A Tale of Jailhouse Snitches

This past week two jailhouse snitches testified for the government in Paul Bergrin's trial. Richard Hosten was a crack dealer turned informant that received a sentence of time served (45 months) for his testimony in the William Baskerville case. Eric Dock is a career criminal turned jailhouse informant that other prosecutors refused to work with. Dock is that level of bad and other than his connection with AUSA John Gay, has nothing to do with any of these cases.

The Richard Hosten testimony in Paul Bergrin's first trial was on 26 October 2011, and begins on page 63 of the transcript. You will read that Hosten sold crack to Kemo Deshawn McCray on a regular basis. In fact, Hosten was well-aware that Kemo was the informant in the case against Hakeem Curry before he shared a cell with William Baskerville in Hudson County.

Richard Hosten had serious reasons to worry about Kemo turning informant. He was the one to discover it when Kemo called him from an FBI agent's cellphone. That phone belonged to Agent Michael Brokos. Hosten locked-in the number and knew that Kemo was the informant.

Paul established clearly that it was Hosten that knew Kemo was the informant before being arrested and planted in a Hudson County cell with Baskerville in cross-examination, which begins on page 83 and ends on page 93:

US v Bergrin 26 October 2011

We must wonder if it was Richard Hosten that gave Kemo's name to William Baskerville. He certainly had the most to lose. And here he is testifying against Paul Bergrin with an absurd claim that Baskerville learned Kemo's name after a legal visit with Paul. Do you see how Hosten and AUSA Gay managed to twist that entire story?

With Hosten having Kemo's name first as a result of the telephone call, can anyone actually believe he did not share the information with anyone? Most likely half of Newark knew that Kemo was an informant after he locked-in that number. Why would anyone believe that Hosten kept the information to himself?

Hosten identifies Eric Dock on page 77 of that transcript. Somehow they both ended-up in a cell in Hudson County with William Baskerville. Coincidence? I seriously doubt it as true coincidence is rare. I do not think that Paul Bergrin and the court has the full picture of the relationship between Eric Dock and AUSA John Gay. In my opinion, this discovery has been buried.

So who is Eric Dock?

Dock testified on 7 November 2011 in Paul Bergrin's first trial. His testimony begins on page 105 in the transcript. Read it in its entirety to understand Dock's career criminal resume and the level of calculation of a jailhouse snitch:

US v Bergrin 7 November 2011

Cross-examination begins on page 127. Prior to the Baskerville case, Dock tried to work with prosecutors on previous occasions - a robbery/murder case and a weapons case and neither worked out. He was turned down as a cooperating witness because he has a list of charges relating to false testimony and lies to law enforcement in sworn statements.

Eric Dock was facing 22 years on narcotics charges at the time he claims to have written the letter to AUSA Gay about Baskerville. He is described as a "career criminal" by prosecutors in other cases. Paul has him recount a long list of convictions, including "obstruction of justice" and several for "providing false information to law enforcement officers". He was a fugitive from California at the time of arrest in NJ.

Dock was transferred to a cell in Hudson County from Passaic County and met Baskerville there. He kept a logbook of his conversations with Baskerville! He seems to squirm on the stand when Paul questions him in depth about this logbook.

Paul establishes that Dock was way too familiar with the informant system in state and federal cases and catches him in lies on pages 153-158. Either he lied to a federal grand jury previously, or he was lying in his current testimony. Maybe this sorry sack of excrement just lies all the time. Remember - other AUSAs passed on working with this nasty snitch, but not John Gay.

I'd like to know specifically what Eric Dock is being paid for his testimony in this case.