The Muskogee Daily Phoenix
August 20, 1983
No one wins political war waged in trial of state leaders
By Jim East
Phoenix staff writer
After 11 days and 76 witnesses, the accused, the attorneys, families and spectators left the ornate U.S. District Courthouse in a glare of television lights.
But despite the verdict of guilty, no one – including the prosecutors – emerged without deep battle scars from one of the most bitter trials of Oklahoma political figures.
The vote fraud trial of Dan Draper and Joe Fitzgibbon was one of accusation, after accusation, after accusation.
And little of it had to do with the charges against the two powerful Democratic lawmakers.
The bloodiest of this war of words was U.S. Attorney Gary Richardson, who filed the charges via the federal grand jury system.
Richardson, the lead prosecutor, was accused the day the indictment was filed of playing politics. He dismissed the accusation as ridiculous and nothing more was said. At least until Monday, Aug. 8, the first trial day.
During the course of the trial Richardson, a congressional candidate in 1978 and 1980, found himself accused of receiving more absentee ballots than any one candidate ever has in Adair County. The accusations he was trying to “launch” his Republican political future were raised throughout the trial.
“We’ve got politicians on both sides of this. Candidates are all over the courtroom,” said state Sen. Gene Stipe, counsel for Fitzgibbon.
Richardson also had to defend one of his prosecutors who wasn’t in the courtroom. Rex Earl Starr, a former state prosecutor in Stilwell, employed persons who notarized ballots, but there was never any evidence Starr knew anything about it.
The war with Richardson was waged largely by Stipe, an orator who can spellbind or offend a jury, and partly by Bruce Green, another sharp tongued defense attorney.
Referring to a clan of Adair County politicians that admitted a multitude of crimes, but plea bargained with prosecutors in return for their testimony, Stipe said: “My client wandered into Adair County not knowing it was a nest of vipers.”
He suggested the family of Barney Girdner Jr. receive an Oscar “for this trickery.”
But the bulk of the jabs were at Richardson.
“This is not a political launching pad,” Green told jurors shortly before they began their deliberations Thursday. “This courtroom was not built to ruin a political career, or to begin one.”
Richardson returned fire.
“I’ve been attacked before. I’ve heard it and it doesn’t affect me anymore.”
Stipe, probably one of the more controversial politicians in Oklahoma, left the courthouse early, and virtually unscared.
Green found himself the targets of verbal barb or two from Richardson and Assistant U.S. Attorney Donn Baker. Prosecutors inferred Green had done something wrong in representing some government witnesses before he signed on to represent Draper. No specific wrongdoing was ever mentioned.
Sitting out most of the exchanges with Baker and Stipe’s partner, Eddie Harper.
Caught in between were the defendants.
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