More Popular Than ‘Divorce Court’ : Mecham’s Impeachment Trial Is Hit on Radio, TV

At the stroke of 9 each morning, Arizonans tune television and radio dials to the latest episode of what, at first blush, may seem like the tawdriest miniseries ever to hit the airwaves.

There’s the breathy blonde who repossesses cars and has been married six times, and the powerful police chief she claims was her vain, corrupt lover.

There’s the ex-con with Capitol connections and the grand jury witness he allegedly threatened to send on a long, fatal boat ride, the nervous cop with amnesia and the grandmotherly First Lady with her trigger finger on a .38-caliber pistol, the Watergate conspirator working for Rolling Stone, and talk of the Gestapo, spurned fossils and enemy laser beams spying on the governor.

Then, of course, there’s the colorful governor himself, Evan Mecham.

This, it turns out, is his impeachment trial.

“I thought I’d be bored out of my mind,” said Sen. John Hays, a Republican rancher from Yarnell, “but it’s much more interesting than I expected. It’s more like a soap. There’s real drama at times.

“It keeps you entertained.”

The historic proceeding--the first of its kind in this country since 1931--is lumbering into its second month in the Arizona Senate, where the 30 legislators sit as judge and jury over a man some see as David and others see as Goliath.

Both radio and public television provide gavel-to-gavel coverage of the six-hour sessions Monday through Friday, and it’s common to wander into a bank or boutique and hear this new political Muzak in the background.

Swinging wildly between tedium and titillation, its effect is like a soft-core civics lesson, offering a peek not only at the state’s secret power struggles but at the very private lives of some very public figures.

It seems to transfix even the most unlikely audiences.

Jim Taszarek, vice president and general manager of KTAR-AM, which is carrying the trial live, said he spotted a “biker-looking guy wearing a Sony Walkman” in a convenience store and asked him what he was listening to.

“The trial, man,” came the reply.

The Phoenix and Tucson stations broadcasting the proceedings have no estimates of how many Arizonans are tuning in, but thousands of phone calls and letters have convinced them that it’s worth the cost.

Other Trials Ahead

“I understand we’re more popular than ‘Divorce Court,’ ” said Sen. Jeff Hill, a Tucson Republican and Mecham supporter who considers the impeachment a waste of taxpayers’ money because the governor will face a criminal trial next month and a recall election on May 17.

Mecham is accused of obstructing justice, concealing a $350,000 campaign loan and misappropriating $80,000 from the governor’s protocol fund. If convicted by a two-thirds majority of the state Senate, he would be stripped of office and could be barred from running again in Arizona.

The 63-year-old Republican has denied any wrongdoing and has dropped dark hints of political revenge if he is vindicated.

Last week, while fielding calls from listeners to KTAR’s afternoon talk show, Mecham noted that “a lot of the rats have come out of their holes that’s been after me and now we know a lot more who they are and, quite frankly, I’ll be a lot wiser governor from here on out.”

Aiming Lasers

Mecham suspects some of those “rats” of aiming laser beams at his house to eavesdrop on him and his wife, Florence, but an electronics expert testified, to the defense’s chagrin, that a sweep for “bugs” turned up nothing.

The conservative first-term governor’s defense is built around a mutiny theory that portrays him as a political outsider victimized by negative publicity and power-hungry foes. To drive that point home, Mecham’s attorneys have set out to destroy the credibility of the governor’s chief accusers with a vengeance that one dismayed senator compared to “Peyton Place.”

They trace most of Mecham’s woes to Lee Watkins, an ex-convict and top campaign fund-raiser whose record of assault and robbery didn’t keep him from holding three jobs in the Mecham Administration.

It was Watkins who arranged the $350,000 loan, and when former gubernatorial aide Donna Carlson was called before the grand jury to testify about it, Watkins allegedly threatened to “send her on a long boat ride” if she didn’t “shut her mouth.”

When a defense witness dropped a courtroom bombshell and revealed that Watkins also had stolen unrelated documents from the Capitol, the defense took to calling Watkins “a one-man wrecking crew.”

Watkins took the Fifth Amendment when called to testify.

Private Eye

The would-be star of Mecham’s show was Christina Johnston, 43, a self-styled private eye who specializes in repossessing cars. Her job was to undermine the credibility of Col. Ralph Milstead, director of the Department of Public Safety and a key prosecution witness.

In a salacious, 90-page deposition that came to be known as the sex document, Johnston described a kinky affair she purportedly had with Milstead, her husband’s former boss. State Supreme Court Justice Frank Gordon Jr., who sits as a sort of black-robed referee in the court of impeachment, ruled that Milstead’s sex life was immaterial but allowed Johnston to testify about the lawman’s taste for prime rib dinners at taxpayers’ expense. She also recalled going out on dates in his state car.

“He is a liar. He is corrupt. He is an egomaniac and he is power-hungry,” said Johnston. If that wasn’t bad enough, she added, Milstead also had a Tarzan complex.

When her testimony strayed to how beautiful Milstead had found her to be, a senator dismissed her with a curt, “I guess we get the picture,” but Johnston still wasn’t satisfied. She later called a press conference in the same motel room where she claimed to have slept with Milstead.

“It got so corny,” said Hays, who still chuckles over Johnston’s coy response to the question of how many times she had been married.

“Only six,” she replied.

‘Pack of Lies’

Milstead testified that Mecham ordered him not to cooperate with the attorney general’s investigation of the death threat. He described Johnston as a friend but called her deposition “a ridiculous pack of lies.”

Yet he unwittingly enhanced the Tarzan image by posing for a cover photograph published mid-trial by Phoenix’s alternative weekly newspaper. The photo showed a hairy-chested Milstead in skimpy running shorts, kissing a bare-midriffed girlfriend on a mountainside. By that time, Milstead’s agency was starting to look like the party on trial, with testimony about officers driving squad cars to a topless bar for a pal’s farewell party and about policemen with mental problems.

One attempt to impugn Milstead hit a snag when the officer testifying admitted that he had a history of emotional trouble and amnesia spells. He was asked how long he had had memory problems. He couldn’t remember.

The Department of Public Safety also created a furor by arresting a defense witness the day after she testified on Mecham’s behalf. A judge quickly dismissed the 10-month-old misdemeanor warrant against her. The defense also suspected that the department was behind a leak to the press that Johnston was wanted for allegedly having impersonated an officer when she repossessed a Ford Mustang from a high school student.

After that, Mecham called Arizona a “police state” and his attorneys accused the public safety agency of “Gestapo tactics.” The FBI was asked to investigate the agency for possible witness-tampering. Nothing has come of the charges.

10 Times More Calls

That Arizonans are hanging on nearly every word of the trial is evident not only on the street but in the Senate building itself, where secretaries report receiving about 10 times the usual number of calls and letters from constituents.

“One woman said she and her friends watch every day and she was angry that the senators were questioning Mecham,” said one secretary who requested anonymity. “She said if they didn’t straighten out, she’d turn off the TV.”

When an attorney mistakenly referred to the charge being heard as Article 2 instead of Article 3, a listener called the Senate president’s office and had a correction read from the floor within three minutes.

Occasionally, the judge must admonish spectators in the gallery not to snicker or applaud. On opening day, Feb. 29, the gallery had a celebrity of its own--Watergate conspirator John D. Erlichman, who was covering the trial for Rolling Stone magazine. He spent part of the morning doodling sketches of the attorneys in his notebook.

The legislators arrive in the sunny Capitol courtyard each morning to find anywhere from two to 200 virulent Mecham supporters carrying “Kangaroo Court” placards or singing, “When Evan comes marching home again, hurrah, hurrah!”

Vetoed State Fossil

The senators, after hearing evidence, have the right to question Mecham directly. Sen. Doug Todd, a Tempe Republican, rebuked the the governor for having vetoed his bill to make petrified wood the state fossil.

Todd later said the veto was an example of Mecham’s “small-minded vindictiveness.” The governor ended up apologizing under oath, but many of his supporters clearly consider this type of challenge insulting. They have bombarded senators with so many complaints that one implored the governor to tell his admirers from the witness stand that he didn’t resent their questions. Mecham obliged, but in campaign appearances around the state he continued to urge supporters to pressure their legislators.

Sen. Tony West, a Phoenix Republican, has received “extremely threatening, very intimidating and sometimes almost incoherent” phone calls from a few of Mecham’s avid fans.

“On the other hand, I also got a call from a guy who said to impeach (Mecham) and then commit him to the state hospital,” West said.

Mecham testified about numerous death threats against himself and at least three mysterious break-ins at his home in neighboring Glendale. (Arizona has no governor’s mansion.)

Bomb Scare

The latest intrusion occurred about a week before the trial, Mecham said, when someone claimed to have planted a bomb at the house.

“The back door was ajar when my wife came home,” Mecham said. “They would have come out second best, though. She knows how to use a .38 and she had it setting there on her lap, so it’s a good thing for them they didn’t make it in.”

Mecham said the bomb threat turned out to be a hoax. “Sure enough--woke up the next morning and I wasn’t dead, so it was all right.”