If you haven't been keeping up with the news in San Antonio, prosecutors there obtained an amazing conviction. A local lawyer's wife had affairs with four men. The lawyer (Ted Roberts) then threatened each of the men with a lawsuit (he didn't file, he just threatened) unless they paid him certain amounts of money. The four men paid in different amounts.

DA Susan Reed went way out on a limb by prosecuting the case (there was a story in People Magazine about the case). A very interesting theory of theft.

Here is how it came out:

Roberts guilty of two counts
By Maro Robbins
Express-News Staff Writer

Equally appalled by both the accused and his victims, a jury split its verdict Wednesday, finding that attorney Ted H. Roberts stole from two of the four men who had affairs with his wife.

Jurors didn't believe Roberts was sincere in the way he confronted the men and demanded compensation, alleging his marriage had been damaged, according to the panel's foreman.

At the same time, they felt the men got what they deserved, said the foreman Doug Eckhardt.

The key to conviction was that Roberts eventually pocketed $100,000 from two men who had given him the money as a contribution toward charity.

The jury found Roberts guilty on those two counts. It acquitted him on a count involving a third man, who said he didn't care whether his $10,000 went to charity.

It also acquitted him on the count involving a fourth man who reimbursed Roberts for expenses the attorney blamed on the affairs, such as paying a private investigator.

Roberts' attorneys promised to appeal.

The theft charge carries a possible penalty of 2 to 20 years. Sentencing in front of State District Judge Sid Harle is scheduled for next month.

After reading the story from the Texas Lawyer, quoting JB, I began following the story. The prosecution did an outstanding job in that case. A very difficult case to prosecute that obviously required following some complex paper trials. Job well done, can't wait to read about it in THE PROSECUTOR.

As an aside, I was surprised to see Broadus Spivey, former President of the State Bar, testify in the case. The judge said he would let witness Spivey opine as to whether he thought the defendant was guilty of theft, but would also let a prosecutor (or presumably a legal scholar or perhaps a noted PI defense or plaintiff's lawyer) be called to the stand to rebut the question of whether they were guilty. The defense decided not to ask Spivey the question.

In the blog section of the San Antonio Express at the My SA page, there is some interesting commentary regarding the trial.

Here's a link to the blog:

http://blogs.mysanantonio.com/weblogs/happens/roberts_trial/

It is nice that the jury explained for the media why they decided as they did, 2 counts guilty and 2 counts not guilty. I think that would go a long way towards meeting sufficiency claims.

After final argument:

A quote [from Ted Roberts] filled the rest of the screen with words that a private investigator had recalled Roberts saying when he discovered his wife's e-mails to her lovers:

"When I confront them, they'd better bring their checkbook because they're going to be writing a check to my favorite charity ... me."

I have a pretty good idea of who the State might want to have called as an rebuttal expert witness had the defense decided to ask Spivey to opine on whether Spivey thought the defendant was guilty of theft...A noted prosecutor, perhaps?

Have not been following the case so Im not sure as to the facts. Is it basically the wife would have affairs and the husband would threaten to go public by sueing the men in civil court for alienation of affection? That sounds like a really tuff criminal case to prove. Didnt the defendants have the right to sue under a legal cause of action in civil court and to reach settlement agreements before hand? Did the husband and wife threaten the men with anything more than the filing of a civil suit? That's a great win. Are they trying the wife next?

Lawyer Roberts gets 5 years for extortion

Web Posted: 06/05/2007 01:17 AM CDT

Maro Robbins
Express-News
The lawyer stood silently, searching for words to assess the ruinous events that had led him to court on Monday: his wife's adultery, the revenge he'd exacted on her lovers and how that had resulted in his conviction.

This was Ted H. Roberts' chance to speak. In a moment, the judge would send the 50-year-old to prison for five years.

Roberts' sentences formed haltingly, separated by pregnant pauses. Most were barely more than a mumble so that spectators � even his wife in the back row of the courtroom � had to tilt forward to hear.

"It is incredible to me after I sought protection from the law that ... I face sentencing without having committed a crime," he told the court.

Roberts made it clear that he believed the law was on his side, regardless of a jury's finding that in 2002 he'd swindled two of the men who'd slept with his wife.

A trial in March had shown how Roberts squeezed $155,000 from an accountant, a lawyer and two executives after he threatened to pursue litigation that would alert their wives and employers to their philandering.


Roberts dubbed his trial a "pretense of due process." He also blamed his conviction on "publicity and politics," as well as general loathing for lawyers, and called himself "a victim of prosecution."

When he sat down, his attorneys � Mike McCrum and Alan Brown � each took up his cause with speeches of their own.

Earlier, McCrum had quoted a half-dozen letters. Written by friends, pastors and a former employee, they'd praised Roberts as a brilliant attorney, an empathetic friend and a dedicated family man.

Later, McCrum hammered at the evidence and verdict, at one point denouncing the jury's decision as inconsistent.


The jurors had found that Roberts stole $100,000 from two of the men after assuring them that their payments would go to a children's charity. Instead, the money helped him buy a house and finance his law practice.

But the jury had also acquitted Roberts on charges involving a third and a fourth man. One had known his money would repay Roberts for expenses, such as hiring a private investigator to uncover proof of his wife's adultery.

The other man had testified he didn't care where his money went. All he wanted was Roberts' silence.

"The state's case is tenuous at best," McCrum said. "The level of evidence is so slim."

Prosecutors, in turn, attacked Roberts by pointing to an unrelated reprimand he'd received in 2002 for mishandling a medical malpractice claim.

They also produced a Victoria teacher who claimed Roberts had offered to represent her for free in 2005 if she'd tell him "deep, dark," sexual secrets about the city's affluent residents.

"This is who you have before you," Assistant District Attorney Tamara Strauch told the judge. "Somebody who wants sexual secrets and then wants to use them against people to blackmail and extort them."

Then, after 2� hours of testimony and argument, it was state District Judge Sid Harle's turn. He dismissed the bizarre and racy circumstances of the case as unimportant.

"If you take away the lascivious details ... we're dealing with a simple theft case," the judge said.

Its one complication, he said, was that it lacked sympathetic victims. Harle said he saw no victims in the case except the paramours' families and Roberts' family.

"And, frankly, you brought that on yourself," Harle told the lawyer.

Harle wasn't inclined to order Roberts to repay the men. So that left him one option for punishment: prison. But in sentencing Roberts to five years behind bars, the judge pointed to a possible escape hatch.

He suggested that he would consider changing the sentence to probation if Roberts would deposit a significant amount of money into a charity for children, just as he'd originally promised to do.

Before the bailiffs escorted Roberts away in handcuffs, the judge offered two predictions: He said the case would continue to be litigated for some time. And that Roberts would lose his livelihood.

Indeed, the defense's motion for a new trial will come within 30 days. Should that fail, more appeals are all but certain to follow. Meanwhile, Roberts' wife, Mary S. Roberts, faces similar theft charges and is awaiting trial.

Additionally, felony theft convictions typically trigger disciplinary proceedings by the State Bar of Texas. Roberts at a minimum faces a suspension and could lose his law license.

"I don't understand why lawyers take a chance" by filing dubious or risky lawsuits, Harle said, before offering a nugget of advice to the various lawyers in the courtroom.

"If there's any question, walk away from it."

How long will it be before the appellate process has concluded and a mandate issued? Three years? More?

Convicted attorney to be out on bond during appeal

Web Posted: 06/06/2007 01:03 AM CDT

Maro Robbins
Express-News
Attorney Ted H. Roberts' five-year prison sentence was less than 24 hours old Tuesday when the lawyer secured a chance for at least temporary freedom.
Setting a $50,000 bond, state District Judge Sid Harle agreed to let Roberts go home while the lawyer appeals a jury's finding that he stole $100,000 from his wife's lovers.

"It's not a risk," said Alan Brown, one of Roberts' attorneys. "I don't pick Ted to run off. And I think he's got a good chance on appeal."

Brown and his partner in the case, Mike McCrum, posted the bond for their bankrupt client, but the 50-year-old remained in jail Tuesday evening while the paperwork apparently was still being processed.

The lawyer's release surprised few, if any, in the courthouse.

Anyone facing fewer than 10 years in prison is eligible for bond during an appeal, and Roberts already had been allowed to remain free while awaiting trial.

The trial ended in March after showing that Roberts threatened his wife's paramours with embarrassing litigation and ultimately collected $155,000 from them.

Jurors convicted Roberts on charges involving two of the men and acquitted him on the counts dealing with two others.

quote:

---

How long will it be before the appellate process has concluded and a mandate issued? Three years? More?

---

Hopefully sooner than three years. At least in our area, the coa has sped things up quite a bit. The defense seldom gets more than 60 days to file a brief, and the average at my old gig and here is probably about 45 days for the state to answer. Things move along fairly well after that. The occaisional problem case takes longer. This one is pretty weird though, isn't it?

Roberts temporarily loses license to practice law

Web Posted: 06/18/2007 10:32 PM CDT

Maro Robbins
Express-News
An attorney who drafted lurid legal pleadings and threatened to file humiliating lawsuits as part of an elaborate plot to avenge his wife's affairs has lost, at least temporarily, his license to practice law.

The suspension imposed Friday on Ted H. Roberts signaled a new and secondary legal front for the lawyer, who already faces five years in prison for stealing $100,000 from two of his wife's lovers.

Besides convincing the courts to set aside his recent theft conviction, the 50-year-old Roberts now must also persuade the state agency that polices attorneys not to revoke his law license.

"I think he should be disbarred," said First Assistant District Attorney Cliff Herberg, who supervised Roberts' prosecution. "He's a disgrace to the legal profession."

Roberts' lead attorney, Mike McCrum, characterized the suspension as a temporary setback.

"Frankly ... we feel confident we'll win this on appeal and will win his license back," McCrum said.

Within 10 days, McCrum said, he would ask state District Judge Sid Harle to set aside the jury verdict that convicted Roberts in March.

That appeal will argue in part that prosecutors failed to adequately prove Roberts intended to swindle his wife's paramours in 2001 when he confronted them, demanding compensation for the damage they'd inflicted on his marriage.

Roberts told the men he was considering suing them for an array of claims that ranged from deviate sexual intercourse to obscenity. Then he offered them a way to settle the matter quietly.

They could contribute to a charity for children that Roberts was creating in his name. Agreeing, a corporate executive and a lawyer wrote checks totaling $100,000.

Instead of aiding needy children, the payments eventually helped Roberts buy a new home and finance his law practice.

Although Roberts claimed that unforeseen financial troubles forced him to borrow the funds, the jury decided it amounted to theft.

In addition to leading to a prison sentence, the verdict prompted the State Bar of Texas last week to initiate disciplinary proceedings against Roberts, who's free on bond pending the outcome of his appeal in the theft conviction.

The bar's Board of Disciplinary Appeals will review the case Sept. 28, said Maureen Ray, a lawyer in the bar's Office of Chief Disciplinary Counsel.

Suspensions and disbarments are exceptions: In the past fiscal year, barely 3 percent � 171 � of the 6,954 grievances filed against lawyers ended with those attorneys even temporarily losing their licenses.

The bar opted not to discipline Roberts in 2003 after it first learned that he'd extracted $155,000 total from four of his wife's lovers.

After that, Roberts and his wife, Mary, who is also an attorney, cited the bar's inaction against them as proof that their conduct had been acceptable.

"You can search and ... you will see nothing on any type of reprimand at all against my husband or me," Mary S. Roberts told reporters three years ago.

Mary Roberts now faces charges that she helped her husband swindle her lovers. She's awaiting trial.

When her husband's trial was about to begin in March, defense lawyers said they wanted to show jurors a copy of the state bar's letter dismissing the complaint against Ted Roberts.

Prosecutors countered by giving the trial judge a more complete view of the state bar's normally secret proceedings.

Six members of a disciplinary committee in San Antonio had reviewed Roberts' conduct and then forwarded their recommendation to the agency's headquarters in Austin.

Their conclusion: Roberts should relinquish his law license, Assistant District Attorney Tamara Strauch said.

And when the bar's officers in Austin overruled the panel and dismissed the grievance against Roberts, they hadn't spoken to his wife's lovers, Strauch said.

Nor had they seen his bank records.

Roberts says she believed petitions legal

Express-News
A lawyer on trial for helping her husband, also an attorney, unlawfully extract thousands of dollars from her former lovers testified Friday that she does not believe the unorthodox means used to get the money is illegal.
"Not at all," Mary S. Roberts said during a full day on the stand and before both the defense and prosecution rested.

Roberts, the daughter of a Lutheran minister from Seguin, also spent the day � at times in tears � laying out a list of embarrassing personal details for the 12 jurors who'll decide next week whether she is guilty of five charges of theft by deception or coercion.

Under cross-examination, Roberts invoked a pop song � Rupert Holmes' "Escape (The Pina Colada Song)" � to explain what prompted her to place an ad on an adult Web site.

The lyrics tell of a man who answers a personal ad to escape the "same old dull routine," only to find, much to his surprise, it was placed by his "lady."

Answering questions from one of her lawyers, Marina Marmolejo, Roberts also testified about sexually explicit e-mails she discovered from her husband, Ted H. Roberts, to other women he met through his own personal ads on adult Web sites; sexual encounters she had with four men in a span of two months in fall 2001; and the fallout after Ted Roberts learned about the affairs.

The aftermath, Mary Roberts said, was a "living hell" that culminated in the maneuver that resulted in her and her husband getting indicted. Ted Roberts was convicted earlier this year on three theft charges, but is appealing.

"I am very ashamed. I'm horrified," Mary Roberts said of her indiscretions. "I know I committed a terrible sin, and I wish I could take it back, but I can't."

Jurors also heard that Mary Roberts, during her first marriage in the 1980s, had an affair in the late 1980s with Geoffrey Ferguson, one of the men she had sex with while married to Ted Roberts in 2001.

Personal issues aside, the heart of the case is on whether Ted Roberts' use of so-called "202" petitions he delivered to three of the men (Mary Roberts delivered one herself on orders from Ted Roberts) amounted to blackmail.

Prosecutors contend the petitions were used to illegally squeeze $155,000 from Ferguson and the three other men, and that the couple withheld key information from them � specifically, the paramours never were told about each other before they forked over checks to keep their philandering secret.

Mary Roberts said her husband, who had what she described as "a bit of Napoleon complex," responded to the adultery not with punches or bullets, but with the law.

She said she would have preferred he focus instead on their children and marriage, which she said was "basically dead." Still, she did what her husband ordered about the petitions because she wanted to get past the situation and was humiliated when Ted confronted her about the affairs on Oct. 25, 2001.

"I did not want Ted to pursue the 202 petitions or pursue anything," she said. "The problem was in the marriage. ... I asked him to chill out, if you will. He was unwilling to do that."

About the petitions, she said: "I believed they were legal. I believe they are legal."

Her former paramours testified this week that Mary conspired with Ted Roberts, who led them to believe some or all of their payment would go to a children's charity.

Mary Roberts acknowledged most of money was used to cover the law firm's business and personal expenses during a financial crisis resulting from a dispute with Ted Roberts' law partner. Ted told her to borrow from the charity, which was dissolved six months after it was formed in December 2001.

She also testified she set up her personal ad after finding Ted Roberts on AdultFriendFinder.com and later seeing e-mails addressed to two women. Mary Roberts said she suspected he was having affairs and asked him about it. He laughed at her and said, "It's nothing," Mary Roberts testified.

Still, she said she wrote her ad as a means to draw him out and learn more about his activity on the site. She called it a game of cat-and-mouse.

"I was trying to catch him to find what he was doing, and he was trying to catch me catching him," Mary Roberts said.

She said she doesn't believe he answered her ad, but she did get responses from others � 300 to 400.

Prosecutor Tamara Strauch questioned Mary Roberts about her motives for posting the ad, which was displayed on a large screen. It read in part: "Professional woman who is full of desire, but not having her needs met � I am extremely discreet and require the same. I am also very receptive to the right man for an erotic and intellectual relationship."

Strauch asked her what she was looking for.

"It's like, what's that song? 'If you like pina coladas, and getting caught in the rain,'" Mary Roberts said. "Like that."

This looks like one case where the unified theft statute we use in Texas is not a clear as it might be. Consider the law of demanding money with menaces:

Section 100 Australian Crimes Act:

Whosoever sends, delivers, or utters, or directly or indirectly causes to be received, knowing the contents thereof, any letter or writing demanding any property of any person, with menaces or any threat, and without reasonable cause, shall be liable to imprisonment for ten years.

That seems to sum up this case to a "T," and far better than arguing about the effective consent of the victims. Given that the Texas Legislature has long ago abolished any cause of action for alienation of affection, I fail to see what "reasonable cause" either spouse would have for taking the deposition of Mary Robert's lovers.

Jurors to begin deliberations in trial of Mary Roberts

Web Posted: 12/10/2007 01:42 PM CST

By Guillermo Contreras
Express-News

Jurors will begin deliberating today whether attorney Mary Roberts helped her husband illegally extract thousands of dollars from four of her former paramours.
Roberts is charged with five counts of theft by coercion and deception, and if convicted she could get anywhere from two years of probation to as much as 20 years in prison.

The charges stem from allegations that she helped her husband, Ted Roberts, blackmail four men she had extramarital sex with over two months in 2001.

Ted Roberts was convicted of three of the theft charges at his own trial earlier this year and was sentenced to five years. His case is on appeal.

The men, prosecutors Bill Pennington and Tamara Strauch argued, were deceived and coerced into paying $155,000. Prosecutors also allege the men were led to believe some or all of their money would go to a children�s charity, but that the Roberts instead converted it for use in expenses for their law firm or themselves.

The men include Austin real estate lawyer Geoffrey Ferguson; San Antonio accountant Paul J. Fitzgerald, who was president of the San Antonio Rotary Club at the time; Reagan Sakai, chief financial officer of an Austin technology firm at the time; and Steven W. Riebel, then a San Antonio company executive.

All testified about their fears of losing their marriages, jobs, clients or business and being exposed to ridicule. The accountant said the petition he got from Ted Roberts made him think he had done something criminal because it cited sections of Texas� Penal Code.

Mary Roberts met Riebel, Fitgerald and Sakai through an adult personal ad Web site. She had dated Ferguson a decade earlier.

In closing arguments this morning, Pennington said the prosecution is not saying Mary and Ted Roberts got together to troll the Internet and find men they could blackmail.

�We�re only saying that when Ted Roberts discovered the affairs, they both exploited the men,� Pennington said.

Additionally, Pennington said the prosecution isn�t arguing that so-called �202 petitions� Ted Roberts sent the men are not legal instruments.

�We�re only saying they were used in illegal ways, causing theft,� Pennington said.

Likening the activity to the use of a gun, he said the men were left with few options.

�When you have a gun to your head, you have no choice but to hand over some money,� he said.

Marina Marmolejo, one of Roberts� lawyers, told jurors that Mary Roberts didn�t divorce her husband because of the son they had together.

�She stuck it our for her son,� Marmolejo said. �That is why she stayed in this relationship.�

Marmolejo reiterated that Mary Roberts, while asking her husband not to pursue anything against the men and instead focus on the marriage, did not believe the measures Ted Roberts undertook to get the money from the men were illegal.

Added Alan Brown, another of Mary Roberts� lawyers, �your common sense should tell you this is not a crime.�

The prosecution is �calling something what it is not. They�re calling sin a crime.�

Roberts convicted on 5 counts

Web Posted: 12/11/2007 12:20 AM CST

Guillermo Contreras
Express-News
Bexar County jurors late Monday convicted a San Antonio lawyer on felony charges that she helped her husband blackmail four of her former lovers.
Mary S. Roberts was found guilty on all five theft counts she faced. The verdict was harsher than the one handed her husband, Ted H. Roberts, who was convicted earlier this year on three counts in the scheme.

The couple was accused of a shakedown that extracted $155,000 in hush-money payments from the married men. Mary Roberts had extramarital affairs with them over a two-month period in the fall of 2001.

Soon after, Ted Roberts threatened each of the men that he would expose their infidelities in court unless they agreed to pay him. In doing so, he employed an unusual legal procedure, called a "202 petition," that lent his threats an air of legal authority.

The petitions can be used to gather information for legal discovery. But jurors in trials of both the Robertses didn't buy the claim that the petitions were drafted for a valid investigation. Prosecutors said they were nothing more than cover to extort money from the paramours.

Mary Roberts kept her composure as the verdicts for each count were read and as a bailiff fingerprinted her minutes later. She faces anywhere from two years of probation to up to 20 years in prison. Sentencing was scheduled for Feb. 4 by 226th District Judge Sid Harle.

Roberts left the courthouse with her three attorneys and did not address reporters. One of her lawyers said the defense was disappointed that jurors could not see beyond her sexual indiscretions. As in her husband's case, an appeal is expected.

"We believe she's innocent," attorney Alan Brown said. "The system's overreaching."

The six-woman, six-man jury left the court with little or no comment.

"It was a very difficult decision," said the jury foreman, who asked not to be named. "We all concurred."

Ted Roberts, who also was a lawyer, was sentenced to five years in prison last spring, but he has appealed. His law license has been suspended.

Mary Roberts testified in her own defense last week. She told jurors that she sought lust and love in the arms of other men after Ted Roberts neglected her. She never divorced him and said that despite his shortcomings, he was a good lawyer and devoted father to the child they had together and her two children from a previous marriage.

She also testified that the petitions were not her idea and that she tried to discourage her husband from pursuing them, even though she believed the methods were legal. When he persisted, she said, she helped review at least one because she was embarrassed and didn't want employees at her law firm to learn more of the details about her indiscretions. She also wanted to get beyond the situation and focus on her marriage and children.

In closing arguments Monday, Mary Roberts' three lawyers heaped responsibility for the petitions and subsequent negotiations with the men on Ted Roberts.

The lawyers, Marina Marmolejo, Mike McCrum and Brown, took turns citing doubts in the prosecution's case and distanced Mary Roberts from the actions undertaken by Ted Roberts. McCrum said the testimony and evidence showed she was not present or did not participate in the negotiations of the money that each paid.

Brown challenged jurors.

"Your common sense should tell you this is not a crime," Brown said. "They're calling something what it is not. They're calling sin a crime."

Prosecutors Bill Pennington and Tamara Strauch countered that under Texas' law of parties, Mary Roberts was just as culpable as her husband. They argued that she went along with Ted Roberts' plans after he found out about the affairs. For instance, they argued, she delivered a petition to one of the men herself, did not reveal to the men that there were others who received the petitions and that she made several transactions with the money that the men paid.

The prosecutors also said the men were led to believe some or all of their money would go to a children's charity, but that the Robertses instead used it on their law firm, a new house or other personal or business expenses.

"This is not what lawyers do," Strauch said. "This was a shakedown."

The men include Austin estate planning lawyer Geoffrey R. Ferguson; San Antonio accountant Paul J. Fitzgerald, who was president of the San Antonio Rotary Club at the time; Reagan Sakai, chief financial officer of an Austin technology firm at the time; and Steven W. Riebel of Boerne, then a San Antonio company executive. Mary Roberts met Riebel, Fitzgerald and Sakai through an adult personals Web site. She had dated Ferguson a decade earlier.

The four men testified last week that when they received their petitions, the documents made them think that if their affairs were made public, they would lose their marriages, jobs or clients. Fitzgerald said the petition Ted Roberts hand-delivered to him made him think he had done something criminal because it cited sections of Texas' Penal Code.

Likening the use of the petitions to a criminal using a gun to rob someone, Pennington said the men were left with few options.

"When you have a gun to your head, you have no choice but to hand over some money," he said.

Strauch drove her point to the jurors using the words of a witness who never showed up to the trial � Ted Roberts. The prosecutor displayed on a large screen his picture above a statement some witnesses claimed he said about the paramours: "When I confront them, they'd better bring their checkbook, because they're going to be writing a check to my favorite charity: Me."

FEBRUARY 21, 2008

No prison time

There will be no prison time for the San Antonio woman who had sexual liaisons with four men whom her husband subsequently threatened with litigation unless they compensated him for his emotional distress. On Dec. 10, 2007, a Bexar County jury convicted Mary Roberts, a solo practitioner, of five counts of theft by deception or coercion for her part in extracting money from the four men with whom she had the affairs. Judge Sid Harle, of San Antonio�s 226th District Court, today assessed Roberts� punishment at 10 years' probation and 400 hours of community service. In 2007, Harle sentenced Mary Roberts� husband Ted, also a San Antonio lawyer, to five years in prison.

I recently watched the classic movie "The Man Who Would Be King", which featured Sean Connery as a former British soldier who ascends to throne of Khafirastan (a remote area of today's Russia/Afghanistan). In one scene he is judging disputes between subjects, and finds that a rich villager has gotten rich because, by tradition, an Afghan husband can demand 6 cows as compensation for another man "being with" his wife. He has amassed over 70 cows and several of his neighbors are now destitute and can't feed their children.

Connery is outraged and starts stacking up fines, concluding with "And one more cow, just for thinking you could get away with it!". The formerly rich villager is now in debt by about 20 cows, and Connery remarks "Let's see how you like it now that your wife is out earning cows for other men!"

quote:

---

Originally posted by sjf:
I recently watched the classic movie "The Man Who Would Be King", which featured Sean Connery ...

---

... and Michael Caine and Christoper Plummer, and was directed by John Huston. Probably one of my Top Twenty all-time favorite movies!

IMDB.com summary

Today, the CCA refused the PDR filed in the Ted Roberts case. That would likely be the end of the appellate trail for Lawyer Roberts. And they said it couldn't be done...

When mandate issues, a capias for his arrest should go out. Time to begin that 5 year prison sentence. (GG, this is coming up on the 3 year prediction you made earlier in this thread.)

Looks like that mandate will have to wait a bit longer, GG. Roberts has indicated (he is quoted in a blog by Texas Lawyer newspaper) he will be filing a motion for reconsideration of the PDR. Claims his first motion was rushed and didn't flesh out all the constitutional issues.

Bexar County DA Susan Reed's reply: "[S]he thinks Ted Roberts gave a black eye to the legal community. 'The justice system has proven that we hold our own responsible for bad conduct, Reed says."

Details.

The Fourth Court of Appeals today affirmed the conviction and sentence in the Mrs. Roberts theft conviction. For details, click here.