(Mike Webb's) trial for fraud ends in a mistrial

[Newsjock]

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/2003259437_webb15m.html

By Natalie Singer
Seattle Times staff reporter

The insurance-fraud trial of former radio talk-show host Mike Webb ended in a mistrial Thursday after a judge determined the jury had been tainted by seeing Webb handcuffed by police following an outburst outside the courthouse a day earlier.

"The taint is too great; it does not afford Mr. Webb a fair and impartial trial. I do not have any choice," King County Superior Court Judge Julie Spector told jurors Thursday after some of them testified that they witnessed or heard about the incident before they were to begin deliberating.

According to a Seattle Police Department report, police found Webb acting "irrational and irate" on James Street and Second Avenue after testimony in his trial concluded just before 1 p.m. Wednesday. A woman told police that Webb had threatened to kill himself if found guilty and that he had access to a gun in his house, the report stated.

... Prosecutors are planning to retry Webb. That could begin within the next couple of weeks, said spokesman Dan Donohoe.

[MrModerate]

1. Great! More thousands of taxpayer dollars down the tubes . . .

Couldn't the cops restrain him a little less dramatically?

[Tandalayo_Scheisskopf]

2. Aha!

Now that I have read some about the circumstances that lead to the charges, the charges are starting to take on very malodorous properties. It seems it is all a matter of interpretation, on the part of the insurance company and prosecutors.

There could very well be political motivations in this.

[MADem]

3. Political?? The guy sounds like a thief to me--a liberal thief, sadly

He also sounds like he's a bit off the page; his life is falling apart due to his actions. Surely, computer forensics could discover if he actually obtained the policy when he claimed that he did.

...Prosecutors and police say that Webb, 51, filed a fraudulent insurance claim with Geico insurance after a traffic accident on June 28, 2005, when his Lexus was struck by another vehicle driven by an uninsured driver near the University Bridge in Seattle. During the trial, Geico investigators testified that it wasn't until the day after the accident that Webb purchased an insurance policy online from their company.

Webb, however, testified that he believed he had purchased insurance from the company about five weeks before the accident. He suggested a computer glitch might be at fault. He also said he thought he was pursuing the claim under the other driver's policy.

In court, Webb often appeared agitated, angrily disagreeing with the prosecutor's statements, launching into narratives on the stand even when the judge and attorneys told him to stop speaking, and temporarily refusing to testify Wednesday because a Seattle Times photographer was taking his picture.

Webb told the judge after that outburst that he had received death threats during his time on the air and wanted to keep his image out of the public's view.

At least one of the "tainted" jurors referred to Webb's courtroom outbursts during the interviews Thursday, saying she thought the police incident was a continuation of the frustration Webb had displayed before the jury.

"I thought ... this man was so distraught with the trial, did his anger come out? This is the way I took it — his stress erupted ... we did witness a little bit of his stress," she said.

[LisaM]

4. Mike Webb is very missed on the Seattle airwaves

Coincidentally, this all happened at a time when his station, KIRO, got new management and decided to rid itself of its popular liberal hosts. I think some of Mike Webb's problems stem from the fact that he was not afraid to take on the Seattle Police Department on the air (and frequently!) whenever there was a shooting (for those not from Seattle, there have been a number of incidents in the past few years where the police shot and killed black people). He also is openly gay and doesn't want people to know what he looks like, since he has received death threats. You can call him paranoid if you want to, but everything points to some sort of concerted effort to get him off the air. I, for one, miss his show a LOT. I was a very faithful listener. I tried to contact KIRO multiple times when he went off the air and they wouldn't give me the time or day or the courtesy of an answer. I don't listen to them any more.

[raysr]

5. Set up by the RW

He's gay, he's not going to the joint, he's going blow himself away. Nice work Rove. You're going to see alot of set-up smears and so-on before November.

[TroglodyteScholar]

6. A courtroom outburst is grounds for mistrial?

That's fucking ridiculous. If the accused is his own worse enemy, I don't think it's the court's job to protect him from the consequences of his own idiotic actions.