Sue Hartigan <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes:
Trial of Whitewater's Hale Delayed
> LITTLE ROCK, Ark. (AP) -- Whitewater figure David Hale,
> who tried unsuccessfully to delay a state trial through
> appeals, will get a week's reprieve because he was
> admitted to a hospital with complaints of chest pain.
>
> Prosecutors were visibly shaken at the delay, which
> came an hour before the scheduled start Thursday of
> Hale's trial on charges of lying to state insurance
> regulators.
>
> Pulaski County Circuit Judge David Bogard delayed the
> trial a week, saying it could take a day or two for
> doctors to evaluate Hale.
>
> Prosecutors initially were suspicious of Hale's
> hospital stay and worried that word of his illness
> could sway jurors.
>
> ``We don't like it. We think it's advantageous to the
> defense,'' Prosecutor Larry Jegley said.
>
> Hale went to Baptist Medical Center complaining of
> chest pains, shortness of breath, faintness and
> numbness in his arm, said defense lawyer David Bowden.
>
> Hale, 56, had a device implanted in his chest last
> summer to regulate an irregular heartbeat.
>
> ``He has very serious health problems,'' Hale lawyer
> Tona DeMers said. ``It is a very unstable, critical
> condition.''
>
> A hospital spokeswoman said she couldn't release Hale's
> condition.
>
> The delay posed scheduling problems for the
> prosecution. One state witness had traveled from
> Tanzania and was to take the 37-hour return flight to
> Africa on Saturday. Both sides discussed the
> possibility of videotaping the witness's testimony in
> Hale's hospital room.
>
> Hale, a key witness in the 1996 Whitewater trial of
> James and Susan McDougal and then-Gov. Jim Guy Tucker,
> is accused of lying to insurance regulators about the
> solvency of a burial insurance company the state says
> he owned.
>
> Hale pleaded guilty in the Whitewater investigation in
> 1994 to fraud and served 28 months in prison. He had
> argued that immunity granted in that case in a plea
> deal protected him from state trial, but his appeals
> were not successful.
>
> If convicted of the state charge, Hale could face up to
> eight years in prison and be fined as much as $5,000.
--
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