<p>Georgia authorities have opened an investigation into the nearly 30-year-old death of the uncle of a millionaire businessman charged with killing his wife.</p><p>Bibb County District Attorney Howard Simms said Wednesday he was asked several weeks ago by Fulton County District Attorney Paul Howard, who is currently prosecuting James Sullivan on murder charges, to look into the Jan. 10, 1975 death of Sullivan's uncle, Frank Bienert.</p><p>Bienert, who at the time was said to have died of a heart attack and no official investigation followed, left Sullivan his liquor distributorship in Macon after his death. Sullivan later sold Crown Beverages Inc. for $5 million.</p><p>Simms said Howard told him there is new suspicion that the 65-year-old Bienert may have been poisoned. Simms would not say what, if any, new evidence authorities have.</p><p>A spokesman for Howard declined several requests for comment on Tuesday. An attempt to reach spokesman Erik Friedly on Thursday was not immediately successful.</p><p>Sullivan's lawyer, Don Samuel, said Thursday that any suggestion Bienert was killed or that his client had anything to do with it is "preposterous."</p><p>"I'm certain nothing will come of it," Samuel said of the investigation. "It borders really on the bizarre. I can't help but think these guys watch too much television."</p><p>Simms has requested, but not yet received, medical records from the Macon hospital where Bienert died. If authorities determine that foul play was involved, Simms said his office may seek to have Bienert's body exhumed.</p><p>"We are making some inquiries into his uncle's death. We have asked for some medical records. We should have them next week," Simms said. "There has been some talk about exhuming the body, although I have not filed any motions or started any process toward that end."</p><p>Bienert, a Boston native, was buried in a Braintree, Mass., cemetery. A spokesman for the Norfolk County, Mass., District Attorney's office declined to comment, referring questions to Georgia authorities. Officials at the Blue Hill Cemetery said they have not been served with a court order to exhume Bienert's body.</p><p>Joe Cohen, 90, a close friend and former co-worker of Bienert's, said Bienert was ill for a week to 10 days before his death.</p><p>"He just wasn't feeling well," Cohen said. "He was in the process of recuperating when he died."</p><p>Sullivan, now 63, is awaiting trial on charges in the Jan. 16, 1987, death of his wife, Lita Sullivan. The 35-year-old woman was fatally shot after opening the door to her Atlanta townhouse to a gunman carrying a box of pink roses.</p><p>Related federal charges against Sullivan were thrown out in 1992 a few days after the trial had begun. His lawyers argued at a Superior Court hearing Monday that the state charges, filed in 1998, should be barred because they violate Sullivan's right not to be tried twice for the same crime. A judge's ruling is pending another hearing.</p><p>Sullivan fled the country around the time of his 1998 indictment on state murder, aggravated assault and burglary charges. He was arrested in Thailand on July 1, 2002, and returned to Atlanta in March after lengthy extradition proceedings. Fulton County prosecutors are seeking the death penalty against Sullivan.</p><p>Prosecutors have suggested Sullivan paid Phillip A. Harwood $25,000 to kill his wife because he feared losing money and a Florida mansion in the divorce.</p><p>Harwood, a truck driver who moved James Sullivan's furniture from Georgia to Palm Beach, Fla., where he and his wife had a home, pleaded guilty in February 2003 to voluntary manslaughter in Fulton County Superior Court and was sentenced to 20 years in prison.</p>
