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Wednesday, February 1, 2006
Spectator arrested for threatening witness
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
The federal corruption trial of former Atlanta Mayor Bill Campbell was delayed Wednesday morning when a spectator was removed from the courtroom and arrested by federal marshals for threatening a witness.
The man identified as Paul Debnam was kept in custody for most of the afternoon but released without charges being pressed by the U.S. Attorney. He wrote an apology to the court. U.S. Marshal Richard Mecum said he was released because “there were not witnesses to his phone calls. If there were witnesses, he could be charged with making terroristic threats. Without witnesses, we had nothing.�
U. S. Attorney’s office spokesman Patrick Crosby said Debnam allegedly threatened witness Dewey Clark, who has been on the witness stand since Monday. During the midmorning break, Clark told his FBI agent-escort, John Iocavelli, that he had been threatened by a spectator.
Iocavelli went into the gallery and accosted Debnam as spectators were leaving the courtroom for a 15-minute break. The FBI agent told the marshals, “He has called the witness and told him not to testify,” the agent said, pointing at Debnam. “And just now, he pointed at the witness and did this,” said Iocavelli, making a slashing motion as his throat.
Court was delayed about 15 minutes.
When court convened around 11 a.m., a new witness took the stand, Campbell’s former executive assistant, Serena Skaggs.
Skaggs testified she overhead a conversation between the mayor and Dewey Clark, who she said were discussing a bribe from nightclub owner Michael Childs, who was seeking a liquor license for a third nightclub he wanted to open. She said she heard Clark say to the mayor: “You know you took that boy’s money.” The mayor responded, “Technically, I didn’t; you did,” Skaggs testified.
For the last three days, Clark has testified he served as the go-between for delivering bribes from Childs to Campbell and that he saw the former mayor take cash payoffs from others. Clark lived in for years in the basement of Campbell’s Inman Park home and for six of Campbell’s eight years in office, served as his personal assistant at City Hall. He said on the witness stand that he felt like a member of the mayor’s family during that time.
It is not known what relationship, if any, Debnam may have with the former mayor.
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