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Laura Hall’s sentencing trial delayed
State District Judge Wilford Flowers today delayed Laura Ashley Hall’s new sentencing trial that had been scheduled for March 8, said prosecutor Allison Wetzel. No new date has been set.
In a hastily arranged court appearance, Hall’s defense lawyer Joe James Sawyer asked Flowers to appoint a DNA expert and to delay the trial to allow that expert to review evidence, Wetzel said. Sawyer also said he has two other major trials coming up and needs time to read the court record of Hall’s initial trial and sentencing in 2007, Wetzel said. Sawyer could not be immediately reached.
“The judge asked us to look at the week of May 17, to see if your witnesses can be available,” Wetzel said.
Hall stands convicted of hindering apprehension and tampering with evidence in the 2005 West Campus murder and mutilation of 21-year-old Jennifer Cave. She had served about 17 months of a five-year sentence when an appellate court last year upheld her conviction but found that her original sentencing hearing was unfair.
Hall was released on bail about a year ago pending resolution of her appeals, which happened in October when the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals refused to consider the case.
On Feb. 8, Flowers ordered her jailed again, noting that her convictions are now final.
Hall, who cried out that she was innocent during that hearing while being escorted into custody, did not say anything at today’s hearing, Wetzel said.
Hall had served about four months in jail prior to her 2007 trial.
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Looser demeanor preceded Laura Hall’s outburst
When Laura Ashley Hall showed up in court last week she was chatty with reporters, told television camera operators that she was nervous and smiled as a Statesman photographer clicked her photo.
Her loose demeanor was a marked departure from how Hall, 26, acted while free on bail before her 2007 convictions for tampering with physical evidence and hindering apprehension. Prosecutors said she helped dismember the body of 21-year-old Jennifer Cave in West Campus in 2005 and drove Colton Pitonyak, who is now serving a 55-year sentence for murder in the case, to Mexico.
At right: Statesman photographs of Hall heading to and from court appearances. From top right down the photos were taken in February 2007, March 2007, August 2007 and last week.
During those previous visits to court Hall generally wore a stoic gaze and refused to speak to reporters. At one point she tried to hide her face from the press by holding a scarf over her head on her way to and from court in the Blackwell-Thurman Criminal Justice Center downtown.
When inside the courtroom, Hall sat quietly, often surrounded by family members who were obviously trying to shield her from the media attention.
In September 2007 the jury that convicted Hall sentenced her to five years in prison on the tampering with evidence charge and one year for hindering apprehension. She was sent to jail.
In February 2009, the 3rd Court of Appeals upheld the conviction but granted her a new sentencing trial. The court ruled that Travis County prosecutors unfairly withheld from the defense information that could have raised questions about the state’s only sentencing witness.
She was set free on bail to continue to fight the conviction at the Court of Criminal Appeals, which late last year upheld the 3rd Court’s ruling.
So Hall was back in court Feb. 8 for another pre-trial hearing. Word was that prosecutors were going to seek to have her bail revoked.
On her way in to court, she told the folks standing behind a row of video cameras that she was nervous, though she seemed very relaxed.
Later, while Judge Wilford Flowers took a break before Hall’s case was called, I was standing in the courtroom gallery chatting with someone when Hall approached. Her case had not yet been called and she held out her hand to this reporter and said, “Steven, right?”
I shook her hand. We had met once in early 2007 when I told her in court that I’d like to interview her and gave her my business card. My recollection is that she took it but did not say much and did not even really look at me. I have since called her home several times for comment for subsequent stories, calls that were either not returned or fielded by her father. She has never spoken to me at the courthouse.
So I was a little surprised when Hall began a conversation as if we were old friends. After our handshake, she asked if I had seen the Super Bowl the night before. I said I had.
With no interest in discussing football with Hall while Sharon Sedwick, the mother of Jennifer Cave, was within earshot, I tried to turn the conversation.
“So what have you been up to?” I asked.
Hall shrugged the question off. I asked if she was living with her parents and she said she was. Hall said she wasn’t working, just focused on her case.
I asked why her demeanor was different that day.
She said she has always been nervous in court: “Do you know how many times I have come in here and almost peed in my pants?”
Hall continued to maintain that she has been wrongly convicted.
A television reporter approached and Hall quickly turned to him, shook his hand and asked him where he went to college. He said Syracuse University. She thought he said Sarah Lawrence, a small college outside of New York City, and asked if they had old-fashioned elevators in New York with the accordion-style gates.
“I wanted to go to Sarah Lawrence (College) so bad!”
Now several people I have spoken to —including former teachers, employers and even a former tutor — have described Hall as very intelligent. But at this point in our conversation she sounded like a giddy high-school girl.
The television reporter asked Hall what her goal in court was. She said: “I’ve got to clear my name, baby.”
She said she used to be scared of reporters but came to realize that “you guys are people just like me.”
She said she still holds hope of going to law school, although her convictions would likely keep her from practicing law.
“Right now there is a football game and I’m the football but I so want to be the quarterback,” she said. “Or the coach.”
Then she said, “So Paul Devoe, what about that guy?” referring to the convicted killer accused of slaying six people in two states in 2007. Devoe is now on death row.
Soon Flowers returned to the bench and called Hall’s case. During a brief hearing he set her sentencing trial for March 8 and ordered her bail revoked. He said that because her appeals were up she no longer was entitled to an appellate bond.
When the hearing ended, a sheriff’s deputy began to escort Hall into custody. She grabbed the arm of her lawyer, Joe James Sawyer, and cried out: “Please get me out of this.”
The deputy grabbed her and Hall yelled, “Your honor, I am not guilty. You need to let me go home. You need to let me go home.”
Several minutes after the door from the courtroom to the secured holding area was closed, Hall could still be heard yelling from the courtroom.
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Father who left son in van indicted
A Williamson County grand jury Tuesday indicted on two felony counts the father of an 18-month-old boy who was forgotten in the family’s mini-van and died after nearly six hours in the August heat.
Kesen Hu, 34, was indicted on charges of criminally negligent homicide and endangering a child, both of which carry up to two years in state jail.
Hu was arrested soon after his son’s death, but was released on bond several days later.
He and his attorney have said that what happened in the parking lot of his Northwest Austin office complex on Aug. 12 was a fatal oversight, but did not constitute a crime.
According to a two-page indictment, Hu was negligent in the death of his son “by confining Daniel Hu in a motor vehicle and exposing him to heat dangerous to human life.”
He used several deadly weapons — a car, a car seat and heat — to carry out his crime, the indictment said.
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Man gets 10 years probation in Sixth Street manslaughter
This story has been updated since originally filed with comments from Assistant Travis County District Attorney Buddy Meyer.
Eric Skeeter, who had been accused of fatally punching a man he encountered on Sixth Street, pleaded guilty to manslaughter today and was sentenced to 10 years probation.
Skeeter, 29, was sentenced under a plea bargain with prosecutors in state District Judge Charlie Baird’s court. Manslaughter is punishable by up to 20 years in prison but because of his previous record, Skeeter faced up to life in prison if convicted, said his lawyer, Patrick McNelis. Prosecutors said they offered the plea bargain because they feared they would not be able to prove their case to a jury.
Skeeter has been in jail since his arrest in July for the attack on Nikolas Evans, 21.
Police have said that Evans was leaving a bar with a friend about 2 a.m. on March 27 when they got into an argument with several men at East Sixth and Neches streets.
After that argument, police have said, another group approached Evans and his friend, and one of the men in that group hit both of them. Evans hit his head on the ground after he was punched, according to investigators.
Prosecutor Buddy Meyer said prosecutors offered the plea agreement because they feared they would not be able to prove Skeeter’s guilt at trial.
While police and Evans’ mother last summer made public pleas for witnesses through the local news media, Meyer said many of the witnesses there when Evans was punched could not be located, including a man and two women who were with Skeeter.
Police had secured one witness who saw Skeeter standing over Evans during the altercation, but no witness who could identify Skeeter as the one who threw the punch, Meyer said.
“We felt that it was important to hold (Skeeter) accountable for the death,” by securing his conviction with the guilty plea, Meyer said.
McNelis said probation was an appropriate punishment.
“Of course Eric took responsibility for it,” he said. “But we are talking about a one-punch case on Sixth Street. It’s not like some savage murder.”
The case received national attention when Evans’ mother successfully petitioned a Travis County court for permission to collect her son’s sperm in the days after her death. Marissa Evans said she wanted to have a grandchild through a surrogate mother, which she has not yet done.
Marissa Evans has described her son as a good kid, an aspiring filmmaker with a quick wit who had been accepted into film school at UCLA.
McNelis described Skeeter as a “really nice guy” who hopes to get his life back on track. He said Skeeter grew up in Virginia and came to Texas after he joined the Army and was stationed at Fort Hood. McNelis said Skeeter after a relationship there went bad, Skeeter broke into his ex-girlfriend’s house and stole some CDs. He was convicted of burglary and sentenced to probation, McNelis said.
“He was essentially kicked out of the military and his life started spiraling,” McNelis said.
Skeeter returned to Virginia to live with his parents, where he was arrested for driving while intoxicated, McNelis said.
Because of that arrest Skeeter was brought back to Texas where his probation on the burglary charge was revoked and he was sentenced to five years in prison. He served two and half before being paroled and was living in Austin and working at Goodwill when he ran into Evans on Sixth Street after the bars closed, McNelis said.
Skeeter remains in jail while a Texas parole officers evaluates whether he should be returned to prison or continued on parole, McNelis said.
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Judge orders some of stolen lottery winnings returned; store clerk still at large
A judge in Austin on Tuesday ordered that $395,000 seized in a lottery fraud investigation be given to Willis Willis, a Dallas-area maintenance man who prosecutors say was the rightful winner of a $1 million jackpot last year.
“I feel great right now,” said Willis, 68, outside court. He wants to use his winnings to pay off medical bills, to pay the college tuition bills for the youngest of his six daughters and to buy a new set of golf clubs. He does not plan to work again.
Willis, above right, speaks with prosecutor Patty Robertson in court today. Statesman photo by Rudy Gonzalez. Joshi is shown below right in photo from his U.S. marshal’s service “wanted” poster.
The order by state District Judge Bob Perkins comes as authorities are continuing to search for Pankaj Joshi, a convenience store clerk in the Dallas suburb of Grand Prairie who prosecutors say stole Willis’ ticket in May when Willis asked him to check if it was a winner.
Joshi, 25, was indicted in Travis County in September on a felony charge of claiming a lottery prize by fraud. Authorities have said that after claiming the jackpot in Austin they believe that Joshi returned to his native Nepal.
Because the Texas Lottery Commission withheld taxes, Joshi was given a check for $750,000 after claiming the prize at the state lottery headquarters on 6th Street, authorities have said.
Early in the investigation, Austin police working with lottery investigators and the Travis County district attorney’s office seized about $365,000 from bank accounts Joshi opened in the United States, prosecutor Patty Robertson said Tuesday outside court.
In the last couple of months, Robertson said, they retrieved an additional $30,000 that Joshi had given to a cousin and another person in the U.S.
Robertson said that an additional $300,000 has since has been frozen in accounts in Nepal by authorities there. She said U.S. State Department officials are working to retrieve that money for Willis.
Randy Howry, one of Willis’s lawyers, said he and his law partner Sean Breen would continue to pursue Willis’ winnings, even if it means traveling to Nepal or filing a civil lawsuit.
Willis said he frequently thinks of Joshi, who had worked at Lucky Food Store on Great Southwest Parkway in Grand Prairie while attending University of Texas-Arlington.
Willis, who worked maintenance at apartment complexes, had gone to the store regularly to play the lottery on his way home and to have his tickets checked on his way to a nearby bar where he regularly watched NASCAR.
“I can just see his face all the time,” Willis said. “It irritates me at times but most of the time I am just like, ‘hey, it happened.’”
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Meachum, Montford among judicial candidates favored by Austin bar
Lawyers who voted in an Austin Bar Association poll released Monday favor Amy Clark Meachum, a civil lawyer, over Judge Jan Patterson, and they favor criminal defense lawyer Mindy Montford over prosecutor Karen Sage and two others in separate District Court races. Both are among the contested Travis County judicial elections on the March 2 party primary ballot.
The Austin Bar Association poll drew responses from 946 lawyers who voted online and by paper ballot from February 1 through February 12 in the local contested judicial elections. Not every poll respondent voted in all of the races. A pdf file with the complete poll results is here: 2010 Judicial Preference Poll Final Results.pdf
In one of the most closely watched local races, Meachum, 34, drew 58% of the votes from those who weighed in on the Democratic primary race for the 201st District Court, which hears civil cases. She faces Jan Patterson, a 3rd Court of Appeals justice, in the competition to replace the retiring Suzanne Covington. Meachum outpolled Patterson 492-359.
Montford, 39, and Sage, 44, are running along with criminal defense lawyers Leonard Martinez, 62, and Eve Schatelowitz Alcantar, 38, in the Democratic primary for the 299th District Court. Judge Charlie Baird is not running for re-election to the felony criminal court.
In the bar association poll, 60%, or 433 of the lawyers who voted in that race favored Montford. Sage was favored by 209 lawyers, or 29% of poll respondents. Martinez drew 65 votes and Schatelowitz Alcantar drew 14.
Lawyers voting in the poll favored Austin Police Monitor Cliff Brown, 46, over 59-year-old civil lawyer Bill Gammon, 426-136 in the Democratic primary race for the 147th District Court, a felony criminal bench being vacated by retiring Judge Wilford Flowers.
For the 331st District Court, a felony criminal bench held by retiring Judge Bob Perkins, 491 lawyers favored County Court-at-Law Judge David Crain, 57, and 68 favored Keith Lauerman, 53, a defense lawyer. The pair are facing off in the Democratic primary.
In the Democratic race to replace Crain, on County Court-at-Law #3, which hears misdemeanor criminal cases, prosecutor John Lipscombe, 53, drew 57% of the votes. Lipscombe drew 373 votes to the 286 claimed by his opponent, Municipal Court Judge Olga Seelig, 44.
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Drunken driver who killed construction worker gets 15 years
A drunken driver who struck and killed a construction worker on South Interstate 35 near Onion Creek in June pleaded guilty to intoxication manslaughter in a Travis County court today and was sentenced to 15 years in prison.
David Delacerda, 30, pleaded guilty under a plea bargain with prosecutors, said State District Judge Bob Perkins. He also pleaded guilty to failure to stop and render aid, for which he was sentenced to 10 years. The sentences will run together, Perkins said.
On June 24 at about 1:30 a.m., Delacerda, at right, drove a dark-colored sport-utility vehicle through a construction zone near Onion Creek Parkway, killing 36-year-old Fontino Cortez-Cruz, who was laying reflective tabs on the highway, according to police and transportation officials.
Delacerda did not stop and continued south, prompting Austin police to tell law enforcement in Hays County to be on the lookout for his car, police have said.
Hays County sheriff’s deputies found a burned dark-colored SUV outside of Kyle about 4 a.m., police said.
Shortly after, police received a call from South Austin Hospital after Delacerda had checked in with burns on his body, police said. He was later arrested.
Intoxication manslaughter is a second-degree felony punishable by up to 20 years in prison.
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Former TDCJ worker gets 6-year sentence in embezzlement
A former employee of the Texas Department of Criminal Justice, who prosecutors say made more than $100,000 in personal purchases using state-issued credit cards and stole thousands of dollars from the employee charity collection fund, was sentenced today to six years in prison.
State District Judge Bob Perkins in Travis County sentenced Frances Jones Lawrence, 34, under a plea agreement, said prosecutor Matthew Foye.
“I think it was very good sentence,” said Don Butler, who investigated the case for the TDCJ inspector general’s office.
Lawrence, worked for TDCJ as an administrative assistant in the parole division out of offices in Austin, said TDCJ Inspector General John Moriarty. In that capacity she was authorized to use state credit cards on expenses for state-owned vehicles and for general office purchases, Moriarty said.
At a sentencing hearing in December, Lawrence testified that she used the cards on purchases including an XM stereo system for a family car, an LCD big-screen television, an elliptical exercise machine, a gazebo and lawn chairs, Foye said.
Larence began working for TDCJ in 1995 and resigned in February 2007.
“She worked directly for the director (of review and release processing),” Moriarty said.
The director was supposed to review the purchases but Lawrence had a stamp of his signature that she would use to make it appear as though the purchases were authorized, Moriarty said.
When Lawrence went on vacation in early 2007, the office workers filling in for her noticed financial irregularities and notified authorities.
Lawrence pleaded guilty in December to one count of theft by a public servant of between $100,000 and $200,000, a first-degree felony, and one count of theft by a public servant of between $1,500 and $20,000. The crimes occurred from 2003 to 2007.
The second charge was for stealing money she collected that was supposed to go to the state employees combined charities fund, Foye said. The other charge was for using the credit cards for personal expenses, Foye said.
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Supreme Court to hear appeal on strip club ‘pole tax’
The Texas Supreme Court will decide whether the state’s $5 charge on strip club patrons violates the First Amendment right of free expression.
The court agreed today to review a lower-court opinion that found that the so-called “pole tax” improperly singled out a form of expression — nude dancing in establishments that serve alcohol — for regulation.
Oral arguments will be March 25 at St. Mary’s University in San Antonio as the court continues its practice of periodically hearing arguments away from its Austin courtroom.
Last June, the 3rd Court of Appeals in Austin issued a 2-1 ruling affirming a 2008 decision by state District Judge Scott Jenkins to strike down the law, enacted in 2007 to raise money for sexual assault prevention and an insurance fund for low-income Texans.
“While nude dancing ‘falls only within the outer ambit of the First Amendment’s protection,’ it is nevertheless protected as expressive conduct,” said the majority opinion by Justice Diane Henson.
Henson said the $5 fee was an attempt to regulate the content of speech — a practice that is severely limited by the First Amendment — because the comptroller’s office must determine whether a performance is intended to be live nude entertainment.
The tax is imposed “only in those situations in which the taxing authority — the comptroller — determines, after examining the content of the expression, that it represents the ‘essence’ of live nude entertainment,” Henson wrote.
Chief Justice Woodie Jones issued a concurring opinion) that acknowledged that the Legislature could pass such a tax. With this law, however, lawmakers failed to properly establish their reasons for doing so, he wrote.
Justice David Puryear dissented, saying the fee was proper because it did nothing to limit how nude dancers perform.
“Rather than prohibiting any particular act of expression, the statute simply imposes a fee on establishments that desire to allow the consumption of alcohol on their premises and that provide erotic entertainment,” he wrote.
Read the Supreme Court briefs in Susan Combs and Greg Abbott v. Texas Entertainment Association Inc., 09-0481, here.
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Hey Cupcake files trademark lawsuit against Indiana cupcake trailer
Austin’s Hey Cupcake, an early comer to the burgeoning local trailer-food market, filed a federal lawsuit Wednesday that accuses a trailer cupcake business in Indiana of copying the visual appearance of its retail trailers.
The lawsuit, filed in U.S. District Court in Austin, said that The Cupcake Camper in Noblesville, Ind., operates out of an Airstream Trailer with a large, three-dimensional cupcake on the roof, similar to one copyrighted by Hey Cupcake owner Wes Hurt.
Top photo: Austin’s Hey Cupcake located on South Congress Avenue.
Bottom photo: The Cupcake Camper in Noblesville, Indiana.
“The level, extent and details of copying employed by the Cupcake Camper are facially apparent,” the lawsuit states. In addition to to being accused of copying the exterior appearance of the trailer, the suit accuses The Cupcake Camper of beginning to sell t-shirts that say “Real Men Eat Cupcakes” after Hey Cupcake began selling shirts that say “Real Men Love Cupcakes.”
Matthew Brereton, who according to the lawsuit is the manager and sole shareholder of The Cupcake Camper LLC, an Illinois corporation, could not be immediately reached for comment. According to The Cupcake Camper’s Web site, there are plans to open a Cupcake Camper in Chicago in the spring.
The lawsuit against Brereton and The Cupcake Camper LLC charges violations of the Texas Deceptive Trade Practices Act as well as federal trademark and copyright laws.
It says that Hey Cupcake seeks more than $75,000 in damages, although the exact amount is not enumerated.
Hurt opened Hey Cupcake on West 24th Street in March 2007 and relocated it to the 1600 block of South Congress, shown above, later that year. Now, according to Hey Cupcake’s Website, the business has trailers in the Four Points area west of Austin, in Oak Hill and in Lakeway. In 2008, Hurt opened a fixed store location on Burnet Road.
The online menu states that in addition to $2.50 cupcakes, Hey Cupcake sells refreshments, t-shirts and hats.
Photo credits: 2008 Austin American-Statesman; www.cupcakecamper.com
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Case over 1986 slaying returned to lower court
The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals has returned the case of a man charged with killing his roommate more than two decades ago to a lower court for more review.
The 3rd Court of Appeals in Austin is being directed to reconsider its analysis of the case involving Jimmie Dale White, at right, who was arrested and charged in 2003 with killing his roommate in 1986. Former state District Judge Jon Wisser dismissed the case against White in 2007, saying he did not think White could get a fair trial because so many witnesses in the case had died.
Prosecutors appealed to the 3rd Court of Appeals, which sided with Wisser. Prosecutors then appealed to the Court of Criminal Appeals, whose decision was released Wednesday.
White was charged with murder in May 2003, a month after putting in a rush order for his first U.S. passport, which police suspected he wanted so he could flee the country. He had recently been questioned by cold case investigators looking into the death of Michael DesJardins.
At the time, the case was the oldest unsolved slaying that had resulted in an arrest.
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Man gets 99 years in video recorded child sex abuse
UPDATE 3 PM
A Travis County jury today sentenced Adrian Navarro to 99 years in prison for making a 5-year-old girl perform a sex act on him and attempting to make a 1-year-girl perform a similar act, actions that Navarro recorded on digital video.
Navarro received 99-year sentences for aggravated sexual assault of a child and attempted aggravated sexual assault of a child and a 20-year sentence for promotion of child pornography, all maximum sentences. The jury also assessed a $10,000 fine, the maximum, for each crime.
By law the sentences will run together, visiting state District Judge Fred Moore said. Navarro, 30, will be eligible for parole after serving 30 years.
“I am just happy he’s not going to be on the street,” said prosecutor Joe Frederick.
Navarro had no reaction as he was led from the 331st District Court.
While Navarro was also convicted of indecency with a child, Moore dismissed the count, ruling that he could not be convicted of that crime and attempted aggravated sexual assault of a child because the charges arose from the same conduct.
UPDATE 2:25 PM
A Travis County jury this afternoon began deliberating a prison sentence for Adrian Navarro, who faces life in prison for committing sexual crimes against two young girls, abuse that Navarro recorded on video.
Prosecutor Joe Frederick asked for a life sentence.
“You need to punish him for … the years of therapy these kids are going to need,” Frederick said, “for waking up in the middle of the night and thinking, “Is this video out there?”
“When you go back there and you look at the maximum on each count, give it to him.”
Defense lawyer Amanda McDaniel told the jury: “I am not going to stand up here and look you 12 in the eye and try to excuse the inexcusable.”
McDaniel said she does not know what she would do if she were a juror.
“I am just going to make a simple plea for mercy,” she said. “Thank you.”
EARLIER TODAY
In less than 30 minutes, a Travis County jury this morning convicted on all counts a man who testified that making a 1-year-old child and a 5-year-old child perform sex acts on him was “a very ignorant mistake.”
Adrian Navarro, 30, at right, could be sentenced to life during the sentencing phase of the trial, which visiting state District Judge Fred Moore set for later today.
Navarro captured the abuse on video, which was recovered by Austin police from his computer last year and played for the jury.
During closing arguments, prosecutor Joe Frederick said that the only dry eyes in the courtroom while the video was played were Navarro’s.
“I want you to sit down and elect your foreperson,” Frederick said. “And I want you to find him guilty … and I want you to do it in minutes. Because there is no doubt.”
Navarro was convicted of aggravated sexual assault of a child, attempted aggravated sexual assault of a child, indecency with a child and promotion of child pornography.
Navarro, a tattoo artist, testified in his own defense against the advice of his defense lawyers. He said that he felt pressured into admitting to the crimes in police interviews. He also said that police searched his home without permission and were rude to him, and that his lawyers have done a poor job of representing him.
On cross-examination, he admitted that it was he on the video. His wife, Mariana Garcia, 24, was also on the video, assisting Navarro in a sex act. She pleaded guilty in November to two counts of aggravated sexual assault of a child and is serving a 40-year prison sentence.
During her closing argument, Navarro’s lawyer Amanda McDaniel did not claim that he was innocent. Instead she reminded the jury that everyone has a right to a fair trial and to take the stand in his own defense. She said that if they believed Austin police forced him into making incriminating statements or did not have consent to search his South Austin apartment or his computer, then they could ignore the evidence they obtained during those interviews or searches.
“You’ve got a tough decision coming up,” she said.
Police found what they said was child pornography while searching the couple’s Interstate 35 apartment in January 2009 during a burglary investigation. Garcia gave consent to that search, they have said.
Later, Navarro told police they could search his computer. That consent was captured on video, Frederick said.
Frederick said that Austin police, led by child abuse Detective Joel Pridgeon, conducted a “textbook investigation.”
“This is a man who thinks he did nothing wrong,” Frederick told the jury. “I want you to send him a message.”
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Defendant said performing sex acts with children “bad decision”
In an even voice that revealed no obvious emotion, an Austin man today said making two young children perform sex acts on him was “a bad … decision” and “a very ignorant mistake.”
Adrian Navarro, 30, testified at his trial on aggravated sexual assault of a child and other charges against the advice of his defense lawyers. The sex acts with the children were caught on video seized by Austin police last year and played for the Travis County jury earlier in the day, according to lawyers in the case.
Closing arguments are scheduled for 9 a.m. Wednesday before visiting state District Judge Fred Moore, who is hearing the case in Travis County’s 331st District Court. Navarro could be sentenced to life in prison if convicted.
Despite his confession to jurors, Navarro testified that he felt pressured into admitting to the crimes in police interviews. He also said that police searched his home without permission, were rude to him and that his lawyers have done a poor job of representing him.
He said that after his arrest he heard a detective say: “We finally got this piece of, feces basically, back. Let’s put him behind bars forever. Rude comments like that. Basically unprofessionalism.”
At the close of his direct testimony, he turned to the jury and said: “Please forgive me for any inconvenience I caused everybody out of your lives.”
On cross-examination, prosecutor Joe Frederick suggested Navarro should apologize to the children involved and then asked Navarro whether he was the one on the video. Navarro said he was.
Then, Navarro said, “It was a bad … decision that escalated to the point it shouldn’t have, sir.” “You think?” Frederick responded.
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Laura Hall ordered back to jail
State District Judge Wilford Flowers today ordered Laura Hall jailed and said a new sentencing trial in her case would begin March 8.
Hall, 26, was convicted in 2007 of hindering apprehension and tampering with evidence in the 2005 West Campus murder and mutilation of 21-year-old Austin legal secretary Jennifer Cave. A Travis County jury sentenced her to 5 years in the tampering with evidence case and 1 year for the hindering apprehension charge, but that sentence was thrown out on appeal.
In February 2009, the 3rd Court of Appeals in Austin ruled that Travis County prosecutors unfairly withheld from the defense information that could have raised questions about the state’s only sentencing witness.
The Court of Criminal Appeals, the state’s highest criminal court, agreed with the lower court in October, setting the stage for a new punishment trial in Travis County.
Hall had been free on bond since the initial appeals court ruling. Flowers ruled today that because her conviction had been upheld, Hall was no longer entitled to bond.
When a sheriff’s deputy began to escort Hall into custody, she grabbed the arm of her lawyer, Joe James Sawyer, and yelled “Please get me out of this.” As the deputy pulled her toward the holding cell, Hall yelled, “Your honor, I am not guilty. You need to let me go home. You need to let me go home.”
Several minutes after the door from the courtroom to the secured holding area was closed, Hall could still be heard yelling from the courtroom.
Hall is a University of Texas graduate who was accused of helping fellow UT student Colton Pitonyak dismember Cave, whose body was found in Pitonyak’s bathtub with her head and hands removed. Pitonyak, serving a 55-year sentence for murder, was arrested after he and Hall fled to Mexico in Hall’s Cadillac.
Monday’s hearing was attended by Cave’s mother, Sharon Sedwick, and her husband, Jim Sedwick, both of Corpus Christi. Outside Court, Sharon Sedwick said she was relieved that Hall is back behind bars.
“I’m thrilled,” she said. “This is exactly what I wanted.”
Hall’s father, Loren Hall of Tarpley, Texas, said his daughter has been living with him and his wife. The couple operates the Caribbean Cowboy R.V. Resort. Loren Hall said his daughter has been working at the resort.
“My daughter is innocent,” he said.
A new jury will be chosen for Hall’s sentencing trail. It is expected to take several days, as prosecutors are expected to put on much of the evidence they used to convict her in 2007. The jury could sentence her to up to 10 years in prison for tampering with evidence and up to one year in jail for hindering apprehension.
Photos: Laura Hall ordered back to jail, 02.08.10
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Campaign finance reports show Meachum catching up to Patterson in 201st funds race
Austin lawyer Amy Clark Meachum has cut into the fundraising lead of appeals court Judge Jan Patterson in the Democratic primary campaign for judge of the 201st District Court in Travis County.
Meachum, 34, raised $19,060 from January 1 to January 21, the most recent reporting period, according to campaign finance reports filed with the Texas Ethics Commission.
Patterson, 62, drew $15,416 during that period.
The 201st hears civil cases and is being vacated by the retiring Judge Suzanne Covington.
Patterson, a 3rd Court of Appeals justice since 1999, has drawn some heat from local Democrats for her bid to be appointed to an open District Court seat during her appeals court term. That would have allowed Gov. Rick Perry, a Republican, to appoint a fellow Republican to the bench she vacated.
Meachum, a civil lawyer for the firm of McGinnis, Lochridge & Kilgore, has drawn key endorsements since entering the race, including state Sen. Kirk Watson.
Patterson has raised $123,977 for her campaign since last year and reported having $50,439 to spend as of January 21.
Meachum’s recent fundraising efforts have brought the amount of contributions she has drawn in the race to $73,084. She reported having $42,878 to spend as of the recent reporting date.
Patterson has spent $85,188 on the race to Meachum’s $41,731, according to the recent reports.
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Jury seated in Gobert death penalty case
Lawyers finished selecting a jury today in the capital murder trial of Milton Dwayne Gobert, 37, who faces the death penalty if convicted in the October 2003 death of Mel Cotton in North Austin.
Twelve jurors and two alternates will hear evidence in the case— nine men and five women, according to prosecutor Allison Wetzel.
Opening statements remain scheduled for Feb. 22.
Cotton, a 30-year-old Velocity Credit Union teller, was fatally stabbed in her apartment near Interstate 35 and Rundberg Lane. The attacker also stabbed her then 5-year-old son, who recovered.
Cotton was a friend of Gobert’s ex-girlfriend.
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Judge reduces lawyer’s sentence for lewd gesture
UPDATE 3:07 PM
Senior state District Judge Paul Davis announced today that he would allow Austin lawyer Adam Reposa to serve part of his 90-day sentence for contempt of court in home confinement and part of it in a sheriff’s office weekend work program.
In 2008, Davis sentenced Reposa for making a gesture simulating masturbation while representing a DWI client in County Court-at-Law Judge Jan Breland’s court. The case was on appeal until the sentence and contempt finding were upheld last month.
“Mr. Reposa, I have heard some evidence to today that has caused me to have some hope… as to your ability to conduct yourself in court in an appropriate way,” Davis said.
He was referring to the testimony of four Travis County judges who said that Reposa has behaved professionally and has represented his clients well since he was found in contempt of court in March 2008.
Davis said that Reposa, who turned himself in to the Travis Couny Jail last night, would remain in jail until Feb. 12. At that point he would serve the rest of his sentence with home confinement during the week and in the sheriff’s work program, which subjects participants to a full day of manual labor, on weekends.
Reposa will be allowed to leave home to go to his office, to court to represent clients and to attend to the medical needs of his girlfriend, who is pregnant, and to his future child.
Davis ordered Reposa to wear an electronic monitoring anklet to ensure he does not violate those rules.
“Good luck to you,” Davis said.
EARLIER TODAY
Austin criminal defense lawyer Adam Reposa, who last night began serving a 90-day jail sentence for making a gesture simulating masturbation in court in 2008, sat quietly during a hearing Wednesday while a string of judges testified that his courtroom behavior has been stellar since he made the lewd gesture.
“I think that what he has done in the past… was terrible, abhorrent and degrading to the legal profession,” state District Judge Charlie Baird testified. “I would not be here, I promise you, if I didn’t think he had changed.”
Reposa’s lawyer, Todd Dudley, is asking senior state District Judge Paul Davis to allow Reposa, 35, to serve at least part of his sentence by participating in a sheriff’s office work program or in home confinement secured by electronic monitoring.
First Assistant Travis County Attorney Stephen Capelle argued that Davis does not have the legal authority to amend his sentence because it had already been upheld on appeal.
Davis said he would consider Capelle’s argument during lunch and continue the hearing at 1:30 p.m.
Reposa made the gesture while standing before County Court-at-Law Judge Jan Breland on March 11, 2008. Breland found Reposa in contempt of court, a finding Davis later upheld before issuing the 90-day sentence.
Breland testified during the hearing that Reposa rolled his eyes and looked at her while making the gesture. Reposa said the gesture was aimed at a prosecutor. They were discussing plea negotiations in a driving-while-intoxicated case
In October the Texas Court of Criminal appeals denied Reposa’s appeal of that sentence and contempt finding and refused his request for a re-hearing last month. Reposa turned himself in to the Travis Couty Jail shortly before midnight yesterday.
The 35-year-old lawyer was escorted into a courtroom in the Heman Marion Sweatt Travis County Courthouse with his legs chained and wearing a jail uniform. His hair in disarray, he did not address Davis during the morning part of the hearing.
Along with Baird, state District Judge Mike Lynch, County Court-at-Law Judge Carlos Barrera and County Court-at-Law Judge Mike Denton spoke favorably of Reposa’s recent behavior in court, as well as of his work on behalf of his clients.
It is extremely rare for sitting judges to testify in court as character witnesses. While Baird’s comments indicated he volunteered to come, the judges were issued subpoenas requiring their testimony. Lynch said outside court that judges may not testify unless under subpoena.
Lynch testified in court that Reposa has proven to be “energetic, bright, capable,” since the incident in Breland’s court.
Asked by Dudley whether a 90-day sentence was in the best interest of the community, Lynch said, “I don’t think that he’s a threat to the community… but that’s one aspect of what a sentence is designed to do.”
Barrera testified that he often considers allowing defendants to serve some of their jail sentences in home confinement while monitored by an electronic ankle bracelet. Denton said that before the contempt finding he had taken Reposa aside more than once to talk about his antics in court. Since then, he said, Reposa has acted professionally.
Denton said “without a doubt” Reposa is a talented lawyer. “He usually comes up with a pretty good result for his client,” Denton said.
Photo gallery: Adam Reposa at his court hearing
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Prosecutor Sage takes out $24K loan to finance district judge campaign
Travis County prosecutor Karen Sage has upped the ante in her bid to win a state district judgeship, taking out a $24,000 personal loan to fund her campaign, according to campaign finance reports released this week.
Sage also took in $8,035 in campaign contributions during the most recent reporting period — from Jan. 1 through Jan. 21 — to bring the amount she has raised during the campaign to $55,080. That amount does not include the one-year loan that she took out Jan. 21 from Citibank at a 7.5% interest rate, according to her recent campaign finance report.
Sage is running for the 299th District Court, a court that hears felony criminal cases and is being vacated by Judge Charlie Baird. She faces three opponents in the March 2 Democratic primary, all of them defense lawyers.
One is Mindy Montford, who unsuccessfully ran for district attorney in 2008. Montford entered the race in early January and reported that she raised $16,277 during the recent reporting period, the only money she has raised for her campaign.
The other candidates —Leonard Martinez and Eve Schatelowtiz Alcantar — trail in fundraising. Martinez took in $5,265 during the recent period and has raised $9,765 during the campaign. Schatelowitz Alcantar reported raising $2,050 during the recent reporting period, bringing her total for the campaign to $7,068.
In the Democratic primary race to replace Judge Wilford Flowers in the 147th District Court, also a criminal bench, Austin Police Monitor Cliff Brown raised $2,415 during the recent reporting period to bring his campaign total to $86,650. His opponent, lawyer Bill Gammon, reported no contributions. Gammon said he would not accept campaign contributions to avoid the appearance of impropriety in court.
In the Democratic primary race for the 331st District Court, also a criminal bench, criminal defense lawyer Keith Lauerman reported raising $275 during the recent reporting period to bring his total for the campaign to $1,775. Two political action committees set up to fund the campaign of his opponent, County Court at Law Judge David Crain, raised $8,225 from Jan. 1 through Jan. 21. Those committees have raised $58,180 throughout the campaign.
There are no Republican candidates in any of the criminal district judge races.
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Pitonyak files another appeal in 2005 killing
With his state appeals exhausted, lawyers for convicted killer Colton Pitonyak today asked a federal judge to hold a hearing on their allegations that it was Laura Ashley Hall and not Pitonyak who killed Jennifer Cave in 2005.
Pitonyak’s recent petition for writ of habeas corpus, filed in U.S. District Court in Austin, is similar to one that the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals denied last month.
Pitonyak, 27, is serving 55 years for killing Cave, 21. Hall, Pitonyak’s former lover, was convicted of evidence tampering and hindering apprehension in the case. Her five-year sentence was thrown out on appeal and she is free while awaiting a new sentencing hearing.
Pitonyak’s latest appeal relies in part on sworn statements from two former Travis County Jail inmates who say Hall confessed to the murder in a group therapy session shortly after her 2005 arrest — evidence that was not raised at the trials of Pitonyak or Hall.
Prosecutors have rejected the claim, noting that Pitonyak testified during his trial that he does not recall killing Cave, whose dismembered body was found in his West Campus bathtub, but that the killer must be him.
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Lawyer Reposa heading to jail tonight for making lewd gesture
Austin criminal defense lawyer Adam Reposa, sentenced to 90 days in jail for making a gesture simulating masturbation in a Travis County courtroom in 2008, will begin serving his sentence this evening, according to a statement issued by his law office.
Reposa, 35, shown at right after his arrest, has been free on bond while appealing the contempt of court finding and the jail sentence, both of which have been upheld by the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals. He will turn himself in at the Travis County jail at 10:30 this tonight, the statement said.
In a hearing scheduled for tomorrow at 10:30 a.m., Reposa will ask senior state District Judge Paul Davis, who sentenced Reposa, to allow him to serve the time in a non-traditional manner, such as on weekends or in home confinement, according to his lawyer Todd Dudley.
Dudley said that several judges would be subpoenaed to testify that Reposa has conducted himself appropriately in court since the 2008 incident.
Reposa made the lewd gesture while standing before County Court-at-Law Judge Jan Breland on March 11, 2008. Breland found Reposa in contempt of court, a finding Davis later sustained during a hearing on the matter.
Breland testified during the hearing that Reposa rolled his eyes and looked at her while making the gesture. Reposa said the gesture was aimed at a prosecutor. They were discussing plea negotiations in a driving-while-intoxicated case.
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Memorial set for Travis prosecutor remembered for child-welfare work
A memorial service has been scheduled for Ann Forman, the Travis County Assistant District Attorney who died Thursday of breast cancer.
You can read her obituary from today’s Statesman here.
The service will be at 3 p.m. on Tuesday, February 2 at Wesley United Methodist Church, 1160 San Bernard Street, in Austin.
Forman, 51, was the chief of a unit of assistant district attorneys that represent Child Protective Services in cases involving children seized by the state amid allegations of abuse or neglect.
Her colleagues remember her as a passionate advocate for children. Her friends recall the married mother of two teenagers as a good listener, an avid traveler and a smart and gutsy woman.
She is shown in a picture above right during a trip to London about four years ago.
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Latest comments
Hey Bobby, not that I have any experience, but I’m pretty sure you got it backwards. County is supposed to be a lot worse than State. No facilities etc. … Either way, she has it coming.
‘Cause, honey, here in Texas, that’s
... read the full comment by LSM | Comment on Laura Hall's sentencing trial delayed Read Laura Hall's sentencing trial delayed
Yeah, that’s right…play the system like a fiddle, defense attorney. Have her stay locked up in soft-shell county jail so that when she is sent to hard-time prison, she will serve less time there because of time already served in county jail.
... read the full comment by Bobby | Comment on Laura Hall's sentencing trial delayed Read Laura Hall's sentencing trial delayed
I cannot believe this will work!
... read the full comment by system roulette | Comment on Deal for 12 years for man whose murder case hung jury Read Deal for 12 years for man whose murder case hung jury
Just another example of someone not accepting their responsibility for being stupid—and then goes to lawyers who are just as shameful in protecting Willis’ stupidity. Nothing in the reporting I’ve read shows that Willis had the winning
... read the full comment by Misty | Comment on Judge orders some of stolen lottery winnings returned; store clerk still at large Read Judge orders some of stolen lottery winnings returned; store clerk still at large
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