Cult Leaders’ Lawyers End Talks, Await Decision

The lawyers for two cult leaders barricaded in an armed compound emerged from eight hours of discussions with them Thursday, saying they believed that the next step would be a telephone call advising them of when the cult members had decided to come out.

“We’ve done about all a lawyer can do now,” said Dick DeGuerin, the lawyer for cult leader David Koresh. DeGuerin said that his five days of talks with members of the Branch Davidian sect were at an end, and he was packing his bags and heading for a scheduled court hearing in Beaumont, Tex., on an unrelated matter.

The other attorney, Jack Zimmermann of Houston, represents Koresh lieutenant Steve Schneider. Zimmermann said he expected the siege to be resolved peacefully, and that the next likely step is for Koresh to call and give the time and date of a surrender. But both Zimmermann and DeGuerin stressed that there is no specific time they expect that to happen.

“There are no deadlines, no dates and no specific times established,” said DeGuerin. “They are going to call their lawyers and tell us when they are coming out,” he said.

The lawyers’ statements Thursday evening marked another stage in the long process of coaxing those inside the compound to come out, one that began Feb. 28 after four Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms agents were killed and 16 others wounded in a raid seeking to execute search warrants for illegal weapons. Hundreds of law enforcement officers have since laid siege to the compound, where about 100 men, women and children await Koresh’s decision on what to do.

The Federal Bureau of Investigation, which had been handling the negotiations, turned them over to DeGuerin on Sunday. At the beginning of the talks, DeGuerin was upbeat and said that he anticipated the siege would end very soon. But as the days wore on, he seemed less optimistic and more tired, hedging on when he thought there might be a conclusion to the standoff, now the second-longest in modern American history.

Then on Thursday, Zimmermann accompanied DeGuerin into the compound on the theory that both Koresh and Schneider might need separate counseling because of the differing cases that might be made against them.

At the morning press briefing, FBI spokesman Bob Ricks said one theory now was that the decision to leave may hinge on next week’s Passover holiday. He said that according to the cult’s religious calendar, Passover would be from sundown Tuesday to sundown Wednesday.

“I’m hoping it means it’s time for resolution,” he said.