Girlfriend Shunned Lindsay, Driver Says

Juanda Chauncie, accused in a lawsuit of defrauding the late City Councilman Gilbert W. Lindsay, was portrayed Wednesday as a woman who increasingly shunned the 90-year-old politician’s affections and wouldn’t even let him sit next to her in his own car.

Marion Scates, an aide and driver for the councilman for 14 years, depicted his former boss Wednesday as an increasingly forgetful man who fell asleep at council meetings, needed help to dress himself and had lost control of his bodily functions.

Chauncie, 40, who was Lindsay’s girlfriend and sometime fiancee during the final two years of his life, is accused by Lindsay’s stepson and estate of manipulating a frail, sick old man who had lost his mental faculties into turning over money and property to her. Lindsay died in 1990.

In earlier testimony, Chauncie said she never found Lindsay forgetful or incontinent and that he voluntarily paid her bills and gave her gifts, including fur coats and diamond jewelry. She also testified that she never asked Lindsay for money.

Despite Lindsay’s generosity, Chauncie grew less affectionate after he suffered a stroke in late 1988, Scates testified.

“She demanded he sit in the front and she sit in the back when they went out on dates,” Scates said. “He had bladder problems and she didn’t want him to touch her.”

Lindsay sometimes gave Chauncie money or paid one or two bills a day on her behalf. She acknowledged Wednesday that Lindsay gave her checks for $600 and $700 on one day in July, but could not say why. On another day in October, 1988, Lindsay paid a $1,766 bank note and a $878 credit card payment.

Under questioning by Carl Douglas, attorney for the estate, Chauncie confirmed that over a five-day period in 1989, she withdrew $54,000 from one of his bank accounts. Lindsay voluntarily put her name on this account, she said.

Chauncie acknowledged that she gave $3,000 of the $54,000 to her mother, Alberta Hysaw, who is also a defendant in the case along with Chauncie’s sister, Ann Stevens. She also withdrew about $10,000 for herself, $6,500 to pay for work on her home and $24,000 for an escrow payment on a property she planned to buy.

Scates said Lindsay took Chauncie to fancy restaurants because “that was her taste,” and paid the bills when she brought friends along. The councilman ordered his staff to interrupt him, even during City Council sessions, whenever Chauncie called, Scates said. Lindsay would sit outside her home waiting if Chauncie were late for a scheduled date. “We waited about three hours on one occasion,” the driver said.