This article is reproduced without permission under the fair use doctrine. Originally published online at http://www.theunionleader.com/articles_showfast.html?article=53426
Copyright 2005 The Union Leader Corporation
CONCORD — The owner of a Florida company named in a rape investigation involving three door-to-door salesmen is disputing a prosecutor's statement that his business is a front for criminal activity.
"He's a liar," Belo Kellam said yesterday of prosecutor Scott Murray. "For him to say that we encourage people to do those acts, well, that's just out of order."
Kellam owns Fidelity Readers Service Inc., in Naples, Fla. The company hires traveling crews to sell magazine subscriptions door-to-door.
At a hearing Thursday, Murray said the company "appears to be a cover for an organization which engages in home invasion, burglary, theft and sexual assault."
The three suspects were arraigned in Concord District Court on charges of raping a 19-year-old woman last month. Bail for one suspect, Joseph Haniffy, 24, of Chicopee, Mass., was set at $3 million. Police said he was the organizer of the group.
"You're making me sound like John Gotti," Haniffy said at his arraignment.
Bail for the other two suspects, Cassidy Coburn, 19, of Monroe, Utah, and Christopher Armstrong, 23, of Jonesboro, Ark., was set at $1 million and $1.5 million, respectively.
Kellam said the men work for a contractor, Platinum Plus Sales Inc., run by an Aaron Harvey of Arkansas.
But authorities in Concord and Saugus, Mass., where Coburn, Armstrong and Haniffy were arrested last month on separate charges, said the men all named Fidelity as their employer.
"We don't have much to do with what they do in the field or what they call themselves," Kellam said.
Police in Saugus who searched the men's motel room reported finding a crossbow, butterfly knife, drug pipe and other weapons. The men failed to appear for a Saugus court date and were arrested days later in Maryland, said Saugus Lt. Michael Annese.
Murray declined to comment on evidence while Concord police continue their investigation.
Kellam said Harvey's crew started working for Fidelity about a year ago, and that Harvey passed a background check.
Kellam said Fidelity recently started requiring sales people to pass a background check and sign a contract stating they are not Fidelity employees and to "respect the privacy and dignity of those called upon." When asked, however, Kellam would not provide a copy of the agreement, and said Fidelity had no record that Haniffy, Coburn and Armstrong had signed the contract. He also did not know whether the three passed background checks.
Attempts to reach Harvey yesterday were not successful; telephone numbers for him appeared to have been disconnected. Messages left for an Aaron C. Harvey of Springdale, Ark., were not answered.
Research on Fidelity's background found arrests of company employees on theft, trespassing, drugs and other charges in several states.
A New York City-based watchdog group, Parent Watch, monitors traveling sales crews. It says the industry's loose hiring practices endanger young sales people and their customers. Parent Watch says it knows of more than a dozen rape allegations implicating traveling sales crews since 2000.
Haniffy's sales crew, nicknamed crew "096," appears to have been heavily involved in criminal activity, an informant told Concord police, according to an affidavit. The informant said Haniffy's group was one of the most criminally aggressive he had worked with in five years as a magazine salesman
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