(September 3, 2008)—State District Judge Matt Johnson ruled Wednesday that the theft trial of former Downtown Waco, Inc. director Margaret Mills will be held in Waco and agreed to allow one video camera in the courtroom to cover the proceedings.
The trial, which was scheduled to begin later this month, was reset for Nov. 3 at the request of prosecutors.
The hearing Wednesday was scheduled after Mills’ attorney filed a motion earlier this summer asking that the trial be moved because of “extensive, excessive and widespread publicity…concerning the alleged crime and the defendant’s alleged connection with it.”
The motion said because of the publicity, “there exists…so great a prejudice against the defendant” that Mills can’t obtain a fair trial in McLennan County.
After hearing testimony from several local residents and a series of representatives of local newspapers and TV and radio stations, Johnson rejected the argument, saying no one is more interested in a fair trial that he is.
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.
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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