Tribune-Herald
June 4, 1987
More testify to dismissals by Feazell
By Tommy Witherspoon
Tribune-Herald staff writer
AUSTIN – A former Hewitt man testified Wednesday that Vic Feazell, while McLennan County district attorney, referred the man and any of his fiends with legal problems to Waco attorney Dick Kettler.
During seventh-day testimony in Feazell’s racketeering and mail fraud trial, Larry Goins a convicted felon, said he contacted Feazell shortly after his May 1984 arrest for driving while intoxicated in Waco.
He said Feazell was not in his office, but returned Goins’ call later that day. Goins said he asked Feazell, who under cross-examination he admitted he never met, if he would recommend a good attorney to represent him on the DWI charge.
Goins testified that Feazell recommended Dick Kettler, who is a partner with attorney Don Hall. Feazell shared office space with Hall and Kettler before he became district attorney in January 1983.
Goins, 34, said he ran into Feazell sometime later in front of a downtown Waco office building and said Feazell again recommended Kettler for future legal problems experienced by Goins or his friends.
“He told me that if I run into anybody with any extra money or loose change in their pockets to send them to Dick Kettler,” Goins said.
Goins, who never appeared in court before his case was dismissed by the district attorney’s office, said he met with Kettler about his case shortly after Feazell’s recommendation. Goins told Kettler that Feazell had referred him and testified that Kettler told him that for $2,500, the case “can be taken care of.”
Feazell is charged in a 10-count federal indictment with accepting illegal payments to influence the handling of cases and mailing fraudulent case disposition reports to law enforcement agencies.
Under cross-examination by defense attorney Gary Richardson, Goins admitted he is on felony probation for theft convictions in at least three counties, including McLennan, Williamson and Hill. He has been arrested at least four times for DWI and said he moved to Dallas because of “prior difficulties” in McLennan County.
Goins, former owner of Goins and Associates in Hewitt, a cemetery monument company, was indicted in Waco in April 1986 for felony theft for defrauding people who had paid for tombstones.
He told Richardson he was place on probation on the theft charge and ordered to stay out of the cemetery business and make restitution to his customers.
He told Richardson he later went into the pet cemetery business.
He said he was charged with theft counts for similar operations in the other counties.
Late Wednesday afternoon, a legal roadblock forced U.S. District Judge James Nowlin to recess jurors early after Assistant U.S. Attorney Jack Frels called Randy Roberts to the stand.
With jurors still present and with Roberts seated in the witness chair, Frels, Richardson, and Nowlin huddled at the judge’s bench for about 10 minutes before Nowlin excused the jury.
After the jury was gone, Roberts, a Waco nightclub owner and self-styled “professional gambler,” testified that before his election in 1982, Feazell called a friend of Roberts and said, “He would like a campaign donation.”
Roberts said his friend, Roger Bethke, who Roberts identified as a “bookmaker” picked up $1,000 in cash from Roberts and took it to Feazell at his law office.
Roberts testified that Feazell called Bethke again after he was elected and said he wanted another campaign contribution. Roberts told Bethke to take $2,000 out of money Bethke owed Roberts and pay Feazell, he said.
On another occasion, Roberts testified, another friend, James Kolachek, called him to see if he could intercede on his behalf with Feazell to help him with a recent DWI arrest.
Roberts told Kolachek to call Bethke, who told Kolachek to contact Hall, Roberts said. Kolachek called Roberts later and asked to borrow $3,000 or $3,500 to pay Hall to represent him in the DWI, Roberts said.
After the brief testimony outside the presence of the jury, Richardson argued that Roberts’ testimony is not relevant to allegations in Feazell’s indictment and said, “the inflammatory nature of the testimony would greatly outweigh the relevancy.”
Frels told Nowlin that the testimony is in line with a consistent scheme devised by Feazell to receive illegal payments as outlined in the indictment.
Nowlin ruled that the part of Roberts’ testimony he related in court would not be admissible.
In other testimony Wednesday, Dawn Baldwin, a felony secretary in Feazell’s office, testified about the workings of the department. She told Richardson under cross-examination that the district attorney’s office never mails case disposition reports to the Department of Public Safety, but delivers the reports to a DPS office in the courthouse.
A retired DPS captain and a records supervisor testified last week that the case reports are mailed to their office by the district attorney’s office.
Feazell is charged in eight counts of the indictment with falsifying case disposition records and mailing them to law enforcement agencies.
Also, four former clients of Hall testified about details of their arrests and arrangements they made to hire Hall to represent them.
Catherine Givens, 34, an office employee of the Waco Independent School District, testified she was arrested in June 1984 for DWI and contacted her uncle, Les Rasner, for an attorney referral.
Rasner, a Baylor University business professor and an attorney, testified Tuesday that he recommended Hall to his niece and later received a $250 cash referral fee from Hall.
Mrs. Givens’ husband, John Givens, testified he paid Hall $2,250 in cash to handle his wife’s case, which was dismissed.
Walter A. Gilbert, 31, an M&M/-Mars Co. employee in Waco, said he paid Hall $4,500 to represent him on an aggravated assault charge that stemmed from a disturbance with his wife in June 1984. Gilbert said he was arrested in February 1985 for DWI and paid Hall $1,500 to represent him.
Gilbert testified that both cases were dismissed.
Other DWI defendants and clients of Hall testifying Wednesday were Jesse Moon, a retired General Tire employee; and Lloyd Edwin Perry a railroad engineer
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