Former Creek County judge lists witnesses for trial

Sunday, October 23rd 2005, 11:49 am

By: News On 6

SAPULPA, Okla. (AP) _ Some of the top names in the community are listed as witnesses who are set to testify on behalf of a retired Creek County judge accused of masturbating while on the bench.

Among the witnesses Donald Thompson said he will call are Creek County District Attorney Max Cook and his assistant, Mike Loeffler, as well as such attorneys at Creekmore Wallace, who represented Terry Nichols in the Oklahoma City bombing case.

Wallace used to be on Thompson's defense team but stepped out so he could testify about the judge as well as the star witness against him, court reporter Lisa Foster.

Thompson's trial on three felony counts of indecent exposure is expected to begin Nov. 7 in Bristow. Pretrial maneuvering has each side in the case accusing the other of behaving unfairly.

Assistant Attorney General Pattye High, a special prosecutor, described getting specific information about witness testimony from defense attorney Clark Brewster as ``pulling teeth.'' One of the allegations Brewster has made in court is that court reporter Foster smoked marijuana.

High describes that claim as empty because Brewster has not specified which witness might back it up.

The witness list offers a glimpse of the defense strategy, in part to put on a series of attorneys who will speak well of Thompson.

It is unclear what prosecutors Cook and Loeffler will say_ except to discuss the judge's demeanor. However, the defense summary of its witnesses does get specific about some.

For instance, in 2003 Doug Stall and Steve Chlouber both represented Dennis Stewart during a 10-day libel trial at which jurors awarded $3.7 million to the minister, whose address was listed on the NewsOK.com Web site as the home of a registered sex offender. The Court of Appeals reversed the verdict earlier this year.

That trial is one of three at which prosecutors alleged Thompson masturbated on the bench. Stall and Chlouber will testify that ``at no time did the judge act peculiar or consistent with the actions described by the prosecutor's witnesses,'' said the defense witness list, recently filed in court.

In addition to the attorneys, Thompson's lawyers have subpoenaed 13 jurors on the libel case and two dozen who sat on other trials. The summary of their expected testimony is vague in court documents, but one juror, aircraft mechanic Christopher Cupp of Stroud, will testify that the judge behaved well during the trial and that ``if anything out of the ordinary would have occurred with the judge, he would have seen it,'' court records said.

Other witnesses include Pat Hale, a friend of Thompson's who owns a leather shop and is expected to testify that he gave Thompson a penis pump as a gag gift, and that the sex toy ``was a beat-up old pump that was cracked, had a hole in it and had the pumping device broken on the side.''