Pratt Case Figure Tells of Talks With FBI Agents

Confronted by a sheaf of FBI documents containing information agents said he provided, the key witness against former Black Panther Party leader Elmer “Geronimo” Pratt briefly conceded Wednesday that he could be called an informant under certain circumstances, but maintained that he did not provide confidential information to FBI agents.

Julius C. “Julio” Butler, a former Los Angeles County sheriff’s deputy and an ex-Panther, testified that he merely had “conversations” with FBI agents. That did not constitute being an informant, he said.

Johnnie L. Cochran Jr., one of Pratt’s lawyers, asked Butler to define “informant.”

Butler said an informant “testifies or gives information on someone that might get them arrested and convicted.”

“By that definition, when you told FBI agents that Geronimo Pratt had a machine gun and a .45-caliber pistol, would you say that you were an informant?” Cochran asked.

“I guess you could say that,” Butler answered. “Yes.”

Butler later returned to his position that he had not been an informant, describing his role variously as a “mediator” or “liaison” between the Panthers and law enforcement.

Butler testified at Pratt’s 1972 murder trial that Pratt had confessed privately to him that he had killed Caroline Olsen and critically wounded her husband, Kenneth, during a December 1968 robbery that netted $18 on a Santa Monica tennis court.

Pratt has maintained he was in Oakland attending Black Panther Party meetings when the crime occurred.

Earlier this year Pratt filed a request for a new trial, seeking a hearing on evidence his lawyers say points to his innocence. As that petition was being heard in Los Angeles Superior Court, the district attorney’s office discovered that Butler’s name was included in its own confidential informant file.

Pratt’s petition was transferred to Orange County Superior Court to avoid a conflict of interest after Pratt’s attorneys said they would call Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Richard P. Kalustian, the deputy district attorney who prosecuted Pratt, as a witness.

Butler returned to the witness stand for a second day Wednesday in the Orange County hearing to determine if is there is enough evidence to overturn the murder conviction that has kept Pratt behind bars for a quarter century.

Cochran confronted Butler with passage after passage from FBI memos--documents showing that Butler had more than 30 contacts with agents in the 2 1/2 years before Pratt’s 1972 murder trial.

One FBI memo said Butler told agents Aug. 13, 1969, that he had written a letter “containing information relating to an involvement of Black Panther Party members in an affair that could put them in the gas chamber.”

That letter referred to the confession Butler said Pratt made to him about killing Caroline Olsen.

A Nov. 11, 1969, FBI memo said Butler was “willing to provide information to the FBI on a confidential basis.” About a month later, agents said, Butler told them that “Elmer Pratt owned a Thompson machine gun . . . and said Pratt also had a .45-caliber pistol.”

A memo dated July 9, 1970 states: “. . . in view of Butler’s continued cooperation with the FBI, he is being opened as a [ghetto informant].”

The jury that convicted Pratt of murder in 1972 did not know the FBI memos existed. Nor did Cochran, who represented Pratt at his murder trial. Those documents were not released until 1979.

Butler testified in 1972 that he had never informed on anyone, saying he was “never in the whole world a snitch.”

Butler testified Wednesday that FBI memos saying he provided “confidential information” were incorrect. He said the information he provided was not confidential because he told others, such as his landlady and his neighbors.

He also denied telling an FBI agent that he was willing to cooperate with the bureau.

Butler’s testimony Wednesday established that he is an informant, Cochran said outside court. “Everybody--the FBI, Los Angeles police, district attorney’s investigators--believes he was an informant except himself,” Cochran said. “He can’t bring himself to say ‘informant.’ ”

Butler’s attempts to distinguish between being an informant and being a source, having a conversation and providing information, amounts to “semantic sophistry,” Cochran said. “This man was an informant. We [Pratt’s defense team] should have been advised of that. The jury should have known that.”

Cochran said other witnesses, including district attorney’s office investigators, will testify that Butler was their informant.