Ogden Standard Examiner News
Weitzel's finances questioned
Private attorney says doctor paid fee with donations
Wed, Mar 13, 2002
By NESREEN KHASHAN
Standard-Examiner Davis Bureau
FARMINGTON -- The reintroduction of a private attorney to defend
psychiatrist Robert Weitzel has prompted the state to file a motion
requiring the doctor to prove his indigence.
Meanwhile, an Aug. 5 trial date was set Tuesday for Weitzel, who is
accused of manslaughter and negligent homicide in the death of five
patients at Davis Hospital and Medical Center's
geriatric-psychiatric unit during a 16-day span that began in
December 1995.
Weitzel's private attorney Wally Bugden said during a Farmington 2nd
District Court hearing that he believed he could put to rest
concerns that the doctor was not broke.
Bugden was retained as Weitzel's co-defense attorney earlier this
year through a $100,000 anonymous donation funneled to a Washington,
D.C., legal center. Bugden had also served as Weitzel's attorney
briefly last year until the doctor could no longer afford to pay
him.
Weitzel has received another $12,000 through private donations he
solicited through his Web site, but that money has already gone to
pay earlier fees, Bugden said.
The issue of Weitzel's indigency is important because Weitzel's
other attorney, Glen Cella, is serving as a public defender paid for
by the state. Davis County must also bear the costs of special
investigators or expert witnesses if Weitzel is indigent.
Bugden said a private donor had tried to donate the money to Davis
County on Weitzel's behalf, but prosecutors refused to accept the
funds.
This is the doctor's second trial. In 2000, during a six-week trial,
a jury found Weitzel guilty of lesser offenses on two counts of
second-degree manslaughter and three misdemeanor counts of negligent
homicide after the state had sought convictions on five counts of
first-degree murder.
But that conviction was overturned in January 2001, when Judge
Thomas Kay, later removed from the case, ruled that the prosecutors
had withheld exculpatory evidence from the defense.
Weitzel must still answer to the charges he was found guilty of, but
he has said he had spent everything he had paying $500,000 in
defense fees in that first trial. His second trial is expected to
last at least three weeks.
Davis County prosecutor Steve Major said Weitzel had disclosed
receiving the $112,000 on his personal Web site, and that amount was
mentioned again during a segment about the case that aired on the
CBS program "60 Minutes" earlier this month.
Assistant Attorney General Charlene Barlow, state co-counsel, said
she did not know of another case in which a private attorney worked
along side a state-funded attorney.
"The question is, do you have a right to have the state pay for your
attorney if you can pay for your own?" Barlow said after the
hearing.
If the two sides fail to resolve the matter, 2nd District Judge
Rodney Page said he would decide the issue later. Other topics
discussed during the hearing were when the two sides would be ready
to take the case to trial, and the turning over of documents both
sides need.
The Aug. 5 trial date was set after prosecutors said they needed
more time to file motions on introducing evidence, which was not
permitted in the first trial held before Kay.
Barlow also said prosecutors would need to find a new expert witness
on geriatric care because the doctor who had served on the first
trial said he could not dedicate the time needed to testify a second
time around.
Bugden reluctantly agreed on the trial date after saying he would be
ready by June. He also criticized prosecutors for what he
characterized as their desire to delay the trial.
"I think there is something ironic about the state not being able to
proceed in June," said Bugden.
"It is the state that has been persecuting this man for years, now
they won't be ready by June?"
The next hearing date for motion arguments is scheduled May 24 at 9
a.m.
Copyright ©2001, Ogden Publishing Corporation
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