NEWLANC: A new documentary, The Midnight Ride of Jonathan Luna, reveals disturbing facts about the shocking death of a Black federal prosecutor in 2003 and asks provocative questions about actions by the Maryland Department of Justice, the FBI, and the Pennsylvania state police.
Jonathan Luna was an ambitious federal prosecutor who had worked for the Maryland division of the U.S. Justice Department almost four years at the time of his death. He was the lead prosecutor in a high-profile drug and murder case in Baltimore when he left his office close to midnight, December 3, 2003, while working on a plea agreement that he had objected to earlier that day. Luna was found at approximately 5:30 the following morning, in a rural stream in Lancaster County. He had sustained over thirty stab wounds, including a severed carotid artery.
Shortly after Pennsylvania police arrived at a well drilling company close to an exit on the PA turnpike, Jonathan Luna’s car was identified as registered to the Baltimore County courthouse under his name. His body was close to the front wheels, in a shallow stream, After a government ID was found around his neck the state police made a call to Luna’s office to report his death. Police state that the call was made around 8:30 AM.
The Midnight Ride of Jonathan Luna reveals that the Maryland Justice department failed to notify the judge in the trial Luna was prosecuting. According to the trial transcripts, that trial did not begin until close to 90 minutes after Luna’s death was reported, and that the trial continued throughout that morning.
When Luna failed to appear in court, another attorney from the justice department appeared to continue the case. That attorney retrieved unfinished plea agreements from Luna’s office, completed and then signed Luna’s name to them. The trial did not adjourn until mid-day. Long before that, Luna’s office should have been shut as a potential crime scene.
The Midnight Ride of Jonathan Luna details how less than forty-eight hours after Luna’s body was found, the Maryland department of justice, then headed by Federal DA Thomas DiBiagio, announced that Luna’s death was not related to his work at the department, despite the fact Luna had prosecuted over eighty cases, many involving violent criminals, during his four years as an assistant US DA,
Luna’s death made headlines throughout the nation and was covered extensively by CNN and the networks, But days later. stories about Luna’s private and work life called his character into question. Reports from the FBI and leaks from anonymous sources suggested that he may have trolled the Internet looking for sex partners, that he was deeply in debt, and that he might have been involved in the disappearance of over 30,000.00 of evidence money that had gone missing from a trial he had prosecuted a year earlier. Although numerous stories that questioned his character continued to surface over the following weeks, none were attributed to official sources.
Although it was reported that DNA other than Luna’s was found in his car, a suspect was never identified. But three months later, reports attributed to “anonymous” law enforcement officials suggested that Luna was a probable suicide. Several narratives emerged, one of which claimed that Luna, troubled by poor work performance and a declining mental state, had contrived a scenario to look like he had been kidnapped, and that in the process, had accidentally slit his carotid artery. No evidence has emerged to support that narrative.
For the past twenty years the Lancaster coroners’ office has maintained that Jonathan Luna’s death was a homicide. During that time, throughout that time, the autopsy report has been withheld from the public and the press. In spite of the widely circulated narrative of suicide the case is officially classified as a homicide. Because of the official listing the Pennsylvania state police have pressed authorities to keep the autopsy under wraps.
After The Midnight Ride of Jonathan Luna played limited theatrical engagements in Baltimore, Washington DC, and Lancaster County, (where Luna’s body was found,) a suit was initiated by the Pennsylvania chapter of Reporters Committee for the Freedom of the Press in conjunction with the Lancaster Newspapers.
The soon to be broadly released documentary, The Midnight Ride of Jonathan Luna, recreates Luna’s last days, exposes what it posits as a cover up and inappropriate behavior by the Maryland DOJ. It interviews by former department personnel, a federal judge, and others who who attest to the inaccuracies of the negative accusations disseminated by the the “anonymous sources” cited by the Baltimore Sun and other press.
