Marian said:
I agree. In Space Fall Vila only mentions the bank fraud, not the dead
visa
seller. The Ultra also only mention the fraud. This leads me to believe that Avon was only convicted for the fraud, not for the killing (which, a capable lawyer could argue, was in self defence as the visa seller shot first).
If the Federation is like the United States, though, any death occurring the course of a felony is subject to prosecution as felony murder, even if the felon did not premeditate the death--or even cause it directly.
Possibly the authorities a) didn't regard the killing of the visa seller as bad as the fraud, and decided to prosecute Avon only for the "graver" crime; b) were actually grateful to Avon for ridding them of the visa seller,
thus
sparing them the costs for a trial; c) didn't even know that Avon had killed the visa seller.
I say c) is the most likely.
It's also quite possible that Avon lied to impress Del Grant--it would probably have been to Avon's advantage in Cynus Alpha to tell Jenna that of course he could kill someone, he's done it already.
-(Y)