A prison inmate whose testimony landed another man in prison for life for killing an attractive young artist from Connecticut has become increasingly frustrated with his treatment by prosecutors, according to a series of letters the inmate wrote from his Texas cell.

Jeffrey Plante, 61, who testified that New Yorker William Labrador confessed to drowning Lois McMillen on the Caribbean island of Tortola in January 2000, made it clear in the letters that while he had no specific "deal" with prosecutors, he feels he is owed something for his testimony.

Jeffrey Plante testified that William Labrador confessed to him

Specifically, Plante wants British Virgin Islands prosecutor Terrence Williams to intervene with the Texas parole board and arrange for Plante to be returned to the informal witness protection program in Tortola he enjoyed during the 2001 trial. The parole board last year ordered Plante to serve the more than 30 years remaining on a 45-year sentence he got in 1987 for larceny as a persistent offender.

"How many times am I going to be deceived by people involved in this matter?" he wrote on Jan. 13, 2003.

The letters, which were submitted last month as new evidence to an English appeals court, demonstrate an increasing frustration by Plante with Williams' failure to help him out of his legal jam.

Plante was a parole absconder from Texas when he was arrested on Tortola in 1999 for overstaying his visa and passing bad checks. While sharing a cell with Labrador, who had been arrested for McMillen's murder, Plante said that the younger man confessed to him. During Labrador's trial on murder charges, Plante was placed under a sort of house arrest arrangement for which the British Virgin Islands government paid $25,000 toward his housing and living expenses.

Labrador is awaiting a ruling on his post-conviction appeal to the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council, the highest court in England for cases arising from the British-controlled Caribbean. The appeal is based in large part on the defense's complaint that the judge who presided over the trial failed to explicitly caution the nine-member jury that they must consider what an inmate like Plante may stand to gain by implicating a fellow inmate.

Lois McMillen

Labrador's supporters say Plante's prison letters, which were turned over to the defense at the start of a three-day hearing in London last month, are proof that the convicted swindler has been playing the system from the moment he was placed in Labrador's cell. If Labrador wins a retrial, the defense says, Plante again would take center stage for the prosecution because there is nothing else to link Labrador to McMillen's drowning on Tortola's southern shore on Jan. 15, 2000.

"Plante clearly wants a deal," said Sean Murphy, a New York lawyer and friend of the 39-year-old Labrador's who has been working on the case pro bono. 

" 'Get me in a program now,' Plante writes in one of the letters," Murphy added. "His vision is that he wants to be put up in the British Virgin Islands for three or four years instead of being in a Texas prison."

Williams, the prosecutor, said that while there was never a deal with Plante — implied or otherwise — Plante feels now that he is being treated more harshly by authorities in Texas because of pressure from Labrador's supporters.

"Maybe it's a situation where he thought he could do some arm-twisting," Williams said, referring to Plante's letters. "But that doesn't mean arms were twisted."

William Labrador

Lisa Pulitzer, a veteran true-crime writer whose book on the case is scheduled to be published by St. Martin's Press later this year, said Plante may have "dreamed up" that he was owed something for his testimony.

"He feels like he didn't see the compensation that he expected. It's clear from the letters," Pulitzer said. "It is also clear, however, that there were no promises made on the part of the prosecution."

GQ magazine writer Bob Drury interviewed Plante in Texas last year. Drury said it appeared to him that Plante had deluded himself into believing that the British Virgin Islands government was so grateful to him for solving the McMillen murder that the prosecution was going to use its influence to get him sprung from his Texas prison.

"I was astounded that he had the definite impression that the Tortolans were going to bail him out," Drury said. "He said,  'I'll be back down there. The best thing that could happen to me is if [the defense gets] a second a trial and I'm called back down there to testify.' "

If the English "law lords" toss Labrador's conviction, which is a distinct possibility based on comments the judges made during last month's hearing, the defense says it is more ready for Plante the next time around.

Among other things, the defense believes the letters clearly outline ulterior motives Plante may have had to give the testimony he did. Labrador's defense lawyers asked the appeals court to quash the conviction and rule that no prosecution based on Plante's testimony alone would serve the interests of justice, possibly preventing a second trial.