Sen. Hutchison’s Misconduct Trial to Begin : Politics: Freshman lawmaker from Texas says prosecutor is playing a partisan game. Case may hinge on testimony of one or two former aides.

In a criminal case saturated with politics, Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison (R-Tex.) will go on trial Monday in Ft. Worth on felony charges of official misconduct and tampering with government records while she was Texas state treasurer.

Hutchison, only the 10th U.S. senator ever indicted, has complained that she is the innocent victim of a partisan Democratic prosecutor who is trying to derail her bid for reelection this year.

The prosecutor, Travis County Dist. Atty. Ronnie Earle, acknowledged that he tried to get Democratic Gov. Ann Richards to appoint him to the same Senate seat when a vacancy occurred in 1991, but he rejected allegations that the trial is politically motivated.

“It’s a criminal case,” Earle told the Ft. Worth Star-Telegram. “Politics is something that has been injected into it.”

Political observers agreed that the outcome of the trial is crucial for the 50-year-old Hutchison. A conviction could end her promising public career while an acquittal might give her strong momentum for the fall election.

If convicted of all charges, she could be sentenced to a maximum of 51 years in prison and fined up to $43,000.

The trial certainly will focus increased national attention on Hutchison, a political phenomenon who has been criticized for a country-club image and lack of substance, although her election campaigns have been so scrappy that Texas columnist Molly Ivins calls her “saccharine and steel.”

Hutchison was under investigation even before her election last year by a stunning 2-1 margin. A series of procedural disputes that included dismissal of the original indictments have marked her short tenure in the Senate. She was re-indicted on Jan. 7 on three felony charges of misusing state employees and equipment for political purposes and tampering with records to cover up the evidence. She pleaded innocent.

The original trial judge had to withdraw from the case because he contributed $300 to Hutchison’s Democratic opponent in the special election last year. In a victory for the defense, the trial was transferred from the state capital of Austin, regarded as a hotbed of liberalism, to more conservative Ft. Worth.

Recently, Republican allies of the first woman Texas has sent to the U.S. Senate were fanning claims that Gov. Richards also has been involved in record tampering. Top aides to Richards have acknowledged destroying telephone logs last year that dated back more than two years but contended that they acted to streamline bulging files and not to cover up questionable activities.

The stakes in the trial are high for Texas Republicans, who see Hutchison as a rising star whose landslide victory over appointed Democratic Sen. Robert Krueger gave the Texas GOP two U.S. senators for the first time.

For Democrats, a conviction would greatly improve their chances of recapturing the seat long held by Lloyd Bentsen before he resigned to become secretary of the Treasury in the Clinton Administration.

An important question at the trial will be whether one or two former top aides to Hutchison in the state treasurer’s post who face similar record-tampering charges will testify against her.

One of them, David Criss, already has indicated that he is ready to cooperate with the prosecution. He told reporters in October: “I won’t be the scapegoat anymore.”

Criss was paid $52,000 a year as planning director for the state Treasury Department. He quit after admitting that he did political work for Hutchison on government time. He claimed that Hutchison was lying when she denied knowledge of his actions.

Another aide, Michael Barron, former deputy treasurer under Hutchison, has been accused of three felonies, including official misconduct as well as tampering with records and official evidence. It is not known whether he will testify at her trial.

“People are waiting to see what the two aides are going to do,” said Neil McCabe, a professor of criminal law at South Texas College of Law in Houston. “If one or both of them testify against her, it could be bad. On the other hand, the governor is under attack for what appears to be the same thing. If the defense can bring in evidence of similar practices by others, it would destroy the prosecution.”

Political observers in Texas said that public interest in the trial is lukewarm but would heat up when a verdict is announced.

“Her conviction would not be a fatal blow but a near-fatal one,” said Robert Stein, a political science professor at Rice University in Houston. “Her acquittal would make her extremely hard to beat.”

There’s a three-way race among Democrats for the right to face Hutchison in November, with former Texas Atty. Gen. Jim Mattox regarded as the leading contender.

Although Hutchison had demanded an early trial, her lawyers objected to the first and second grand jury indictments, forcing a third indictment and a delay until the start of this election year.

“She’s eager to get it over with,” said an aide to Hutchison. “It’s expensive as hell, and she’s had to divert attention from campaign fund raising and instead put money into her legal defense fund.”

In addition, Hutchison expects to miss two or three weeks of Senate sessions, possibly including a vote on a constitutional amendment to require a balanced budget, because she must be at the trial.

The trial will be conducted by a respected jurist, former presiding Judge John F. Onion of the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals. He was elected to the bench as a Democrat, though prosecutors and defense lawyers alike praise his intellect and integrity.

Of the nine other U.S. senators indicted on criminal charges, three were convicted while six were acquitted or had convictions overturned on appeal.

Eaton reported from Washington and Hart from Houston.