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A Devil's Deal in Dallas Court

A terrible crime plus skaky evidence tempts prosecutors to play a secret game of "let's make a deal"

A A A Comments (7) By Glenna Whitley Thursday, Sep 27 2007

...continued from page 6

The revelation that his Pillsbury Doughboy was a vicious rapist "kind of ruined my weekend," says Loving, now a federal prosecutor in San Antonio. "For 20 years I thought I'd gotten an innocent person off."

Warder says she was "extremely disappointed" to hear about the DNA test. "He duped me. He lied in court, and the jury believed him. He fooled a lot of sophisticated people. Looking back, I certainly wish we had the benefit of what we have now."

Mark Graham

Mike Ware is reviewing the Crosby murder to determine if Clay Chabot will be retried.

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In semi-retirement after losing the last election, Warder isn't convinced that Chabot had nothing to do with the crime.

Chabot remains in a Texas prison while Craig Watkins decides if the case against him will be dismissed. Even if the case isn't dismissed, Chabot will get a new trial.

"What's important is now, regardless of what happened back then, we've arrested and charged Pabst and we intend to try him," says Mike Ware, special assistant in charge of conviction integrity, a post newly created by Watkins. "And if we make any deals in this case or any other case, they are going to be disclosed and they are going to be aboveboard."

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Debbie 02/20/2008 9:01:00 PM

Scarily, Ms. Warder is now a candidate for Cooke County District Attorney. She was recruited heavily by the current Cooke County District Judge (up for re-election herself). Several of us have been passing out the "Devil's Deal" article (among others) to anyone who will stand still long enough to read it. We're concerned if she did what's alleged in that article - and apparently she did according to affidavit testimony - what does that mean for us up here? Wish the Observer was more wide-spread up here!

Making The Walls Transparent 02/16/2008 8:22:00 PM

On April 21, 2008 Dallas District Attorney Craig Watkins and his administration will attempt to railroad Lakeith Amir-Sharif ("Sharif") to prison for the next 10, 20 or 30 years, for crimes Mr. Watkins, his staff and others know beyond any reasonable doubt that Sharif is innocent of. The belief by many following this travesty of justice is that Mr. Watkins and staff feel pressured to obtain a conviction after having all but destroyed this young man's life based sloppy police investigations, unethical judges and the knowingly perjured testimony of an irrate ex-girlfriend by the name of Cathy Jonette Hawkins. This and other stories can be found on the website of Making The Walls Transparent and vidoes posted on youtube with the help of Kay Lee, co-founder of MTWT and Writer, Musician, Artist, Activist Mark Angelo Cummings. The time is now for Mr. Watkins to stop this miscarriage of justice and drop the charges against Sharif or forever have this stain of justice tarnish his legacy as Texas' first African-American. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sXe40XLPGjk http://www.angelfire.com/crazy4/texas/taxpayerquestions.html

Mark F. Barnes 01/04/2008 3:02:00 PM

This has been a common practice in the Dallas County Courthouse for more than 60 years. The shady backroom deals that lead to convictions, some innocent some not, however this is a tragic turn of events for a man, who was wrongly convicted and half of his life spent proving his innocence. Not sure where the earlier poster got the impression that the DA had evidence of two people at the crime scene. There was not one shred of physical evidence that put Clay Chabot at the scene of the crime. They had a blood typing test from the original rape kit that was the most common blood type in the world so it could have linked 50 million suspects, including Pabst. The total base of the prosecutions case was on the testimony of Pabst. Now with the new DNA evidence we find out the Pabst entire story was a fabrication. Pabst said Chabot raped and killed the Crosby, when in fact, according to the DNA results, Pabst did the raping, which coincides with Cabot's testimony that he didn't rape the victim, and leaves us to believe he had no part in the crime whatsoever, which Chabot has claimed all along. There was the statement by Sandra Pabst Chabot that her brother had borrowed her gun and returned it fully discharged of all the shells on the night of the murder. There was a pawn ticket, by Gerald Pabst of the radio (boom-box) taken from the scene of the crime. There was a T-shirt belonging to Graham with traces of human blood on it, that was never disclosed as to who the blood belonged to, in the possession of Pabst in his vehicle, at the time of his arrest. There was no physical evidence that put Chabot at the scene of the crime, none whatsoever. The fact of the matter is the weapon involved didn't belong to Clay Chabot, it belonged to his wife, the sister of Gerald Pabst. If you want to try and implicate Clay on the weapon, you have to implicate Sandra, because it was her gun not clay's. Not one fingerprint at the scene, not a hair, nothing linking Clay Chabot to the scene. The oath of the jury is "Guilty beyond a reasonable doubt", there is nothing but doubt in this case, as far as Clay Chabot is concerned. DNA links Pabst to raping the victim with 99.99% certainty, the pawn ticket links Pabst to the stolen property from the scene of the Rape and Murder. Pabst own sister testified that he had borrowed her gun that day and returned it afterwards, fully discharged or ammo, the same gun that was used to kill Crosby. The DA perjured herself in court when she denied under oath that there was no deal made with Pabst, in returned for his fabricated story used to convict Chabot, when in fact there was a deal. If there is not reasonable doubt in the Clay Chabot conviction than God help us.

El Rey 10/10/2007 6:14:00 PM

"What exactly was Warder's choice? She had 2 people both at the scene, both involved - how is either one of them that innocence? Both were involved in a Narcotics related death - How is either one of them a candidate for our sympathy? Warder would be the first to tell everyone, she should have picked the other one - but everyone has 20/20 hindsight now don't they? Comment by Wick Olson � October 6, 2007 @ 03:53PM" Warder could have prosecuted them both for the murder if she wanted to. It might be harder to win and the jury would have seen two suspects and judged for themselves. But was the thought of putting one in the win column more of a priority? Could her decision to prosecute, to "get the win", be based on who she thought she could best get the conviction? Was the wiry speedfreak easier to prosecute than the non-threatening, soft-spoken "Pillsbury Doughboy"? I am not so naive to think that political motivations and concern for a winning record do not come into play. These prosecutors, most of them being the bottom of the barrel in thier law schools who could not find a job with a law firm, are just looking for enough successful prosecutions to get promoted or get the bigger, better job offer. They do not care if they convict the wrong person, they ignore facts, ala Michael Nifong, to get the win. Ask yourself why companies that settle out of court to avoid "cost of litigation" or bad publicity do what they do. Justice is blind to backroom deals and this skirting of the Brady rule is as underhanded as any other criminal conspiracy. Prosecutors that engage in this sort of "non-deal" should be prosecuted themselves. They are why the fake drug scandal went on for so long and why so many Dallas "criminals" have been exonerated lately.

Wick Olson 10/06/2007 10:53:00 PM

What exactly was Warder's choice? She had 2 people both at the scene, both involved - how is either one of them that innocence? Both were involved in a Narcotics related death - How is either one of them a candidate for our sympathy? Warder would be the first to tell everyone, she should have picked the other one - but everyone has 20/20 hindsight now don't they?

Larry Owens 10/03/2007 9:03:00 PM

When the order taker at McDonald's messes up your order, the worse that can happen is that you maybe get a cheeseburger instead of a hamburger. When the power company looses your check for last months power bill, the worse that can happen is that they cut off your electricity and you are inconvenienced until you get it back on. When the IRS messes up your tax return, the worse that can happen is owe a bunch of money that you don't have. When the people of Law Enforcement and Jurisprudence messes up your case, the worse that can happen is that you END UP IN PRISON, FORFEIT YOUR FREEDOM, AND GET GANGED RAPED FOR THE REST OF YOUR LIFE!!!! How the hell can you be so damned cavalier about the f@ck ups by Dallas Police and Dallas Prosecutors? I could understand if it were honest mistakes, but when it is a result of cops and prosecutors circumventing the law or just being plain lazy, they should be prosecuted themselves, sent to prison, and made to pay restitution to the innocent people they locked up. We are talking about burgers and fries here... these are people's lives RUINED!!!

JOE 10/03/2007 12:25:00 PM

These people in law inforcement jobs and other public office`s are just like everyone else in world , some good some not so good , why would anyone even be surprised at any thing that goe`s on in those offices ...

A Devil's Deal in Dallas Court

A terrible crime plus skaky evidence tempts prosecutors to play a secret game of "let's make a deal"

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