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Charges dropped against MasonThis article was originally published in the the Amador Ledger Dispatch on July 18, 1999, and is reproduced here with its permission. By Diane Smith JACKSON—In a surprise move Friday morning, gas tank prosecutor David Irey told the evidentiary hearing judge he was moving for dismissal of all charges against David Mason III. The Ione resident had been indicted on a felony conspiracy charge involving the May 1998 removal of a gas tank from a former service station site being purchased by dentist Roland Womack. Specific reasons for his indictment were not made clear but Mason had to hire an attorney and faced 15 months of fighting the charge and dealing with the nonspecifics of the conspiracy charge. Mason's attorney, Bud Lewis of Jackson, was present when Irey offered to drop the charge and waive the 10-cent-per-page reproduction bill on most of the early discovery presented by the prosecution was not related to his client's case but to the larger Robert Womack, Mark Sherrill case. Lewis said Friday that he would like to keep only what he can use in a possible subsequent case. ContinuedThe motion to suppress the information seized in the Oct. 30, 1998 search of the Robert Womack home is still not completely resolved. What was resolved is subtracting KRL Partnership, the Womack heirs, from the quotient. A somewhat different and possibly abbreviated proceeding will begin Aug. 18 at 9 a.m. Judge John Cruikshank said it was obvious, from the video and from defendant Robert Womack himself, that the gas tank, central to the proceedings, had been pulled from 505 Sutter in Jackson. "So why search the records of KRL?" Judge Cruikshank questioned prosecuting attorney Irey about the need for KRL to be involved when it was Robert Womack who coordinated the tank removal. Irey responded that KRL's address was the same as the Ridge Road home address of the elder Womacks, parents to the KRL adult children. The judge agreed to defense attorney Clyde Blackmon's motion to suppress all KRL documents from the proceeding. Defense and prosecution attorneys, with the blessing of the judge, will be getting together and removing all KRL seized paperwork which makes up the bulk of the discovery and exhibits in the case. Blackmon said there is an overwhelming number of documents. He estimated there are some 800 pages dealing with KRL but only one simple file folder, titled "service station," belonging to Robert and June Womack. Who is KRL?The issue of not ascertaining through the investigation, who the principals were, was revisited with the testimony of Russell Moore, the California Highway Patrol, environmental crimes investigator who headed numerous search teams and also conducted the two-day excavation of property at the home of Luke Womack, all supposedly in relation to the gas tank removal. In his testimony Friday, Moore said he came onto the case Oct. 22, 1998 using only reports and some phone calls from local officials and chiefly from Ron Hall, Amador District Attorney Investigator. Hall testified earlier that he did not find out who KRL was, mainly because he didn't know how to access the records using the micro-fiche viewer. He attempted to several times at the county recorder's office he said, but didn't complete his quest. Moore also stated he did not do any on-sight investigation before writing a lengthy affidavit to convince Superior Court Judge Susan Harlan to approve what has been called by the defense, a reckless, overbroad and unsupported search warrant request. Affiant Moore's affidavit should have been done with more accuracy, based on his lengthy written qualifications, Blackmon suggested to the court. The Judge agreed at times. "This guy likes to give opinions and conclusions rather than facts." Moore had used terms like "white collar crime" and "channeled monies" and "desperate to sell (Mason)," in the affidavit to Judge Harlan for the October raid, but did not give substantiating testimony Friday to support those terms. Amador environmental officials Michael Israel and Robert Fourt gave short testimony during the proceeding. Neither appeared to have total recall of statements were less absolute in describing what Womack had been advised as far as county jurisdiction was involved. Womack got a city permit to carry out the demolition in May of 1998. Copyright © 1999 Amador Ledger Dispatch |
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