By ANDY GARDNER

CANTON -- The Federal Bureau of Investigation is refusing to comment about what appears to be an investigation into whether or not St. Lawrence County District Attorney Mary Rain violated an inmate’s constitutional rights.

"Unfortunately, we can't confirm or deny the existence of any investigation," according to an FBI representative speaking on behalf of Paul Holstein, media representative and chief division council for the FBI's Albany field office.

A Nov. 24 letter posted on scribd.com from former District Attorney Nicole Duvé to Public Defender Stephen Button says the FBI is investigating whether or not Rain enlisted former St. Lawrence County Correctional Facility inmate Kyle Travis as an agent to obtain signed confessions from other inmates, including convicted child molester Pierre Bond, behind their attorneys’ backs.

The Supreme Court has ruled that all questioning of a defendant after they have asked for an attorney must be done in the presence of legal counsel.

“I am sure you will recall Mr. Travis was instrumental in obtaining a signed and notarized confession from Pierre Bond related to conduct for which Mr. Bond has been indicted. As I understand it, this signed confession may have played a role in how Mr. Bond’s charges were resolved,” Duvé wrote in the letter posted on scribd.com. “During the course of Mr. Travis’ criminal matters, Mr. Travis disclosed that he obtained Mr. Bond’s signed confession while acting as an agent of the District Attorney.”

“Kyle Travis’ attorney agrees that Mr. Travis is unreliable and at no time was an agent of this office,” Rain said in a prepared statement released Dec. 4.

In a document confirmed by the St. Lawrence County Court Clerk’s office to be an authentic transcript of June 8 proceedings against Travis for violating probation, Rain says she used Bond’s signed and notarized confession that Travis acquired to assist her in getting him to plead to charges resulting in a 21-year sentence.

“Judge, I’ve had no contact with Mr. Travis. I had initial contact with Mr. Narrow as it relates to a confession that he brought to me that was signed and notarized by Pierre Bond, and I was able to effectively use that to assist me in the 21-year sentence that he got,” Rain is quoted as saying in the transcript.

Rain says she offered Bond the 21-year plea on Jan. 14, received Bond’s statement from Travis’ attorney at the time on Apr. 14 and verified its authenticity on Apr. 28.

“The plea entered by Pierre Bond on April 29, 2014 was exactly the plea offered on Jan. 14, 2014,” Rain said in the statement.

According to the court transcript, Travis never says he had a direct conversation with Rain.

He told County Court Judge Jerome Richards that he was promised a lighter sentence in exchange for signed and notarized confessions from Bond and Gary Rousaw, each of whom faced child molestation charges.

“I was under the assumption of hoping that I was promised something from the District Attorney’s office. That I was promised to a lesser sentence if this information was given forward,” the document quotes Travis as saying at the June 8 proceeding for a probation violation. “I spoke with my attorney, who … relayed the message back to me that if my assistance -- if I gave up the piece of paper that was to help in the assistance of the prosecution, that I would get a promised sentence of a lesser time in prison.”

Bond is currently serving 21 years for first-degree criminal sexual act at Sing Sing Correctional Facility.

Travis is serving three years for second-degree criminal sexual act at Downstate Correctional Facility.