Tulsa World
Friday, August 12, 1983
Richardson Fine-Tunes Case Against Draper
By Rob Martindale
Of the World Staff
MUSKOGEE – U.S. Attorney Gary Richardson Thursday said that the clerical work is out of the way and Friday he will set in action what he feels is a fine-tuned case against House Speaker Dan Draper.
The run at Draper and House Majority Leader Joe Fitzgibbon, his CO-defendant in a vote fraud conspiracy case, will take two and maybe three days, Richardson said.
Government officials are privately irked at news coverage as a whole on the case which has played four days in U.S District Court here without a hint of involvement in vote fraud by Draper, D-Stillwater.
Fitzgibbon, D-Miami, has been linked with 132 questionable Adair County absentee ballots but defense attorneys say they have no cause for alarm at this state.
Whether that is the case or not, the picture could became clearer – or buried in mud – by midweek when the government is expected to be through with its case.
Since Monday, the government has paraded over 35 witnesses to the stand to show that absentee ballots were fraudulently cast in a legislative race involving Draper’s father, who lost.
It was clerical work, Richardson said, that had to be done to lay the groundwork for the heart of the government’s case.
Friday and Monday, after a weekend break, and possibly on Tuesday the government will put an interesting assortment of players on the witness stand in an effort to rip the cloak of innocence of Draper and Fitzgibbon.
There will be the so-called “people in the back room” who Draper allegedly plotted with at a time-weathered grocery store in the Cookson Hills to steal the Sept., 21 election for his father.
They are Fay Newton, Ruth Ann Hembree and John Girdner.
Mrs. Newton is accused of notarizing bogus absentee ballots after they were produced by Mrs. Hembree, Girdner and others.
Richardson has told the eight-man, four-woman jury that Mrs. Newton, a Sequoyah County court clerk, had a guilty conscience and couldn’t sleep nights after allegedly putting the stamp of authenticity on the ballots.
He said she went to a judge in Sallisaw in Sequoyah County and put out feelers on what she had done and what the consequences might be.
The judge, Richardson indicated, was not told the complete, straight story of Mrs. Newton’s reported involvement.
If he had been, the here-to-date silent judge could be yanked before a judicial ethics committee, a courtroom observer said.
Mrs. Hembree and Girdner are accused of marking blank ballots in the living quarters at the back of the grocery store. That accusation was made in court by government witness Barney Girdner, John Girdner’s father and Ruth Hombre’s brother.
Government prosecutors were unhappy with press and broadcast reports that Barney Girdner was a “key” or “star” witness who washed out on the witness stand.
Richardson said it was the news media, not him, that gave Girdner top billing in the case in pretrial publicity.
Much of the testimony in the trial, including that of Barney Girdner, has involved the vote scandal wrongdoings of Barney Girdner.
Girdner said he and his mother, Dora “Mama Dode” Girdner, were central figures in the vote scandal and that the bogus absentees were intended to help his bid to win election to the Dist. 86 House post.
But Girdner fell by the wayside in the primary and cast his lot with the elder Draper in a losing runoff campaign.
Girdner came under investigation and said he would testify for the government against Draper and Fitzgibbon, but there was a price.
The government accepted his guilty plea to one conspiracy charge, but dismissed 10 charges against Girdner and agreed not to prosecute his wife or son John.
“Mama Dode” Girdner is also a potential witness against the House leaders.
So are Bob and Caroll Parris.
Parris is a former state representative who was named as an unindicted co-conspriator in the vote fraud indictment issued June 16 by a U.S. District Court grand jury.
The government hasn’t brought formal charges against Parris, but has opted to put his name on its witness list which provides another twist to the case.
Parris last week told a Sallisaw newspaper that he doesn’t think Draper is guilty.
His wife is one of at least five notaries public the government has said notarized the absentee ballots in question.
The government has a few entanglements with two other notaries public mentioned during a nine month investigation and testimony this week.
They are Ginger Brown and Kay Hendren, former secretaries to assistant U.S. Attorney Rex Earl Starr, who became a government prosecutor one month ago after the probe was wrapped up.
Witnesses said they notarized some of the ballots in question.
Ms. Hendren was a secretary in the Adair County district attorney’s office where Starr previously was a part-time prosecutor.
Ms. Brown was a secretary in Starr’s private law office.
Richardson said the actions of the notaries public are suspect, but not those of Starr. Otherwise, Richardson said, he wouldn’t have hired his newest assistant.
Another possible government witness is Frank Grayson, a former Ottawa County district attorney who was convicted in 1975 on charges of engaging in an interstate conspiracy to promote gambling and prostitution.
Two witnesses connected with the rural Cave Springs School are listed among government witnesses.
School Superintendent Don Patrick was quoted in Barney Girdner’s testimony as saying “the school couldn’t afford the scandal " allegedly asked by Girdner and Fitzgibbon to have 12 absentee ballots notarized.
Girdner said he and the lawmaker then went to School Board President L. J. Ketcher who went to the school and had the ballots notarized.
A U.S. postal inspector will summarize the government’s case.
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