NEW ORLEANS (AP) – A lawyer who allegedly helped finance the foiled plot to overthrow the government of Dominica killed himself after being smeared by “a con man, a liar,” a former Ku Klux Klan leader said Monday.

J.W. Kirkpatrick, 61, a Mephis lawyer, was found dead in his car Sunday along a highway in Earle, Ark.  The coroner ruled the death a suicide.

During last week’s trial of three men accused in the Dominica scheme, the plot’s admitted ringleader, 32-year-old Michael Perdue, said Kirkpatrick had produced $10,000 to further the coup.

David Duke of Metairie, La., a former leader of the Knights of the Ku Klux Klan and a friend of Kirkpatrick, said Perdue had ruined the lawyer’s reputation.

“Perdue has been proven to be a con man, a liar,” Duke said.

Perdue also had testified that Duke introduced him to Kirkpatrick.

Duke, however, said neither he nor Kirkpatrick ever had any connection with Perdue’s plan to lead a 10-man band of mercenaries onto the tiny Caribbean island.

“He wasn’t connected.  Not at all,” Duke said.

Federal prosecutors said the inquiry into who put up $75,000 for the attempted coup would proceed despite Kirkpatrick’s death.  U.S. Atty. John Voltz refused to say whether Kirkpatrick had been subpoenaed to appear before the grand jury investigating the Dominica plot.

The coup plot was foiled April 27 with the arrests of 10 mercenaries at a marina near New Orleans, just before they planned to embark on the 2,000-mile trip to Dominica.

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