Defense quibbles over $1,600
THE CAPITAL-JOURNAL
KANSAS CITY, Kan. — David Wittig and Douglas Lake, whose defense attorneys collected $7.9 million in legal fees during the pair’s first trial, argued Friday they shouldn’t have to spend $1,600 for two books that a prosecution witness will refer to when he testifies.
The verbal tussle about access by Wittig and Lake to the books came on the last day of the trial’s second week. The trial in which Wittig and Lake are charged with looting Westar Energy will resume Tuesday at the Robert J. Dole U.S. Courthouse.
While jurors were outside the courtroom, Edward Little, Lake’s lead defense attorney, asked U.S. District Judge Julie Robinson to order the U.S. attorney’s office to hand over two books that will be used by John Meara, a prosecution witness, when he testifies later in the trial about flight rates.
Little told Robinson he earlier had asked Richard Hathaway, lead prosecutor, to loan the books to defense attorneys, but Hathaway declined, telling him they were copyrighted material. The two books, which contain specialized material about rates charged for aircraft passengers flying between destinations, cost $1,600.
During arguments lasting about 15 minutes, Little said Wittig and Lake didn’t want to spend $1,600 to buy the books, noting that payment by Westar of legal fees for Wittig and Lake had been cut off. In May, Robinson ruled that Westar didn’t have to prepay the former executives’ legal fees, which were mandated by the company’s articles of incorporation.
Little said it was a legitimate request for the defendants to ask the U.S. attorney’s office for access to the books so copies could be made of pages to be used during Meara’s testimony. Robinson ruled that the defendants could copy pages from the books at their own expense.
Robinson cut off Westar payment of the legal fees, saying there was evidence to establish probable cause for a pretrial restraint of forfeitable assets.
After the first trial in fall 2004, which lasted 10 weeks, Wittig and Lake billed Westar for $7.9 million to pay their legal bills, which the U.S. attorney’s office said exceeded the federal prosecutors’ budget in Kansas for a year.
Wittig and several jurors driving separately to the trial on Friday were delayed in arriving at the courthouse due to a motorcycle wreck on Interstate 70 in Wyandotte County west of Kansas City, Kan. Two motorcycles collided at about 7:50 a.m., I-70 was closed for 45 minutes, and traffic was slowed for about two hours. The trial started about 30 minutes late.
Under questioning by Hathaway, James Zakoura, an Overland Park attorney representing large electric consumers in Kansas who has tracked Westar records for 10 years, testified Wittig and Lake had signed Westar code-of-ethics forms forbidding employees from personally using company planes and from committing conflicts of interest.
Wittig and Lake also didn’t acknowledge using Westar aircraft for personal flights when they signed other statements, some submitted to the federal Securities and Exchanges Commission, he said.
Zakoura earlier testified that Wittig family members made 110 flights aboard Westar corporate aircraft between 1999 and 2002, and Lake family members flew on Westar aircraft 144 times.
At one point Friday, Little objected to Zakoura testifying that he could identify the scrawled signatures of Wittig and Lake on numerous documents, some submitted to the SEC. Little asked that Zakoura’s testimony be struck, which Robinson denied. The judge said jurors could measure the weight to give to Zakoura’s testimony about the Wittig and Lake signatures.