His kidnappers were caught and the ransom recovered, but the defendants' attorneys mounted a defense that argued Bronfman had been a co-conspirator, and the abductors were only convicted of extortion, not kidnapping.
[2] The case played out in public, with reporters, photographers and curiosity-seekers camped out at the gates to the 180-acre (70 ha) estate and helicopters circling in a carnival atmosphere.
[1] FBI agents surveilled the handoff but did not make an arrest; they did get the license number of the car, which turned out to be registered to Mel Patrick Lynch, an Irish immigrant from Banagher who worked as a firefighter.
[1] On August 17, police and FBI raided Lynch's Flatbush, Brooklyn, apartment and found Bronfman there, bound, gagged, and blindfolded.
[1] They provided the location of the ransom, which was found in two garbage bags in the apartment of a friend of Byrne's who at the time was in the hospital and was not suspected to be involved.
[1] On the night of the kidnapping, Lynch was there when Bronfman arrived home from dinner at his father's house, and abducted him at gunpoint, handcuffing him.
[1] In his 2020 memoir, DeBlasio wrote:[4] I can look back now after a 50-year, 600-trial career and say that among the thousands of witnesses I observed, nobody approached the magnificence of Mel Patrick Lynch.
[1] District Attorney Carl A. Vergari called the defense “absurd and ridiculous.”[3] The FBI said they had found no evidence that Bronfman had been involved.
[3] Representatives of the family said that Bronfman had been at college in Williamstown, Massachusetts, for the period during which he had supposedly been meeting with his purported co-conspirators to plan the abduction.
[1] In a post-trial interview, Bronfman told reporters, "It’s a pretty sad system when a guy gets kidnapped, the kidnappers are caught red-handed and they get off.
"[7] Shortly before his death, DeBlasio self-published a 2020 memoir, Let Justice Be Done, confessing that during the trial he had been aware the defense was a lie and that Bronfman had been an innocent victim.