clean up the building and the people who sit in the biggest offices in the building.”

Apparently, years of practicing law and prosecuting dangerous criminals hadn’t changed him much.

“The smile was always the first thing you saw,” said Davis, who, recalling his own days as the Maryland district’s first African American federal prosecutor said he took “an immediate liking” to Luna.

“He had such promise, such promise,” Davis said of his protege.

But Luna’s principal goal, Davis said, was to be a good father.

From September 1993 to September 1994, Luna worked as an associate at the Washington law firm of Arnold & Porter.

James Sandman, the firm’s managing partner, recalled Luna as a “superb young lawyer who got off to a fast start in his career. He was also an unusually warm, likable, thoughtful, and generous person who was obviously very close to his family.” Luna worked as an attorney at the FTC from 1994 to 1997.

He then worked as a young assistant district attorney in Brooklyn from June 1997 to June 1999.

District attorney spokesman Jerry Schmetterer described Luna as a “dedicated, conscientious and extremely competent” prosecutor.

“Always,” Osteen said, “Jonathan wanted to do something that he felt was contributing to our country.”