THE DAILY OKLAHOMAN
Friday, August 19, 1983
DRAPER AND FITZGIBBON GUILTY
By Joyce Peterson
A federal jury found House Speaker Dan Draper and Majority Floor Leader Joe Fitzgibbon guilt Thursday night of mail fraud and conspiracy.
After more than six hours of deliberation, the jury delivered the verdict shortly after 8:30 p.m. in a hushed courtroom.
The two lawmakers sat impassively as the court clerk read each of 21 counts and said “guilty” to all but one Draper was found guilty on all 11 counts. Fitzgibbon was found guilty on nine of 10 counts.
‘I think the system works,” said U.S. Attorney Gary Richardson. There was no immediate comment from either legislator.
Members of Draper and Fitzgibbon families trembled and tears came to the eyes of one of Draper’s secretaries. But the courtroom remained silent as the verdicts were read.
Family members and well-wishers of the two men walked the hallways of the federal courthouse’s second floor earlier Thursday night, talking, occasionally laughing and speculating about the jury’s deliberations.
The case against the two lawmakers went to the jury about 1 p.m. – the trial’s ninth day.
Both are accused of participating in a fraudulent absentee ballot scheme to try to swing a House race primary runoff in favor of Draper’s father, Daniel Draper II.
In their closing arguments Thursday morning, prosecutors reminded jurors of testimony placing the two at the site where absentee ballots were either fraudulently notarized or where discussions of fraudulent actions had taken place.
Although Draper and Fitzgibbon freely admit being in Adair County to campaign for Draper’s father, both denied any knowledge of bogus absentee ballots.
Defense attorneys Bruce Green and State Sen. Gene Stipe lashed out at the prosecution witnesses, members of a politically active Adair County family, and accused the U.S. attorneys of trumping up the charges to further the political career of Richardson.
Stipe, in an eloquent oratory, quoted the Bible and Lewis Carrol as he told jurors to be careful of taking away the good reputation of his client, Fitzgibbon.
Characterizing him as “my Irish friend, my little leprechaun friend,” Stipe said the Miami Democrat is “not a highly educated man, not really a sophisticated person, but he’s a good man.”
Meanwhile, Stipe attacked the character of the Girdner family, the source of much of the damaging testimony.
Barney Girdner was a candidate in the primary of the disputed House race. Prosecutors contend the Girdner family deliberately and illegally obtained absentee ballots for Girdner in the primary. When Girdner was defeated, the prosecution alleged, the family conspired with Draper and Fitzgibbon to use the same group of absentee ballots for Draper’s father.
The testimony that placed the house speaker in the back room of a rural county store where a group of absentee ballots were fraudulently notarized came from Barney Girdner, his sister and his son.
Barney Girdner also testified Fitzgibbon was present when he and the superintendent of the Cave Springs School Discussed finding a notary to illegally notarize another group of absentee ballots. The superintendent, Don Patrick, testified he refused to help them find the notary because “the school couldn’t stand the scandal.”
Fitzgibbon took the stand to admit he was at the school with Girdner, but said he could not recall any conversations.
Stipe lashed out at the Girdner family’s reputation.
“It’s a family that has lived three generations of crime. They told you about it and were kind of proud of it. They managed to pull it off one more time.”
Members of the family have made plea bargain arrangements with the U.S. attorney’s office to either avoid prosecution or receive leniency for guilty pleas in exchange for their testimony.
As the trial drew to a close Thursday, federal prosecutors urged the jury to return a conviction, claiming that “nobody is above the law.”
Defense attorneys accused the prosecutors of using the courtroom “as a launching pad for political careers” in their loud and stormy closing arguments.
“If you believe every smidgen of every liar and every felon they’ve produced, they still haven’t proved Dan Draper guilty beyond a reasonable doubt,” Green said.
Green, shouting and gesturing emphatically, then turned his attention to the prosecution table and said, “This is not a political launching ground. This courtroom was not built to ruin a political career nor was it built to start one.”
Stipe said Fitzgibbon was an innocent victim of the Girdner family’s trickery. “Yes, my client wandered into Adair County without knowing it was a nest of vipers.”
Stipe also accused the charges to be politically motivated. “Alice in Wonderland had a tremendous dialogue about this case – ‘curiouser and curiouser and curiouser’,” Stipe told the jury. “You know we’ve got politicians on both sides of this case. We’ve got candidates all over the courtroom.”
Donn Baker, U.S. assistant district attorney, in his opening remarks warned the jurors not to be overly impressed by the number of politicians who came to testify on behalf of Draper and Fitzgibbon.
”Look at the witnesses. Eleven state politicians, employees of the state, came down to testify for the speaker, one of the most powerful men in the state. I don’t care who the speaker is. He can gather up bigwigs because he controls the purse strings of state government.”
Repeatedly Baker told the jurors that no one is above the law.
“The law applies to everybody. It applies to the little lady that came up here and didn’t know she had violated the law. It applies to the little man who was so illiterate he couldn’t even tell you how old he was.”
“No man, no matter how powerful, no matter how many governors or secretaries of state or secretaries of treasury that they can get to come into this courtroom, that man too is not above the law.”
Baker also noted that Draper and Fitzgibbon are in some ways more responsible for their actions than are others.
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