Defense continues grilling the FBI

Wednesday, May 28, 1997 | 10:49 a.m.

Defense attorneys pushed to make the FBI look like a pack of offensive bumblers in their investigation of allegations that video poker operator Fred Goodson and his daughter, Maria, bribed Bankston and Rayburn to vote for video poker truck stops in 1994 and 1995.

The jury never saw the 3-by-5 photographs of Lynn Bankston in her bikini, which were taken to document allegations that her husband took $1,555 from Goodson as "rental" for his condominium during a week when the couple was using it.

FBI agent Clifton Chatham was assigned to keep an eye on the condo that week, and photographed both Bankstons. After Assistant U.S. Attorney Bob Boitmann had Chatham identify several large, mounted pictures, defense attorney Karl Koch brought a fistful of 3-by-5 photos to the witness stand.

"Those were not all the pictures?" he asked.

No, Chatham said.

Koch then showed him one, describing it as one of Mrs. Bankston.

"The purpose was to document that you had in fact detected the presence of Lynn Bankston?"

"I couldn't tell you what the purpose was. I was to take pictures and send them to the New Orleans Division," Chatham said.

Koch: "Here's another picture ... Mrs. Bankston is now in her bikini, isn't she?"

Chatham: "Sure is."

Koch: "You've detected her presence in the parking lot. You've detected her presence driving off. You've detected her presence in a bikini. This is Lynn Bankston - in a bikini again, right?"

And, a minute or two later: "Mrs. Bankston is now in the middle of the beach in a bikini. Now she's walking down the beach in her bikini. You have multiple pictures the same day of the lady in her swimsuit."

Koch concluded with a photograph which he described as the condo door with a surfboard and other beach items, including a sand bucket. "Is this your first surveillance of a sand bucket?" he asked.

"I don't know what you mean," Chatham said.

Goodson's lawyer, Carl Cleveland, and his accountant, Joe Morgan, also are on trial, accused of devising a fraudulent business scheme to form O'Aces and conceal $1.3 million in profits.

Prosecutors allege that Goodson's adult children were made paper owners of O'Aces to hide the real owners, Cleveland and Fred Goodson. Defense attorneys say it was done only so the younger Goodsons would not have to pay estate taxes if their father died.

Two former employees of the Goodsons were questioned briefly and let off without any cross examination by the defense.

L.C. Duff said he worked at the O'Aces video poker lounge in Slidell, and described his jobs. He said Maria Goodson managed the parlor while her brother, co-owner Alex Goodson, showed up about twice in two years.

Katherine Lindsley, a bartender and machine technician for the O'Aces lounge, said that on her shift alone - the 4 p.m. to midnight shift - the machines probably brought in $4,000 to $13,000 a day.

But Chatham, of Mobile, Ala., and fellow agents Richard P. "Rick" Chenevert and Percy S. "Rick" Richard III of New Orleans were hit hard by the defense.

Chenevert was brought in only to authenticate a tape which was to be played later, but Lewis Unglesby, like Koch an attorney for Bankston, grilled him about inaccuracies in his transcript - writing "physical" for fiscal; "Ellie Mae" for LMA, or the Louisiana Municipal Authority; and "Rafael - you know, for Nunez" rather than Rafael Bermudez.

"I read the transcript as I listened to the tape, and this is what it sounded like to me," Chenevert said.