Marriott found guilty

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March 17, 2009

Jury out 30 minutes before returning verdict

By Janet Jacobs The Corsicana Daily Sun Tue Mar 17, 2009, 07:39 PM CDT

Within half an hour of deliberation, a Navarro County jury found Kandy Marriott, 53, guilty of engaging in organized criminal activity.

Afterwards, Marriott seemed unfazed by the verdict, saying that she had confidence in her attorneys during the sentencing phase of the trial. The range of punishment is five to 99 years, or life in prison.

Testimony in the punishment phase begins at 9 a.m. Wednesday in the District Courtroom of the Navarro County Courthouse.

Marriott was convicted of misusing 18 checks written to David Martin, her husband’s partner, in various businesses the two shared, including Dickey’s Barbecue in Corsicana, and the Huddle House in Gun Barrel City.

The state’s prosecuting attorney, David Glickler, with the Texas Attorney General’s Office, argued successfully that Marriott or someone under her control forged Martin’s name and deposited the checks into other businesses’ accounts.

Her defense attorney, Ed Mason, argued that Marriott wasn’t a partner and didn’t do the forgeries, and wasn’t in control of the machinations going on behind the scenes of the intertwined businesses. Most of the testimony centered around a series of confrontations in late summer of 2004 between the Marriotts and Martin. Lynn Marriott has since undergone a nervous breakdown, according to Kandy’s testimony, and no trial has been set for him.

In 2003 and 2004, the Marriotts and Martins became partners in not only the deals to open the restaurants, but also to build and sell mobile homes through One Way Home and Land. The forged checks were part of Martin’s proceeds from the home sales. Together, they also owned the VF Factory Outlet mall, and the former K-Mart building on North 13th Street, now Cornerstone Baptist Church. All the properties have since been sold to other owners, and One Way has gone out of business.

In his closing arguments, Mason said that Kandy Marriott wouldn’t benefit from the forgeries because she didn’t deposit it into her own account, but into the accounts of businesses that Martin shared with her husband. The checks merely went to cover expenses in the businesses, he said. In previous days of testimony, he built a defense based on Martin’s subsequent profitable sales of the property and other businesses, in an attempt to show that Martin wasn’t hurt by the taking of the checks.

“How do you equate all this with organized crime?” Mason asked the jury Tuesday in his closing remarks. “This is just an overcharging of a theft case, if it is a theft case.”

Glickler countered that Marriott did benefit, because she and her husband were making $15,000 a month from their combined salaries.

He described their business arrangements as “Robbing Peter to pay Paul,” and said that Kandy Marriott did lie to cover her tracks.

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Marriott found guilty Within half an hour of deliberation, a Navarro County jury found Kandy Marriott, 53, guilty of engaging in organized criminal activity.
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