Barnes: I found religion after pizza bomber case

Source: Erie Times-News, Pa.文件倉Aug. 25--When he was helping to plan the pizza bomber plot, Kenneth E. Barnes was a drug dealer who scrounged a living by running a squalid crack house on Erie's lower east side.Ten years later, Barnes, 59, has a new residence and a new outlook.He said he has found religion as he sits in a federal prison in central Florida, where he is serving a sentence of 221/2 years for his guilty plea to conspiracy and another felony in the bombing death of pizza deliveryman Brian Wells on Aug. 28, 2003.Barnes did not deny his involvement in the case, though he downplayed his role and questioned his punishment."My life has changed in the fact that I'm doing a lot of time in prison for something I'm not guilty of," Barnes said in an e-mail on Thursday.He was writing from the medium-security prison at the Coleman Federal Correctional Complex, about 50 miles northwest of Orlando."At best, I am only guilty of conspiracy," Barnes wrote. "But I have found the Lord and have been saved. Therefore whatever happens, I know that Jehovah will keep me safe."While I feel bad about what happened to Brian, that was not my fault, nor did I have anything to do with it."The funny part is, though I helped the authorities to solve their case, I still got stuck in the end. So, life goes on, but I know I have a clear mind on the incident."One day, the truth will all come out."Barnes, a former television repairman who suffers from severe diabetes and other health problems, was initially sentenced to 45 years in federal prison in存倉December 2008 for pleading guilty in September 2008 to using a destructive device during a crime of violence and conspiracy to commit bank robbery.Then-U.S. District Judge Sean J. McLaughlin, who presided over the pizza bomber case, in June 2011 cut in half the original sentence he gave Barnes. The reduction, made during a closed hearing in federal court in Erie, was in response to Barnes testifying at the trial of Marjorie Diehl-Armstrong, who was convicted in the pizza bomber case on Nov. 1, 2010, and is serving a sentence of life in federal prison with no parole, plus 30 years.Barnes testified that he never intended for Wells to die, but that he punched Wells in the face to subdue him to wear the bomb that exploded later that day. He testified that he and Diehl-Armstrong acted as lookouts when Wells, while wearing the bomb around his neck, robbed what was then the PNC Bank in the Summit Towne Centre, on Peach Street in Summit Township.Barnes' time on the witness stand provided some of the most riveting moments of Diehl-Armstrong's trial. He responded to a catcall from her by insisting he was not lying. He never wavered in what he said he saw and did on Aug. 28, 2003.And Barnes testified that he pleaded guilty, and received what was then the 45-year sentence, because he wanted to "be on the right side of God."ED PALATTELLA can be reached at 870-1813 or by e-mail.Copyright: ___ (c)2013 the Erie Times-News (Erie, Pa.) Visit the Erie Times-News (Erie, Pa.) at .GoErie.com Distributed by MCT Information Services迷你倉