Ashcroft's protection of Taylor grounds for new trial, Jones says

By Lisa Majors-Duff

Through motions filed last month in U.S. District Court, a Sylva attorney has asked that guilty verdicts against him on charges of bank fraud and conspiracy be set aside because one of the key players in the case - Congressman Charles Taylor - was protected from investigation by the country's highest prosecutor.

A federal jury in Bryson City on April 11 found attorney Tom Jones guilty for the part he played in the late 1990s to secure illegal loans for Chig Cagle, then owner of Sylva's Ford dealership, from Blue Ridge Saving Bank, an Asheville lending institution founded and headed by Taylor, R-Brevard.

The loans to Cagle violated the federal loan-to-one-borrower rule and were secured with signatures Cagle forged on bank applications. Jones admitted on the stand that he knew Cagle had forged his daughter's signature and that he, Jones, had asked his secretary to notarize them, even though neither Jones nor his secretary had witnessed the signatures.

Both Cagle and former Blue Ridge Saving President Hayes Martin have entered guilty pleas and testified against Jones in April as part of an agreement with the government. Like Jones, they await sentencing.

Taylor, who both Cagle and Martin testified was aware of the illegal loans, which totaled some $1.3 million, has not been charged with a crime. While Assistant U.S. Attorney Richard Edwards said at the close of Jones's trial that the investigation would continue, he would not comment on its status with regard to Taylor.

"The defendant contends that Charles Taylor was the owner of the bank in question and knew about... loans made by Hayes Martin to any person in relation to Charles (Chig) Cagle," Jones's motion says. "Charles Cagle and the congressman were political cronies.

"Charles Taylor knew about the loans, knew that they were made for the alleged benefit of Charles Cagle, and yet the United States, through its highest law enforcement officer, to wit, United States Attorney (John) Ashcroft or his assistants would not give permission for the Federal Bureau of Investigation to ask questions of Mr. Taylor," the motion says. "Accordingly, the defendant was without information which would have tended to exonerate him from criminal conduct... because it would have established that the defendant was not a participant in any conspiracy, nor intended to defraud any bank, nor influenced in any way the action of the bank."

In his request for a hearing, Jones and his attorneys said they "would like to have the opportunity to show the court the extensive efforts made by the defendant to subpoena Charles Taylor to testify at trial."

Exactly what those efforts were are not known since neither Jones nor either of his attorneys were available for comment. Requests by The Herald for comments from Taylor were referred by his Congressional spokesman to Blue Ridge Savings Bank President Dwayne Wiseman, who had no comment when reached Tuesday.

"The United States knew and still knows that Charles Taylor was a critical participant in the facts alleged in the bill (of indictment against Jones), and, in fact, if Hayes Martin and Charles Cagle are conspirators, so then is Charles Taylor," Jones's motion reads.

In his motion for a new trial, Jones contends that the court erred when the judge, as part of his instruction to the jury prior to deliberation, read the entire bill of indictment. While it is not expressly prohibited in federal law, including the indictment in jury instructions in state cases is not allowed.

"At no time during the selection of the jury or during trial may any person read the indictment to the prospective jurors or to the jury," according to the N.C. Rules of Criminal Procedure. The purpose of the rule "is to insure that the jurors do not receive a distorted view of the case before them by an initial exposure to the case through the stilted language of indictments and other pleadings."

The government's answer to Jones's motions was filed this week. According to published reports, Edward's brief said accusations by Jones and his attorneys are "simply wrong."

Referring specifically to the charges that Ashcroft did not allow an investigation of Taylor, Edwards again called the statement false.

"Neither the attorney general, nor any of his assistants, barred the investigating agencies or the U.S. Attorney's Office from speaking to Congressman Taylor," the brief says.

Edwards goes on to say that Jones's attorneys had plenty of time to interview Taylor or subpoena him for trial.

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