Font Size: 
False Liens Filed Against Federal Judges Land Inmate 20 More Years
Texas Lawyer
September 24, 2007
Mycal Antoine Poole was already serving a 60-year state prison sentence, but now he'll serve an extra 20 years for filing fraudulent liens totaling millions of dollars against two federal judges.
U.S. District Judge Sam Sparks says Poole filed three liens for more than $4.1 million against him with the Texas Secretary of State's Office. U.S. Magistrate Judge Andrew Austin says Poole filed one lien against him for $37 million.
Sparks and Austin, both in the Austin Division of the Western District of Texas, had presided over two suits that Poole brought against public officials.
On Sept. 12, a Coryell County jury convicted Poole of three counts of filing a fraudulent financing statement and three counts of retaliation, according to a statement from the Texas Office of the Attorney General, which prosecuted State v. Poole.
Based on Poole's prior criminal history, 52nd District Judge Phillip Zeigler imposed the maximum prison sentence of 20 years on Poole in State v. Poole.
Jason Clark, spokesman for the Texas Department of Criminal Justice, says Poole, who is incarcerated in the Alfred Hughes Unit in Gatesville, is serving 60 years for his 1996 convictions in Williamson County for aggravated sexual assault of a child and indecency with a child.
Zeigler, who sentenced Poole on Sept. 13, ordered the 20-year sentence to begin after Poole's 60-year sentence ends.
"A 20-year sentence is fitting punishment for a prisoner who continued to break the law from behind bars," Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott says in a written statement.
Lauri Saathoff, a spokeswoman for the OAG, says the attorney general will not comment on the case beyond what is in his statement.
Coryell County District Attorney David Castillo, who assisted the OAG with the case, says that a number of prison inmates have been filing fraudulent liens. "The idea is to make sure they understand they are going to be prosecuted and justice is going to be done in these cases," Castillo says.
Texas State Counsel for Offenders attorney Kenneth Nash, who represents Poole, says that during the punishment phase of the three-and-a-half-day trial, prosecutors brought up uncharged allegations that Poole also filed fraudulent financial statements against a number of state officials. Nash says prosecutors did so to get the 20-year sentence for Poole, who thanked the judge, the jury and Nash at the end of the trial.
Nash says Poole filed a motion for new trial on Sept. 17. The filing of that motion gives Poole 90 days from the date of sentencing to file an appeal, Nash says.
JUDGES BECOME WITNESSES
Poole began his pro se legal battle in the federal court system in September 2001, when he filed Poole v. Cockrell seeking a writ of habeas corpus to overturn his state convictions for sexual assault of and indecency with a child.
Poole filed a second federal habeas writ application, Poole v. Johnson, in November 2001, and U.S. Magistrate Judge Stephen Capelle recommended in a report to then-U.S. District Judge James Nowlin of Austin, now a senior judge, that Nowlin dismiss Poole's complaint in Poole v. Johnson as frivolous, which Nowlin did on Nov. 29, 2001.
In 2002, Nowlin denied Poole's application in Poole v. Cockrell on the ground that Poole had not exhausted his state remedies before he filed the writ in federal court. Poole appealed Nowlin's decision to the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, which denied his writ application in 2003.
Unsuccessful with his habeas writ applications, Poole filed Poole v. State of Texas, et al. in 2003, alleging in his federal complaint that the defendants -- including Nowlin, Capelle, the state and a number of Williamson County officials -- "routinely deprive the inhabitants of Texas of life, liberty and property through their "sham to perpetrate a fraud' on Poole and others." In the complaint, Poole alleged he was falsely arrested and imprisoned, and he sought damages against the defendants.
Austin, the magistrate judge to whom Poole's suit was assigned, recommended dismissal of Poole's suit in a May 2003 report to Sparks. According to the report, Poole made claims in the suit that he should raise in a habeas writ application. In the report, Austin also recommended that Sparks warn Poole that the court could order monetary sanctions against Poole if he continued to file frivolous suits.
But Poole filed Poole v. Perry, et al. in 2004. In his 66-page hand-written federal complaint, he alleged that the defendants -- including Texas Gov. Rick Perry and other state officials -- had collaborated against him. Poole also named Sparks and Austin as defendants in that suit, which was assigned to Sparks. In a March 2004 report to Sparks, Austin recommended that Sparks dismiss the suit.
But Poole filed a motion to recuse Sparks and Austin in April 2004. Sparks denied the motion but referred it to U.S. District Judge Lee Yeakel of Austin. Yeakel issued an order denying Poole's motion on July 22, 2004.
On July 23, 2004, Sparks ordered Poole to pay $2,500 for his "continued abuse of the judicial system," according to the order that Sparks signed. Sparks signed another order on July 20, 2005, requiring Poole to pay the sanction in monthly installments and directing the Texas Department of Criminal Justice to take money from Poole's inmate trust account to make those payments. Prison inmates use money in their trust accounts to buy commissary items.
Poole filed the liens against Sparks in 2003 and in 2005 and against Austin in 2004, according to the indictment in State v. Poole.
Sparks and Austin had an opportunity to be witnesses at Poole's Coryell County trial. Austin says that he and Sparks testified on Sept. 11 in Poole's trial on the fraudulent filings and retaliation charges.
Sparks says he didn't have any problem being a witness. "I've lived in a courtroom since 1963," says Sparks, who began his legal career that year as a law clerk for U.S. District Judge Homer Thornberry of the Western District. "I think the young defender was smart enough not to fool around with me."
Austin says it was "a bit different" being a witness: "I had to resist the urge to rule on the objections that arose during my testimony."
