By ANDY GARDNER

CANTON -- District Attorney Mary Rain is being investigated by the Federal Bureau of Investigation.

She is accused of enlisting Kyle Travis, a former inmate at the St. Lawrence County jail, to secure a confession from another former inmate, Pierre Bond, circumventing Bond’s attorney, an alleged civil rights violation.

That’s according to a letter posted on scribd.com from former St. Lawrence County District Attorney Nicole Duvé, who was acting as a special prosecutor in the case, to Public Defender Stephen Button.

Duvé and Button have not returned phone calls seeking to verify the authenticity of the image of the letter posted on scribd.com.

FBI Agent Fred Bragg, who is cited in the letter as the investigating agent, did not immediately return phone calls seeking comment.

“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.”

In a document confirmed by the St. Lawrence County Court Clerk’s office to be an authentic court transcript, Travis 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.”

At the time, he was represented by Edward Narrow of Syracuse.

Travis told the court that Narrow told him he would get a lighter sentence in exchange for turning over the confession to the D.A.’s office.

During the proceeding, the judge called Rain into the courtroom, who denied having any contact with Travis.

“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.

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.