Bill Bartmann's trial continues in Tulsa federal court

Tuesday, September 30th 2003, 12:00 am

By: News On 6

Testimony continues in the trial of CFS founder Bill Bartmann. Among other things, Bartmann is accused of helping CFS co-founder Jay Jones set up a shell company called "DiMat" to buy CFS debt, to make it look like the company was doing better than it was.

News on 6 business reporter Steve Berg was in the courtroom and says the trial at this point has gotten bogged down in paperwork. In fact, one defense attorney even joked in court that he was trying to keep people awake. You could call it dueling documents.

The prosecution wants to show that Bartmann knew what Jones was doing and helped. The defense wants to show the exact opposite. So each side is bringing out a wide variety of company organization charts and signed documents, trying to establish a paper trail. The prosecution had a chart showing that asset sales had to be approved by Bill Bartmann.

The defense meanwhile had a company chart that showed how the responsibility for managing accounts was spread out among lots of different CFS executives, "besides" Bartmann. It's hard to say though whose charts will carry more weight with the jury.

The main witness Tuesday was an attorney who worked at CFS during its final months. He says the name of the shell company "DiMat", was talked about openly at a board meeting before the scandal broke.

The defense, of course, has said that Bartmann did not realize the actual nature of DiMat.