Lipscomb 'free and clear'
Posted on 08/31/2002 6:53:42 AM PDT by MeekOneGOP
Lipscomb 'free and clear'
Bribery retrial wouldn't serve justice, U.S. attorney says
08/31/2002
U.S. Attorney Jane Boyle announced Friday that she would not retry former Dallas City Council member Al Lipscomb on bribery charges, in spite of what she called overwhelming evidence of corruption.
A second trial would "not serve the interests of justice," she said in a prepared statement.
The decision not to retry Mr. Lipscomb, 77, comes six weeks after the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals reversed his 1999 conviction on 65 charges of accepting bribes from a cab company owner in exchange for favorable votes at City Hall. Mr. Lipscomb's record is now clean: he can vote and run for public office again, his attorney said.
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In a prepared statement, Ms. Boyle said one of the factors in her decision was the fact Mr. Lipscomb had already served more than two-thirds of his 41-month home confinement sentence. She also said her decision to dismiss the charges over calling a new trial as a "very close call" that should not be viewed as exoneration.
Mr. Lipscomb said that he did not view the decision that way.
"Exoneration, exoneration, exoneration," Mr. Lipscomb said, smiling broadly into television cameras stationed at his home Friday evening. "If both my hips were well, I'd do a buck dance for you right now."
Mr. Lipscomb said he has no plans to run for political office again, wisecracking that his wife would hire his attorneys to sue him if he did.
He has accepted a job with the counseling organization Mothers (and Fathers) for the Advancement of Social Systems. MASS was founded by Joyce Ann Brown, who spent 10 years wrongly imprisoned for aggravated robbery.
He does not know what position he would take, he said, although he said he expects to help "the ones who dropped between the cracks, trying to get them back into the mainstream."
Mr. Lipscomb also said he will campaign for Democratic candidates Ron Kirk for U.S. Senate and Tony Sanchez for governor. Friday, he wore a Kirk sticker and a Sanchez button on his T-shirt.
JOHN F. RHODES / DMN "Exoneration, exoneration, exoneration," Al Lipscomb said Friday. "If both my hips were well, I'd do a buck dance." |
He wanted retrial
Mr. Lipscomb said earlier this week that he would prefer a trial over dismissal because the judges reversed his conviction on a technicality that left a cloud over him.
Friday, he said: "I think the case was brought about on a technicality, don't you?"
His attorneys said they favored a dismissal rather than take a chance on a new trial.
Mr. Lipscomb's attorney, Shirley Baccus-Lobel, said the decision was the best possible outcome for her client but she disagreed with Ms. Boyle's characterization of Mr. Lipscomb as corrupt.
"That is her perspective, and she is certainly within her rights to convey that perspective," Ms. Baccus-Lobel said. "That is not my perspective.
"I have always been mystified about how you could or why you would bribe someone to vote in a way that every other elected official was voting, in the way the city staff was recommending and in a way that the government ... conceded was in the best interests of the people of Dallas. That, in my book, is not corruption."
FBI Special Agent in Charge Lupe Gonzalez referred calls for comment to Ms. Boyle's office. Ms. Boyle noted in her statement that "there will be no further statements or commentary from this office regarding today's decision."
Former Dallas FBI Special Agent in Charge Danny Defenbaugh, who oversaw the Lipscomb investigation, said, "He's not worth commenting on."
'Good news'
"I guess he's free and clear," said Mr. Lipscomb's co-conspirator, former Yellow Cab owner Floyd Richards, who called Ms. Boyle's decision "good news."
Two members of a three-judge panel endorsed the jury's findings that Mr. Lipscomb was guilty but reversed the conviction because U.S. District Judge Joe Kendall had improperly moved the trial from Dallas to Amarillo.
After the panel's ruling, Mr. Lipscomb's supporters urged the U.S. attorney to let the reversal stand, saying that a retrial would create racial turmoil and strain the former council member's fragile health.
Ms. Boyle said that after the conviction was reversed, her office favored appealing the three-judge panel's ruling to the full court. The U.S. Justice Department's Office of Solicitor General, which must approve any request for such rehearings, concluded that the matter did not legal standers for the appeal.
"Once we exhausted our efforts to appeal the case, we turned to the issue of retrying the case and decided after much discussion that a second trial would not serve the interests of justice.
"The government's case against Mr. Lipscomb is closed," she said. Dallas Mayor Laura Miller, whose 1998 work as a journalist Mr. Defenbaugh has credited for launching the FBI investigation of Mr. Lipscomb, has declined to comment on the latest legal developments of his case. She was out of town Friday and unavailable for comment.
'Spinelessness' decried
One former city council member who served with Mr. Lipscomb said the U.S. Attorney's decision as a way to dodge a politically damaging racial backlash from the black community. Ms. Boyle was sworn in as the department of justice's top North Texas prosecutor this year.
"It was done more in the interest of spinelessness than in the interest of justice," said Donna Blumer. "I think she absolutely caved on this. This was her first real test and, in my opinion, she's failed it. She should not let these charges be dropped."
City council member Veletta Forsythe Lill said she was surprised Ms. Boyle chose not to retry Mr. Lipscomb in light of his recently stated desire to clear his name with a new trial.
"I think this will be an unsatisfying end for many, many folks, including the defendant," Ms. Lill said. "I'm a little surprised that she chose not to retry. I just thought she might feel the need for some kind of closure." Mayor Pro Tem Don Hill had a different view.
"The best of all worlds would have been for him to be exonerated completely," said Mr. Hill.
Mr. Hill said he never believed that Mr. Lipscomb was guilty of bribery.
"The answer is more complex than him being railroaded by the former U.S. attorney," Mr. Hill said. "But I genuinely believe that he did not possess the criminal intent to be convicted."
Mr. Lipscomb remains the "pre-eminent leader in our community" and will be sought out for his "wisdom and knowledge," he said.
Staff reporter Dave Michaels contributed to this report.
Once again, Whitey the enabler, will send the wrong message to other criminals.
The police chief is the guy that Lipscomb used to use to extort the strip clubs. The newspaper and its owner, Belo Corp., know that there is no such thing as a bad black man and NEVER say anything bad about Lipscomb. Maybe they are being extorted, too.
This is one more proof, if any be needed, why the people of America have lost trust in theiri government. See second link below.
Congressman Billybob
Memo to CBS About Bill Clinton
To: The CBS Brass
From: Congressman Billybob
Re: The Bill Clinton Show
Date: Whenever
Let's see if I've got this straight. CBS, the network that put the late, great Edward R. Murrow on the air, is thinking of paying $50 million per year to Billyjeff Clinton to do a talk show. Is that about the size of it?
I can see only two reasons you're considering this. One is, the only "star" you've got left other than the aging has-beens on "Sixty Minutes" is Dan ("What's the frequency, Kenneth?") Rather. And he says that "Bill Clinton is an honest man." No one in America who should be out in public without a keeper believes that. Nope, that can't be the reason.
The other reason is the new trend in radio and television, "Trash means cash." That has to be the reason. Fox is putting on "reality shows" that are so terrible they make "Days of Our Lives" look like William Shakespeare. CNN has signed up a pair of bile-spitting bigots, Carville and Begala, to host "Crossfire." The entertainment programming for the alphabet networks, yours included, are presenting ever more creative ways for anorexic thirty-somethings to do the horizontal rumba in ever more complex permutations.
No doubt about it !:
The decision not to retryMr. Lipscomb, 77, comes six weeks after the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals reversed his 1999 conviction
his attorney said.
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