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Freedom eludes prison informant as he faces 30-year-old rape case

By Ludmilla Lelis

Orlando Sentinel

Posted December 26 2005

VIERA · When Clarence Zacke starred as a jailhouse snitch in the 1980s, his testimony helped send a serial killer to his execution.

It also kept an innocent man in prison for 22 years.

And his snitching in a murder-for-hire scheme for which he had been convicted shaved decades off his sentence, giving him a chance at one day tasting freedom. But the Brevard County man, 68, who could have been released this year, might spend the rest of his life behind bars.

There are no deals to help Zacke as he faces a new trial on rape allegations stemming from incidents 30 years ago.

"Now his life has finally caught up with him," said Wilton Dedge, who thinks Zacke's testimony helped convict him of a rape that DNA evidence later proved he didn't commit. "I hope he enjoys the rest of his life with the Department of Corrections."

One person who shares Dedge's hope is Zacke's son, Rick Zacke, who tried to make sure his father never got out of prison.

Estranged from his father for many years, Rick Zacke talked with investigators about his dad's drug smuggling and auto-theft rings, but the statute of limitations had passed.

Then, a middle-aged woman heard about Clarence Zacke's impending release and told investigators he had raped her repeatedly, from the time she was 7 years old until she was 11.

That triggered the new trial, on one count of unlawful ravishing and four counts of sexual battery of a child.

"Clear out of the blue, she came forward, and I'm glad she did," said Rick Zacke, who knows the victim. "I feel so sad that it happened to her, but thank God she's got the courage to come forward to keep this animal off the streets."

The lawyer who represented Dedge said the case points out the problems of relying on jailhouse snitches, especially because there is no oversight of their use.

"It's an imbalance in the system," Milton Hirsch said. "A prosecutor can offer you your very own life to get you to testify, and prosecutors are on their honor to screen out the snitches" who aren't telling the truth.

Decades ago, Zacke ran a successful junkyard, selling auto parts in West Melbourne. He was arrested in 1980 on allegations of smuggling drugs from the Caribbean and was accused of trying to arrange the killing of the main witness: the pilot of the alleged pot-smuggling plane.

He tried to hire an acquaintance, Richard Lee "Dickie" Hunt, a car-repossession man and brother of Assistant State Attorney Michael Hunt.

The pilot wasn't harmed, but Dickie Hunt disappeared in January 1981, a week before he was to testify about the plot to kill the pilot.

A judge acquitted Zacke of the marijuana charge, but by then Zacke had racked up more murder-solicitation charges. Eventually, he was sentenced to 180 years in prison for the plots -- which all failed except for the one targeting Dickie Hunt.

But with Hunt's body nowhere to be found, Zacke told investigators he could lead them to the murderers and the body.

After several months of negotiations, Zacke had his deal. All his prison sentences would run at the same time, instead of consecutively, cutting his total time behind bars to 60 years. And with prison gain time, he could be free one day.

A few months after this deal, Zacke became a jailhouse snitch in two well-publicized cases.

He testified against convicted serial killer Gerald Stano, saying Stano confessed to him.

Zacke said Stano bragged about the murder of Port Orange teenager Cathy Lee Scharf, saying he "played with her like a cat with a mouse." Of Stano's 10 Florida murder convictions, it was the Scharf killing that sent him to the electric chair.

Zacke also testified in 1984 against Dedge, saying Dedge confessed to a rape and his plans to kill the victim if he ever got out.

Dedge, however, claimed he was innocent, though it took 22 years and a DNA test to prove it.

Zacke's testimony came at a critical time for both cases. Stano's first trial in the Scharf murder ended with a hung jury, and Dedge's first rape trial was overturned on appeal. Zacke testified in both men's second trials, and both ended in guilty verdicts.

Yet neither jailhouse confession stands today. Dedge is a free man and Zacke recanted his Stano testimony in the late 1990s.

In court hearings, Zacke has claimed the new charges against him are payback.

"The state knew where I was the whole time, and they purposely waited until I was ready to get out," he said at an April hearing, as reported by Florida Today.

Dedge said he is looking forward to the new trial.

"At my trial, he claimed he was only testifying because he couldn't stand men that abuse women," he said. "If I had only known then about this."

The Orlando Sentinel is a Tribune Co. newspaper