Sue Hartigan <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes:
LITTLE ROCK, Ark. (AP) -- Whitewater figure David Hale, who fought
without success to stop a state prosecution he claimed
was harassment,
checked himself into a hospital today complaining of
chest pains.
With opening statements in his trial set for this
morning, Hale went to
Baptist Memorial Hospital rather than Pulaski County
Circuit Court.
Judge David Bogard announced the trial delay in his
chambers.
Prosecutors were visibly shaken. One of their
witnesses traveled from
Africa to testify and was to return Saturday. Lawyers
discussed the
possibility of videotaping his testimony in Hale's
hospital room.
Bogard reset the trial for Tuesday, but pushed it back
to April 30 when
another prosecution witness said he was committed to a
golf tournament
early next week in Orlando, Fla.
Tests on Hale would be conducted at the hospital and
Bogard said he
couldn't order the trial to proceed with questions
about his health.
``I can't go to trial with the defendant having a
legitimate complaint in a
hospital,'' Bogard said. ``We can't proceed with the
trial until they run the
tests.''
Hale, the chief Whitewater witness in the 1996 trial
of James and Susan
McDougal and then-Gov. Jim Guy Tucker, was charged in
state court
with lying to insurance regulators about the solvency
of a burial insurance
company the state says he owned.
Bogard said doctors would need 24 to 48 hours to
determine if Hale had
a legitimate complaint about his health. The hospital
said he was being
evaluated Thursday morning; a cardiologist was called
in.
Pulaski County Prosecutor Larry Jegley said witness
Michael Rutherford
had to walk one day, then travel by Range Rover for
four days, to get to
an airport to fly to Arkansas to testify.
Another witness, Joe Nieman, said he had been
scheduled to appear in a
Florida golf tournament for more than a year and
wouldn't being available
the first half of next week. Bogard, who initially was
telling jurors to return
Tuesday, pushed the trial back a week.
--
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1. Don't tell people everything you know.
2.
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