(July 18, 2008)—The attorney for former Downtown Waco, Inc. Director Margaret Mills is asking a district court judge to order Mills’ trial moved from Waco.
A hearing on the change of venue motion is tentatively scheduled for Sept. 3.
The motion, filed Thursday, cites “extensive, excessive and widespread publicity…concerning the alleged crime and the defendant’s alleged connection with it,” and says because of it “there exists…so great a prejudice against the defendant” that Mills can’t obtain a fair trial in McLennan County.
Mills, 67, the former longtime director of Downtown Waco, Inc., is scheduled to go on trial in September on felony theft charges in the embezzlement of hundreds of thousands of dollars from the nonprofit organization.
During a pretrial hearing Friday morning, attorneys agreed on a deadline for submission of witness lists.
No action was taken on a motion filed by a special prosecutor from the Texas Attorney General’s Office seeking to restrict testimony about restitution Mills may have paid.
Mills resigned suddenly two years ago after 18 years at the head of the organization.
A $70,000 restitution check was sent to the organization on Mills behalf in September 2006.
Mills is named in an indictment handed up in November 2007 that alleges she took more than $200,000, but investigators think as much as $511,000 was embezzled.
Prosecutors allege she wrote more than 400 checks worth more than $390,000 for personal use and that she used the organization’s bank check card to make more than $18,000 in personal purchases from local retailers from November 2005 through April 2006.
The charge carries possible punishment of five to 99 years in prison and as much as a $10,000 fine.
Mills remains free on $25,000 bond.
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