His Call to Trial Witness a Mistake, Mecham Says

The first prosecution witness in Gov. Evan Mecham’s impeachment trial before the Arizona Senate said Tuesday that the governor had attempted to contact him in mid-testimony during the lunch break.

Mecham’s staff acknowledged placing a telephone call to the witness but said the governor had meant to call someone else and blamed “a slip of the tongue.”

Arizona courts meanwhile dealt the beleaguered Republican governor a double setback. The state Supreme Court again rebuffed defense efforts to delay or dismiss the impeachment trial, and the Maricopa County Superior Court threw out a suit by Mecham supporters aimed at stopping a recall election set for May 17.

The witness, Frank Martinez, a Department of Public Safety officer and Mecham’s former bodyguard, told the Senate during an afternoon session that he hung up the phone before Mecham was put on the line. Martinez had been called to testify about an alleged death threat by a senior Mecham aide against a grand jury witness.

Mecham stayed away from the trial for the second day but watched the televised proceedings intermittently from the office he calls his “government in exile” in neighboring Glendale.

Martinez said that during the lunch break, he received a curious message from Sgt. Bill Crook of the governor’s security detail.

“Bill said . . . ‘Look, Gov. Mecham asked me to get ahold of you. He needs to talk to you, so hold on,’ ” Martinez testified.

He said Crook did not know why Mecham was trying to call Martinez, who was still under oath at the trial.

Martinez said he hung up “because I thought it was improper for me to talk to the governor due to the fact I was testifying.”

Mecham’s office later issued a statement by Crook and a witnessing officer saying Crook had misunderstood the governor’s request when he said, “I need you to get ahold of Frank. I understand he is in the Advanced Training Section.”

The statement said Mecham meant an officer in that section named Dave Holmes.

“It was just a slip of the tongue,” said Tom Mason, Mecham’s deputy campaign director. He speculated that Mecham had seen Martinez testifying on TV and was preoccupied when he told Crook to make the call to Holmes.

‘Mutiny’ Charged

In opening arguments Tuesday, defense lawyer Fred Craft angrily contended that Mecham was the victim of a staff “mutiny” and that prosecuting the governor was like “gilding the lily.”

He described Mecham, a former Pontiac dealer, as a political outsider determined to “clean up” Arizona politics.

Craft accused state Atty. Gen. Bob Corbin of establishing “a pattern of investigating the governor every time he turns around.”

Prosecutor William French argued that the evidence against Mecham “is overwhelming. I don’t think there is any defense. . . .”

Jobs for Fund-Raisers

French said evidence would show that Mecham campaign workers believed that the best fund-raisers would get the best jobs in a Mecham Administration.

The opening testimony focused on the first of three articles of impeachment against Mecham--obstructing justice.

The first-term governor also is accused of misusing $80,000 from the governor’s protocol fund by lending it to his car dealership and of concealing a $350,000 campaign loan--about one-third of his campaign war chest.

The latter charge also is the crux of a criminal indictment against Mecham, who could be sent to the state penitentiary for up to 22 years if convicted. The criminal trial starts March 22.

‘Long Boat Ride’

Martinez spent the morning testifying about an alleged threat by then-Mecham aide Lee Watkins to send former legislative liaison Donna Carlson “on a long boat ride” if she did not “shut up her mouth” about alleged wrongdoing in the Mecham Administration.

Carlson was appearing before the grand jury at the time of the alleged death threat last Nov. 13.

The obstruction of justice charge stems from orders Mecham allegedly issued to Department of Public Safety personnel not to cooperate with the attorney general’s investigation.

Martinez said that reporting the alleged death threat to the attorney general cost his commanding officer his job as head of Mecham’s security detail. But Mecham “treated me very well,” Martinez said, and personally asked Martinez to stay on the security detail. Martinez requested a transfer instead.

Later in the day, the former security chief, Lt. Beau Johnson, took the stand and said that he personally informed Mecham of the alleged threat against Carlson. He testified that he was taken to Mecham’s office by Craft, who at that time was Mecham’s Washington lobbyist. Johnson said Craft advised Mecham to “distance yourself from this matter.”

“The governor said very little” but agreed with Craft’s suggestion that the matter be handled as an administrative problem, Johnson added.

There were snickers in the sparsely filled spectators’ gallery when Martinez related a phone conversation with the governor a week after the death threat report.

“He told me he believed there were lasers up at his office and that things could be monitored within a 2-mile radius,” Martinez testified.

Peggy Griffith, another Administration staffer and the wife of a retired Department of Public Safety sergeant, reported the alleged threat against Carlson to Martinez after she was reportedly unable to see the governor directly.

‘Naughty Girl’

Martinez said Griffith told him that Watkins had confronted her in a Capitol parking lot and told her that her friend Carlson “was a naughty girl.”

He said Griffith reported that Watkins warned that, “If Donna doesn’t keep her mouth shut, she may end up taking a long boat ride . . . it might not be immediately--it might be spring, it might be summer--and she may come up missing.”

Watkins also purportedly told Griffith that he knew “the right people who can help” make Carlson disappear.

Griffith is expected to take the stand later this week.

In the related court action, the Arizona Supreme Court, on a 4-0 vote, ruled that the U.S. and Arizona Constitutions do not give it the power to intervene in impeachment proceedings.

“Absent a clear constitutional mandate, we refuse to usurp the Senate’s perogatives in this area,” Vice Chief Justice Stanley Feldman wrote in the decision.

Chief Justice Frank X. Gordon Jr., who is presiding over the impeachment trial, did not participate in the decision.