LAWYER FACING ROBBERY COUNTS

Andrew McKenna, former attorney for prominent law firm, held in bank,
store holdups; defender blames heroin addiction

ALBANY -- A heroin addiction may have led a former U.S. Justice
Department attorney, who had once worked at one of the area's most
prestigious law firms, to allegedly carry out a recent robbery spree
targeting at least two banks and a grocery store, authorities said.

Andrew J. McKenna, 36, was arrested Monday morning by state troopers
who spotted his green pickup truck on I-90 in Albany, moments after
he allegedly robbed a bank in the village of Nassau. He also is
accused of robbing a Price Chopper supermarket in Malta last Saturday
night, and is a suspect in an Oct. 17 bank heist in Lake George
Village, authorities said.

Advertisement In each case, McKenna, who lives in Averill Park,
passed notes to tellers or clerks claiming that he had a gun and
demanding cash, according to court records and law enforcement
officials familiar with the robberies.

McKenna, a former U.S. Marine Corps Judge Advocate General (JAG)
attorney, strode into federal court in Albany Wednesday afternoon
handcuffed, shackled and suited in an Albany County jail jumpsuit as
his girlfriend, who is about 7 months pregnant, sat in the small
courtroom choking back tears.

"No more. I swear. No more," McKenna mouthed to his girlfriend, as he
waited for his detention hearing to begin.

McKenna had once worked for O'Connell & Aronowitz in Albany, the firm
of prominent criminal defense attorney Stephen R. Coffey. He was
represented in federal court by a federal public defender, Gene V. Primomo.

"He's a bright and talented individual," Primomo said, adding that "a
drug addiction" is at the heart of the case.

That was clear in federal court Wednesday as U.S. Magistrate Randolph
F. Treece ordered McKenna held in the custody of U.S. Marshals with a
recommendation he undergo psychiatric counseling and receive
treatment for heroin addiction at Albany County jail. Treece made the
recommendation after meeting privately in his chambers for about 30
minutes with Primomo and Assistant U.S. Attorney Carlos Moreno.

As recently as last summer, McKenna had worked for Albany Management,
a property management company operated by the Colonie-based Laberge
Group, one of the region's largest engineering and development firms.
In that capacity, McKenna had been a close confidante of Ronald H.
Laberge, who founded the firm and was the target of a federal
investigation into a bribery scandal involving state government contracts.

Laberge was sentenced in September to five years' probation after
pleading guilty to making a $2,500 bribery payment to a state leasing
agent who manipulated a rental contract in Troy that would have
netted Laberge several hundred thousand dollars profit.

While McKenna was at O'Connell & Aronowitz, he had negotiated with
federal prosecutors as the FBI sought to enlist Laberge as an
informant to penetrate state government and political corruption.
Coffey had served as Laberge's attorney of record in the case, but
officials close to the investigation said McKenna was also heavily
involved in the defense early on.

It's not clear whether McKenna will be prosecuted in both state and
federal courts.

On Wednesday, Saratoga County sheriff's investigators lodged an
arrest warrant at Albany County jail for McKenna. They have accused
him of stealing $727 from a Price Chopper in Malta last Saturday
night. Surveillance cameras captured the heist, and a clerk who
handed McKenna the cash was able to identify McKenna from a photo
spread, officials close to the case said.

But federal authorities may not have jurisdiction over that heist
because it did not involve a federally-insured institution.

McKenna also is a suspect in the Oct. 17 robbery of a TD Bank North
branch in Lake George Village. Like the bank heist in Nassau, the
suspect in that case was wearing a suit, tie and a baseball hat as he
approached a teller and handed her a note demanding cash and claiming
to have a gun. A federal official familiar with the investigation
said police have forensic evidence, possibly fingerprints of the
suspect, that are being analyzed.

McKenna was a staff attorney for the U.S. Department of Justice in
Washington, D.C., for at least two years. He returned to Albany about
three years ago and went to work at O'Connell & Aronowitz, according
to lawyers who know him.