DeLay says he didn't get to tell his side

From all I have heard, and read of Sugerland, it figures Liar Liar pants on fire, now if he is just locked up.

By JANET ELLIOTT
Copyright 2005 Houston Chronicle Austin Bureau

AUSTIN - The day after U.S. Rep. Tom DeLay's grand jury indictment, his lawyer and the jury foreman on Thursday appeared to contradict the Texas politician's assertions that he was not given a chance to speak before the jury.

The foreman, William M. Gibson Jr., a retired state insurance investigator, said the Travis County grand jury waited until Wednesday, the final day of its term, to indict him because it was hoping he would accept jurors' invitation to testify.

DeLay said in interviews that the grand jury never asked him to testify.

In a Wednesday night appearance on MSNBC's Hardball with Chris Matthews, he said Travis County District Attorney Ronnie Earle never talked to him or asked him to testify.

"Never asking me to testify, never doing anything for two years," DeLay said in the interview. "And then, on the last day of his fourth or sixth grand jury, he indicts me. Why? Because his goal was to make me step down as majority leader."

On Thursday, DeLay said in another broadcast interview that he was under the impression that he wasn't going to be indicted because he hadn't been called to testify before the grand jury.

"I have not testified before the grand jury to present my side of the case, and they indicted me," said DeLay, according to the Associated Press.

Dick DeGuerin, the attorney representing DeLay, said Thursday that DeLay actually was invited to appear before the grand jury, where he would have been under oath. The Houston attorney was not yet on the legal team when DeLay was asked to appear, but he said other attorneys advised him not to testify ?a decision DeGuerin supports.

DeGuerin said that DeLay may have been referring in the interviews to the fact that the grand jury did not subpoena him to testify.

Gibson said there was an open invitation, but the grand jury decided not to force him to appear.

Questions in August

In late August, DeLay answered questions from Earle but was not under oath, although the session was recorded by a stenographer.

"Ronnie Earle was saying, 'This grand jury is ready to indict you.' I don't know of a prosecutor that would not slather to try to get a target in front of a grand jury," DeGuerin said.

He said if DeLay had appeared before the grand jury, he could not have been accompanied by his lawyer inside the hearing and there would have been "no judge to prevent prosecutors from brow-beating" him.

"The prosecutor has all of the advantages in a grand jury setting. The prosecutor controls the information a grand jury gets. The defense has no right to call witnesses, to cross-examine or to be present to be sure that the rules are followed," DeGuerin said.

DeLay, R-Sugar Land, did step down as majority leader after he was indicted Wednesday on a charge of criminal conspiracy, accused of conspiring with two of his political associates to funnel $190,000 in corporate cash illegally to seven Texas House candidates in the 2002 elections. He remains in Congress while he fights the charge, which carries a maximum penalty of two years in confinement and a fine of up to $10,000.

Politics blamed again

On Thursday, he continued to blast Earle as a partisan Democrat and said the three-year investigation and indictment are politically motivated. He said he will beat the charge because he did nothing wrong.

DeLay will make his first appearance in court Oct. 21. DeGuerin said DeLay will be in court that day but that anyone expecting to see DeLay handcuffed and paraded before cameras in a so-called "perp walk" will be disappointed.

"I'd call their hand if they tried to do that," said DeGuerin. There was no indication Thursday how authorities planned to handle the court appearance.

Gibson, 76, declined to identify his party affiliation, but he has voted in every Democratic primary since 1990, according to Travis County voting records.

He would not identify other grand jurors or say whether the 12-person grand jury was made up of more Democrats than Republicans. His name was made public because as foreman, he had to sign the indictment.

"We had Republicans and Democrats and independents on that grand jury," Gibson said. "They were all professional people. I won't say where they work, but there were state employees and federal employees."

State District Judge Mike Lynch, who was in charge of the grand jury, said that the names of the other grand jurors could not be released.

The issue of whether grand jury names are public information is under consideration by Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott.

Gibson said he worked for 20 years as a Travis County deputy sheriff and 21 years as an investigator for the state insurance commissioner.

In those capacities, he said he appeared as a witness before grand juries. He also said he had served on more grand juries that he could remember but had not been on one since 2000.

Gibson said Earle did not pressure the panel to vote to indict: "He wanted us to listen to the facts presented. If we needed additional information they presented it. But he did not in any way say, 'We want this done.' "

Gibson said the grand jury knew that DeLay had spoken to Earle but had their own questions for DeLay.

Gibson would not discuss any of the evidence against DeLay.

"We felt there was sufficient evidence presented to us over the months," he said.

Travis County is one of the more liberal counties in Texas, with most of the local judges and countywide officials Democrats. DeGuerin would not say whether he would ask that the trial be moved to a different county.

DeLay is accused of conspiring with John Colyandro, executive director of TRMPAC, and Jim Ellis, director of DeLay's Americans for a Republican Majority, to illegally swap money with the Republican National State Elections Committee, an arm of the Republican National Committee.

A separate indictment last year accused another DeLay associate, Warren RoBold of Maryland, with taking illegal corporate money for TRMPAC.

DeGuerin said lawyers for Colyandro, Ellis and RoBold have told him they have not made any deals with Earle's office to testify against DeLay.

Chronicle reporter R.G. Ratcliffe contributed to this report.

janet.elliott@chron.com

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