Lawyers for a New York man serving a life sentence in an Eastern Caribbean island prison will be in London this week to argue his appeal before England's highest court, the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council.

William Labrador, a 40-year-old former modeling agency executive, was convicted by a jury in the British Virgin Islands in May 2001 of drowning Lois Livingston McMillen, an artist and former model from an affluent Connecticut family.

Labrador, of Long Island and Manhattan, is serving his sentence in a hilltop prison on the East End of Tortola, famous as an off-shore financial shelter and tourist mecca. Overlooking the Atlantic Ocean to the north and Caribbean Sea to the south, Her Majesty's Prison at Balsam Ghut figures prominently in Labrador's case. He will not be present at his appeal.

The body of Connecticut artist Lois Livingston McMillen (above) was found on a beach in Tortola.

The trial judge concluded that the case against Labrador hinged on the testimony and credibility of a new cellmate assigned to Labrador two months after McMillen's body was found laying face up on the shores of Sir Francis Drake Channel.

Jurors accepted inmate Jeffrey Plante's testimony as fact and rejected Labrador's insistence that he was no way involved in McMillen's drowning and never confessed to Plante.

The heart of Labrador's appeal is the failure of the trial judge to explicitly inform the nine-member jury that Plante's testimony should be viewed with caution because he might have stood to gain by his testimony.

The defense got a boost from a ruling by the Privy Council judges in an unrelated case that was handed down in late January. In that case, a convicted murderer from Jamaica won a new trial because the trial judge failed to warn jurors that convictions based on prison informant testimony can be shaky. The judges ruled that, in the interest of justice, juries need to be told in no uncertain terms that they should consider whether an informant stands to gain favor with authorities because of his or her testimony.

Labrador's appellate lawyer, Edward Fitzgerald of London, cited the upcoming hearing as a reason he could not comment about the case. Fitzgerald, who holds the distinguished title of Queen's Counsel, also represented the defendant in the Jamaica case and specializes in appeals from convictions in British-dependent territories in the Caribbean.

In the McMillen case, Plante turned out to be the only witness to provide direct evidence against Labrador. Plante, a convicted swindler from Texas who was on Tortola in violation of his parole, testified that Labrador confessed just before Good Friday in April 2000 that he drowned McMillen during an argument over money.

Plante admitted during cross-examination during the trial that he waited several weeks after hearing the alleged confession before informing authorities. Three days after implicating Labrador, Plante wished Labrador's a "Happy Mother's Day" in a card and assured Barbara Labrador that everything would work out well for her son.

Three of Labrador's friends and co-defendants walked out the front door of the courtroom in Tortola when the trial judge ruled that insufficient evidence against them was presented to sustain lawful convictions. Labrador was found guilty of murder a week later, on May 10, 2001, and sentenced to life in prison on the spot.

During the trial, defense lawyers tried unsuccessfully to convince the judge, and later the jury, that Plante's testimony was too vague to establish Labrador's guilt. They also highlighted Plante's extensive criminal record, including fraud convictions, to bolster their position that Plante made up the alleged confession to ingratiate himself with prosecutors.

The prosecutors are expected to argue next week that jurors were fully informed of Plante's history, including the fact that in 1995 he had testified in Hawaii that a fellow inmate in an unrelated case had confessed to murder.

Victim, Defendants Were Friends

McMillen, who was 34 years old, left her parent's seaside villa alone on the night she was killed to listen to a blues band play at the Jolly Roger Inn on the West End of the tiny island. Witnesses saw her leave alone.

About the same time, Labrador and friends Alex Benedetto, Michael Spicer and Evan George stopped at a West End ATM machine to get cash for a planned visit to a bar on the northside of the island. Labrador, however, testified that he changed his mind about going to the bar and got dropped off instead on the only road McMillen could have taken to drive home.

Labrador testified that he walked about a mile to the vacation home owned by Spicer's family in the same neighborhood as the McMillens' villa. He said he watched TV, received no visitors and then went to bed.

Labrador's family plans to attend the appeals hearing, which begins Monday. The victim's mother, Josephine McMillen of Middlebury, Conn., may attend against doctor's orders.

"I think it's important that I be there," Josephine McMillen said. "I want them to see me and know that there was a victim here, who happened to be my daughter."

A regional appeals court in the Caribbean has already rejected an appeal by Labrador and ruled that the trial judge erred when he failed to let the jury deliberate Benedetto's guilt based on Plante's testimony about prison conversations he claimed he overheard.

Fearing he would be re-arrested and jailed again until another trial, Benedetto decided not to return to Tortola when ordered and is back in New York. He said Friday that his own lawyer will argue to Privy Council judges in London next week that the trial judge acted within in his discretion and the interest of justice when he directed the forewoman of the jury to enter a verdict of not guilty.

Spicer is also not off the hook completely. Back at home in Virginia, Spicer still has a charge of "conspiracy to prevert the course of justice" hanging over his head. The prosecution never articulated an obstruction of justice theory during the trial or since.

The Privy Council sits on Downing Street, just a few doors from the Prime Minister's residence.