BENTONVILLE : Attorneys argue over way Coughlin evidence shared
Posted on Thursday, August 21, 2008
URL: http://www.nwanews.com/adg/News/234880/
BENTONVILLE — Attorneys bickered about turning over evidence Wednesday, the eve of a trial in which Wal-Mart Stores Inc. wants to stop former vice chairman Tom Coughlin from collecting millions in retirement benefits.
Coughlin’s attorneys complained at a pretrial hearing that Wal-Mart hasn’t let them review 11 th-hour evidence, such as internal store videos and aviation records the company wants jurors to see.
“They are dragging their feet, judge, and laying behind the law,” Coughlin attorney Tim Brooks told Benton County Circuit Judge Jay Finch. “Now they’re offering us evidence the night before the trial, and we don’t have time to respond. They waited, and it’s calculated.”
Jury selection is scheduled to begin at 1 p. m. today. The crux of the case is whether Coughlin had a duty to disclose he was embezzling from the company when, in 2005, it gave him a retirement package now valued at $ 12 million to $ 16 million.
Wal-Mart attorney Matt Carter said Wednesday the company wants to introduce “aviation logs and records” that will show Coughlin “was somewhere when he was supposed to be somewhere else.”
The evidence doesn’t have to be disclosed under the time frames of discovery, Carter said, but the company is turning over evidence as soon as it is obtained.
“We’re not trying to spring anything here,” Carter said. “We’ve had voluminous discovery with documents and records, and we’ve been working with them very hard for the last four months to stipulate on evidence.”
Coughlin, 59, wasn’t at Wednesday’s hearing but is ready for trial, although he’s recovering from two recent knee replacements, said W. H. Taylor, one of his attorneys.
“He’s moving slow,” Taylor said.
Coughlin retired as vice chairman at Wal-Mart on Jan. 24, 2005, and in June the company fired him, retroactive to Jan. 22, 2005, after accusing him of embezzlement.
In January 2006, he pleaded guilty in U. S. District Court to wire fraud and tax evasion. He’s serving 27 months of house arrest, to be followed by five years ’ probation.
Finch dismissed Wal-Mart’s case in January 2006, and the company appealed. In April 2007, the Arkansas Supreme Court revived the case, agreeing with Wal-Mart that Coughlin was obligated to disclose during the retirement negotiations that he was stealing from the company.
Although Coughlin admitted stealing nearly $ 400, 000 between 1996 and 2001, he contends through attorneys that the money he took was to reimburse himself for trying to uncover union activities within Wal-Mart.
The company denies any such union activity and said Coughlin made up the story after he was caught.
Coughlin’s union justification persists as a theme in the retirement case set for seven days of trial before Finch.
Brooks said Wednesday that Wal-Mart attorneys must turn over a notebook that Carter said Coughlin produced two days before a March deposition in the case.
Carter said the notebook supposedly shows Coughlin made “union payments to a union informant.”
Finch told the attorneys to buckle down over the next 24 hours and share evidence as required. Coughlin has a right to review material before it’s introduced at trial, Finch said. Coughlin said even if he didn’t disclose his criminal activity during retirement proceedings, Wal-Mart should have known, and thus his failure to disclose wouldn’t have caused Wal-Mart to act any differently. “This was a different kind of situation,” Coughlin attorney Bill Putman told Finch on Wednesday. “Coughlin was presented with an agreement, but he wasn’t the one who asked for it.” Wal-Mart attorney Tom Holliday said Putman is wrong. “Coughlin never told Wal-Mart, ‘I was bribing union officials.’ That came out later. He was obligated to say that [during retirement proceedings ],” Holliday said.