Tribune-Herald
June 16, 1987
Hall says Feazell was paid
Lawyer says DA wanted fee split
By Tommy Witherspoon
Tribune-Herald staff writer
AUSTIN – Waco attorney Don Hall said he was “astounded” when Vic Feazell told him in May 1984 his law firm would have to split legal fees with him for continued favorable treatment of clients.
Testifying during the 14th day of Feazell’s federal trial, Hall said he and partner Dick Kettler cut Feazell in on a “mathematical percentage” of their legal fees after the meeting. Feazell, the McLennan County district attorney, is charged with 10 counts of racketeering and mail fraud.
“He made the statement to me that he wanted to participate in our fees,” Hall said of Feazell. “He said he had done us a lot of favors and knew we were making some money out of the favors he had done and wanted some money for it.”
Hall, a McLennan County district attorney from 1963 to 1963, said he and Kettler were shocked by the request but agreed to split a third of their fees on cases Feazell dismissed personally. Hall said they wanted to avoid being placed on an attorney “blacklist” by Feazell.
“We paid him because he was already doing it and not getting any money, so this was a gravitation from one style to the other style,” Hall said. “Some plain greed on our part played a part and it was common knowledge that Mr. Feazell had a hit list or blacklist of attorneys who opposed him and we were afraid that we would get put on his blacklist if we refused.”
Hall, considered the government’s star witness against Feazell, spent all day being questioned by Assistant U.S. Attorney Jack Frels. Feazell’s attorney, Gary Richardson, should begin cross-examination of Hall by early afternoon today.
Hall’s plea-bargain arrangement with the federal government was not revealed.
But Richardson’s copy of Hall’s tentative arrangement indicated Hall will plead guilt to one misdemeanor count of tax evasion in exchange for his testimony. The government has given him partial immunity from prosecution for tax violations in 1983 and 1984 tax years, the document says.
Hall has not pleaded guilty. Kettler, who testified last week, also has not pleaded guilty to any tax violations and has said his attorney is negotiating a new arrangement with authorities. Kettler said last week he does not intend to plead guilty to a felony, although his initial agreement with the government indicated he would plead guilty to felony tax evasion.
Hall testified that before he gave each of his firm’s 14 illegal payments from May 1984 to April 1985 to Feazell, he made copies of envelopes, usually inscribed with the amount of cash they contained and “Campaign contribution to Vic Feazell” on the outside.
Feazell had told Hall not to put the payments in envelopes, but Hall said he made copies of the envelopes to record the payments. He then filed the copies and destroyed the original envelopes before paying Feazell.
Frels said Hall followed that procedure each time he paid Feazell so they would appear as campaign contributions if the illegal transactions were uncovered.
Hall said Feazell told him to make all cash payments to him instead of Kettler because “he felt like Dick was a weak person and wasn’t the type of person he wanted to deal with up front.”
Frels presented a huge copy of the envelope in which Hall reportedly paid Feazell $450 on May 29, 1984 to dismiss charges of driving while intoxicated against Henry Mendez, a county probation officer.
Feazell is accused in the 10-count federal indictment with accepting about $19,000 in illegal cash payments from defense attorneys for his favorable influence over cases, and with mailing falsified case disposition records to law enforcement agencies.
Richardson has said the Waco attorneys who have cooperated with the government in its investigation of Feazell-Hall, Kettler, Dick Clark, Ron Moody and Ken Crow-had not been reporting all their cash payments from clients for years and “cut deals” with the government for immunity for their testimonies.
Hall said payments form his law firm to Feazell stopped in April 1985 after the government began interviewing their clients about the disposition of their cases and how much cash they paid the attorneys.
“When they started interviewing some of our older clients, we were concerned,” Hall said. “But when they began interrogating some of our more recent clients, we realized, to put it in plain language, that the jig was up, and I was scared.
“My conscience had bothered me since we began this arrangement, and I welcomed the opportunity to cease these operations,” Hall said. After he spent four days in jail in July 1986 on a contempt of court charges, Hall said, he decided to produce records he previously had withheld and cooperated with federal investigators.
One of the records government officials wanted concerned a SWI charge against Kathryn Eileen Meroney Givens, said Hall, in which his firm reportedly paid Feazell $660 to dismiss the case.
The bribe amount was derived from the $2,250 fee she paid Hall to represent her. The fee was split between Hall, Kettler and Feazell, Hall said. The roughly $250 remaining was given to her uncle, Baylor University professor Les Rasner, who recommended she seek Hall’s counsel, Hall said.
Notes from Hall’s case file on Givens indicated the arrangements of the payments to the various parties and were introduced as evidence Monday.
As part of his cooperation with the government, Hall secretly taped a conversation with Feazell at Hall’s house on Sept. 14, 1966, three days before Feazell was arrested.
On the tape, played Monday for the jury, the two talked about the grand jury investigation of Feazell and about appearances by Hall, Kettler and their secretary before the investigative body.
Feazell told Hall he just wanted to alert him that the records had come up so he “wouldn’t be hit with any surprises” at his coming grand jury appearance.
After the 15-minute tape was played, Hall told Frels that Feazell once threatened him and Kettler. If they testified against him. Feazell said they “could be prosecuted by the state and he would see that his good friend, Jim Mattox, would see to it,” Hall said.
“I thought he was aiming it at both of us as a threat,” Hall said. “I gave it great credence since he was saying that Mattox would become involved.”
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