Poindexter’s Prosecution Rests; Acquittal Plea Fails

Federal Judge Harold H. Greene refused Tuesday to grant a defense motion for acquittal after the prosecution rested its case in the Iran-Contra trial of former National Security Adviser John M. Poindexter.

Defense attorney Richard W. Beckler insisted that prosecutors had failed during the first 12 days of the trial to present enough evidence for a jury to convict his client, the highest-ranking official to be tried in the scandal that shook the Ronald Reagan Administration in 1986.

But Greene said the law required him, when ruling on a motion for acquittal, to give the government the benefit of the doubt in examining evidence. Applying that test, the judge said that “the government has shown, at this juncture, enough evidence of violation of the law” on all five counts to allow the trial to go on.

Although testimony during the trial has touched on many aspects of the Iran-Contra affair, the charges against Poindexter focus on only a few events. He is accused of destroying documents and of lying to and obstructing Congress in its investigations of the sale of arms to Iran and the clandestine supply of weapons to the Contras in Nicaragua.

The first defense witness, former White House associate counsel Dean McGrath, did not appear to significantly bolster Poindexter’s case.

McGrath’s testimony focused on charges that Poindexter sent “fraudulent and misleading” letters to three House committee chairmen in July, 1986. In those letters, Poindexter referred the chairmen to letters written almost a year earlier by his predecessor, Robert C. McFarlane. Those letters falsely stated that Lt. Col. Oliver L. North of the National Security Council staff was not helping to fund and arm the Contras.

McGrath, who testified that he never had a conversation with Poindexter about the 1986 letters, said he had approved them, finding nothing wrong from a legal point of view.

But, under cross-examination by prosecuting attorney Louise Radin, McGrath said: “If I had known the previous correspondence was false, I would not have cleared those letters referring back.”

“You would have stopped them?” Radin asked.

“I would have tried to,” McGrath replied.

As he recessed the trial for the day, Greene told jury members that they would hear another witness today, without actually informing them that they would be watching a videotape of former President Reagan.

Reagan testified for more than seven hours in a videotaped deposition in Los Angeles a month ago.