On 1 March 1967 Garrison arrested Clay Shaw, a well-known New Orleans businessman, and charged him with conspiring to kill President Kennedy. Two years later a jury acquitted him. [1]
The core of the case was Perry Russo, a young man who knew Ferrie. At trial in February 1969 he testified that at a gathering in Ferrie’s apartment in September 1963 he was introduced to a man named “Clem Bertrand,” whom he identified as Shaw, and to Ferrie’s roommate, “Leon Oswald.” He described Ferrie talking about a crossfire, a diversionary shot and a scapegoat. [2]
Under cross-examination, Assistant District Attorney Andrew Sciambra agreed that he had interviewed Russo in Baton Rouge on 25 February 1967 and written a detailed seven-page memo, and that the memo did not mention the conspiracy meeting. Sciambra said the meeting was covered in a second memo, written about a session in which Russo was given sodium pentothal. [3]
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