The Record from Hackensack, New Jersey • 10

98 counts of murder filed A-10 THE RECORD. WEDNESDAY. JANUARY 14. 1987 Killing suspect bragged about his technique which conducted the investigation at the fire scene. The flames quickly turned into a fireball that moved through the ballroom on the ground floor and into the casino on the mezzanine of the waterfront luxury hoteL Most of the 96 people who died were in the casino.

A criminal complaint filed by. the FBI in U.S. District Court in San Juan said that Escudero Aponte had confessed setting the fire and "was identified as having stated to another union member that the Sterno-type fuel can that he had in his hand was to start a 'small The complaint said that in his sworn statement, Escudero Aponte said he had gone to the hotel intending to set fire to "personal property" of the hotel and later "opened and placed a can of this fuel on top of a stack of furniture boxes," lighting it after the union meeting ended. Besides the murder charges, Escudero Aponte faces federal charges of malicious damage to the hotel and interfering with interstate and foreign commerce. He was arraigned before U.S.

Magistrate Justo Arenas and denied bail. A hearing has been set for Tuesday. Judge Carlos Rivera Martinez of the local court set bail at $2 million. The 22-story, 439-room Dupont Plaza was evacuated during the fire and has been vacant since, protected by a 10-foot-high fence. he does not know Escudero Aponte, the first man arrested in connection with the fire.

The union lawyer said the Teamsters worked with the government in investigating the hotel fire, which he called "an individual act of a person in the hoteL" not an act by the union. A secretary to Duke Zeller, Teamsters spokesman in Washington, D.C., said the union had no comment on the arrest Meanwhile, Edward Wall, deputy administrator of the U.S. Fire Administration, said the San Juan fire followed a "predictable" path and is an example of "what can happen when an ordinary fire starts in a structure with no detectors, no functioning alarms, and no sprinklers." Wall said 95 percent of U.S. hotels have no sprinklers. Escudero Aponte started the fire with a "Sterno-type fuel can," and he spread the flammable substance in several areas of the ballroom, said Stephen E.

Higgins, director of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms. Sterno is an alcohol-based cooking fuel The ATF bureau investigated the fire with the FBI, the U.S. Fire Administration, and Puerto Rican authorities. The fuel apparently was spread among some 91 cardboard crates full of new furniture beds, sofas, lamps, and dressers that had been delivered the day before, said Andrew L. Vita, supervisor of the ATF National Response Team, FROM PAGE A-l taken into custody and was under detention during the night.

It quoted an unidentified federal official as saying the second suspect had provided material to set the fire and had blocked Escudero Aponte from public view while the blaze was set According to the New York Times, the second suspect was a busboy at the hotel and, like Escudero Aponte, was a member of the Teamsters local that had been involved in a labor dispute with the hoteL The newspaper quoted the federal official as saying the second suspect, who was not indentified, would be charged today with "conspiracy, aiding, and abetting." The Teamsters local had been involved in tense negotiations with management, but officials have not blamed the Teamsters for the fire and union officials denied any involvement Hotel guests have told investigators that three small fires had been set at the hotel during Christmas week and New Year's week as labor negotiations grew more tense. Federal sources said the suspects are not Teamsters leaders and that the blaze had not been linked to the union leadership. Teamsters officials have denied any involvement with the fire. Yesterday, Jorge Farinacci Garcia, a union lawyer from Puerto Rico, told reporters in Hartford, and they gave the autopsy, and when they ran the make on him found out this guy's been missing for 2Vz years." Kuklinski is charged with the murder of Louis Masgay of Pennsylvania, who was last seen alive prior to a meeting with Kuklinski July 1, 1982. His body was found more than two years later in a wooded area in Orangetown, N.Y.

He had been shot, execution-style, in the head, and authorities said his body had been frozen before it was buried. In a subsequent conversation about freezing a body, Kuklinski told the agent, "I only did that as, we did, something done as an experiment to see what the hell could be done. It also proved a point to somebody. That was a request of somebody's, why, I don't know." Poisoning techniques During another discussion, this one about poisoning victims, Kuklinski described placing cynanide on a victim's hamburger. "I had a guy tell me, 'Go get me a Kuklinski told the agent.

"That's what I did, I put it Richard Kuklinski Discussed murder techniques poisonj on a hamburger with the ketchup." Kuklinski also is charged in the murder of Gary Smith, whose body was found in 1982 stuffed under a bed at the York Motel in North Bergen. Authorities said Smith was killed after Kuklinski poisoned his hamburger, and an accomplice strangled him with a lamp cord. In discussing poisoning, Kuklinski said: "There's other ways to kill people, too. Spill a drink on them. Put insecticide in a drink.

Spill it on them and say, 'Jesus, I'm Wipe this up, give this guy another drink. 'Jeez, I am sorry. Asked earlier why he didn't use weapons to kill, Kuklinski told the agent that he preferred poison. "Why be messy?" he asked. "You do it nice and calm." just opened mm, if The "I a new store" coat 1 7 ''I FROM PAGE A-l "That's the best way actually to do it, because you got hundreds of people on the street." Kuklinski, a Dumont resident whom police call "The Iceman," is charged with five murders three of associates killed for the money they carried and two of accomplices killed to cover up crimes.

He has been held in the Bergen County Jail on (2-million bail since his Dec. 17 arrest. Law-abiding citizen His attorney, Frank P. Lucianna of Hackensack, has requested a hearing to reduce the bail. Lucianna said yesterday that his client denies the charges, and that the tapes aren't specific in detailing Kuklinski's alleged involvement in the crimes.

He said Kuklinski is a law-abiding citizen who should be given reasonable bail so he may return to his wife and three children while awaiting trial. But the state attorney-general's office, in filing court papers opposing a lower bail and detailing the transcripts, said Kuklinski is likely to flee before trial because prosecutors have overwhelming evidence including the taped conversations with the undercover agent linking him to at least five murders. The tapes were made" late last year, when the state police asked the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms to provide an undercover specialist to arrange for a contract murder with Kuklinski. Kuklinski was arrested shortly after he and the agent completed plans to kill a fictitious cocaine dealer, law enforcement officials charge.

Carroll said in court papers this week that the tapes reveal that there is a "substantial likelihood" that Kuklinski is involved in organized crime, that Kuklinski would either pay or be paid for the crimes committed, and that there is a risk he will commit other offenses. Highly prejudicial He also said Kuklinski is still under investigation and faces the possibility of the death penalty or more than 255 years in prison and $837,500 in fines. Carroll said Kuklinski also told the agent that he has money in another country. Lucianna said yesterday that he had asked Superior Court Judge Peter Ciolino to suppress the written transcripts of the tapes, since the judge wouldn't allow them to be played at Kuklinski's initial bail hearing last month, but the judge refused. "This is highly prejudicial, and I think this will prevent my client from getting a fair and impartial trial," Lucianna said.

A bail-reduction hearing has been scheduled for tomorrow afternoon. In the taped conversations, Kuklinski, 51, told the undercover agent that he had avoided arrest for more than six years, and that he was aware that the authorities had an informer in protective custody. Kuklinski said: "If they could put me away they had him the informer in protective custody for two years now, over two years. So if he had anything where they actually could substantiate, they would've come after me on that. They come around, hoping I'll make a mistake or hoping some-body'll come up with something.

As long as you don't have somebody to back up your story, it's all hearsay." Freezer experiment In the tapes, Kuklinski appears to be knowledgeable about a murder in which the victim's body was subsequently placed in a deep freeze. In one conversation, Kuklinski told the agent about a dead man who was kept in a freezer for more than Vft years and then buried in an effort to confuse authorities about the date of his murder. "In a freezer, nothing changes," Kuklinski said on the tape. "I'm not saying I had anything to do with it I'm just saying they didn't find the guy for over two years, CHILDREN'S ACTIVITIES Column of programs and activities for youngsters theater, puppet shows, films, story hours, and more. Every Wednesday.

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