Wednesday, July 3, 1996

The Irvin Trial: A Snapshot of Opening Day

DALLAS - For four months, the Michael Irvin story has been a kind of interactive soap opera, a story so tangled and tawdry that some people have not been able to resist jumping right into the middle of it.

There was, for example, the turncoat friend and freelance security consultant who captured Irvin on videotape allegedly buying drugs - only a week after the $3-million-a-year All-Pro wide receiver for the Dallas Cowboys was charged with drug possession in a hotel-room party with two topless dancers.

And the decorated Dallas cop - and boyfriend of another topless dancer - who was charged last week with paying to have Irvin bumped off.

Tuesday, at least in theory, they stopped the action to begin sorting it all out.

It was the first day of testimony in Irvin's cocaine and marijuana possession trial, charges that grew out of the March 4 party in Room 624 of a Residence Inn in suburban Irving. (Ask nearly any Dallas-area resident; they could recite the room number.)

The prosecution opened with some pointed commentary on Irvin's lifestyle - just in case anyone had missed the point over the last several months that Irvin probably needs to make new friends and find new hobbies.

Irvin's close friends, prosecutor Mike Gillett said, were Angela Beck - one of the women with him in the hotel-room bash - and Rachelle Smith, the girlfriend of the police officer charged with trying to have him killed.

"The three of them ran together," Gillett said, adding that the women danced at Dallas' fabled Men's Club, which he described as "kind of a high-dog strip club."

The day after Beck's arrest, Gillett said, Irvin, Smith and Beck met at another hotel room to talk about the previous night's episode. Beck had been the only one initially charged, after telling police all the drugs belonged to her.

Gillett said Smith would testify later in the trial that after Beck said she was frightened, Irvin told her that everything would be OK, and he would "never forget" what she had done.

Irvin sat impassively through Gillett's opening and the testimony of an Irving police officer who was the trial's first witness.

Irvin has toned his act down considerably from the days following his indictment, when he wore a full-length mink coat to one court appearance and, during recesses at another hearing, made calls on his cellular phone from inside the courtroom.

Tuesday, Irvin wore a conservative dark suit, starched white shirt and red-patterned tie. He quietly conferred with his lawyers and occasionally glared at reporters in the courtroom as if they were cornerbacks lined up on the other side of the ball.

Irvin was not accompanied to court by his wife, Sandi, who is said to be in Florida, or by any family members or friends. No attempt is being made to recast him as a devoted family man or Wheaties-box hero unfairly smeared.

His defense lawyers appear to be taking two approaches:

One is that the drugs found all over the hotel room - in various bags; on a dinner plate; a salad plate; under a love seat - did not belong to Irvin and should not be traced to him. In his opening, defense lawyer Royce West suggested that Irvin was drinking on March 4, the day before his 30th birthday, not taking drugs.

The other prong of Irvin's defense is that he's getting the butt end of his celebrity, and not the benefit of it - that once one person in the room was charged, Irvin had to be charged, too, because he's a rich and famous member of the Super Bowl champion Dallas Cowboys.

West, in his opening, said the decision to charge Irvin occurred only after prosecutors took the unusual step of calling in the police involved and going back through the incident.

Irvin, he said, was "the son of a roofer and one of 17 children. ... He has been able to bootstrap himself out of poverty, and bring championship football back to Dallas."

None of this, West said, entitled Irvin to special treatment.
"
But you have to determine if Michael Irvin is being treated differently from any other resident of Dallas County. And he was treated differently."

As befitting a celebrity trial in Texas, the courtroom here is populated by outsized personalities.

There is West, a lineman-sized defense lawyer and state senator who may use the Irvin case as a springboard to run for district attorney. He seems to have hijacked the lead defense role from Kevin Clancy, a well-regarded Dallas attorney who is part of Irvin's four-member team but mostly sits quietly.

West's counterpart is Gillett, who has a reputation, says Laura Miller, a columnist for the weekly Dallas Observer, as a "power-hungry, intense, mad-dog DA."

Gillett is known for taking on cases against high-profile black defendants - he prosecuted an Al Sharpton-like figure here for white-washing billboards advertising cigarettes and alcohol - and he may have his own designs on the DA's office.

And there's the judge, Manny Alvarez, whose most notable attribute is that he is Hollywood handsome. (In the beginning, as jury selection dragged on interminably, several women in the courtroom commented that at least they had the judge to look at.)

The most outsized character in the room, of course, is Irvin, a flamboyant figure on and off the field who nicknamed himself "The Playmaker."

The personalities in the room and the big buildup of the case tended Tuesday to dwarf the testimony of Matthew Drum, the young suburban police officer who took the initial call concerning a loud party and "possible prostitution" in a room at the Residence Inn.

In fact, what was going on inside room 624 was pretty mundane by law-enforcement standards: Four people in a room. Allegations of pot and cocaine. A few sex toys. (Police reported finding a remote-controlled vibrator.)

But the first day of testimony was attended by correspondents from 29 news organizations, including CNN, ESPN, Sports Illustrated, the Washington Post and the New York Times. There was also a colorfully dressed gentleman representing what he said was the Psychic Satellite Network.

Officers will testify that when they waded through a haze of marijuana smoke and approached Irvin, he said: "Do you know who I am?"

People here have a better idea, now, who Irvin is. The details of this case that leaked before trial have sullied his reputation and cost him an estimated $1 million in off-field income.

This case, which is expected to last about three weeks, will attempt to answer a much more narrow question: Did the drugs belong to Irvin?
X X X
(This article is from the Philadelphia Inquirer.)
X X X
(c) 1996, Knight-Ridder Newspapers. Distributed by Knight-Ridder/Tribune Information Services.

Cowboys Chatroom.....Dallas Cowboys.....Back to Reporter OnLine