Family casts doubt on Siebert's review of '77 death

Another family has contacted the attorney representing the Martin Lee Anderson family with suspicions about the work of Bay County Medical Examiner Dr. Charles Siebert.

The family of Michael Niesen has met with Benjamin Crump, the Tallahassee attorney representing the family of the 14-year-old boy who died in January after an incident at the Bay County boot camp. Niesen, 18, died in 1977 after a car crash in Pinellas County. Niesen received severe head injuries, but his brother, John, and his mother, Mary Riley, say he was beaten by Clearwater police.

Niesen's family says he was killed in retaliation after Officer Ronald Mahoney was killed in the car crash when he tried to stop Niesen for driving a stolen pickup truck with Georgia plates. Siebert reviewed the case for the State Attorney's Office in Pinellas County in 2001.

Tom Berlinger, spokesman for the Florida Department of Law Enforcement, said that the organization did follow-up work on the case in 2005 and January 2006.

"A review of John Niesen's recent complaint revealed no new evidence that would warrant a reopening of the investigation by FDLE," Berlinger said. Berlinger also said that a special agent wrote that no prosecutors are willing to take this case because of a "lack of evidence and the expiration of the statute of limitations."

Crump is not representing the Niesen family. The family approached his office after hearing that Siebert performed Anderson's autopsy. Siebert ruled that Anderson died from the sickle-cell trait, but a second autopsy released by the Hillsborough County medical examiner Friday reported that he died from suffocation.

"I saw this Dr. Siebert do this same thing to another family, rendering this opinion without any real medical certainty," Niesen said.

In a statement issued Thursday, Crump said that Michael Niesen's death was the fifth known case to call into question Siebert's examinations. Attorney General Charlie Crist wrote a letter to the Florida Medical Examiners Commission on April 21 expressing his concern about Siebert's work. Crist said that the autopsies of Donna Reed, James Terry and Shawn McMillan contained "fundamental flaws." Reed and Terry died in a tornado after Hurricane Ivan in 2004, according to The Associated Press.

McMillan's death was ruled a suicide, although police initially said his fatal gunshot wound was accidental, according to The Miami Herald.

Niesen's death was re-examined in 2001 by the FDLE after his family asked the governor's office to look into it. Niesen's family had an autopsy done by Dr. Gerald Gowitt of Lawrenceville, Ga. Gowitt's autopsy concluded that "Niesen received his head injuries some time after the motor-vehicle accident and while in the custody of local authorities."

Siebert, then working as a medical examiner for Pinellas County, re-examined the 1977 autopsy, Gowitt's autopsy, police reports and newspaper photos, according to a 2001 investigative report done by the State Attorney's Office in the 6th Judicial Circuit.

Niesen's family said that he was fine after the car accident. They say Clearwater Police took him from the scene and beat him. The initial autopsy from 1977 says Niesen died from head injuries sustained in the accident and was not conscious when paramedics arrived. John Niesen has been investigating and in 2001 started contacting those who were at the scene. He says he has notarized statements from paramedics, saying Michael Niesen was talking at the scene of the crash.

Siebert concluded that Niesen's torn aorta was an injury consistent with a car accident and not a beating. The report said that Siebert concluded the autopsy showed no information that would cause the case to be reopened. [MORE]