Houston polo mogul found guilty of DUI murder
WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. - There were moments that Dennis DeMartin stared at John Goodman with a pained expression as he watched the polo mogul stammer through three hours of answers to questions about what he did the night Scott Wilson died.
He felt sorry for Goodman, DeMartin decided. But he believed almost none of what he said.
Neither did the other five jurors who in less than six hours Friday convicted Goodman of DUI murder and vehicular homicide.
"I feel very comfortable with what we did," said juror DeMartin, 68, of Delray Beach.
Goodman's defense attorney, Roy Black, tried to convince jurors that Goodman's Bentley malfunctioned, he suffered a concussion in the crash and his high blood-alcohol level was because of liquor he'd gulped at a friend's barn afterward to cope with the pain.
Prosecutors Ellen Roberts and Sherri Collins shredded each theory, presenting witnesses who saw him drink at a charity event and after-party the night of the crash along with investigators and experts who supported their claims that Goodman drove drunk, left Wilson to die and took nearly an hour to call police.
The verdict means Goodman, heir to a Houston manufacturing fortune credited with making the village of Wellington a world epicenter for polo, likely will spend at least a decade of his life in a Florida state prison for the crash that killed Wilson, a 23-year-old engineering grad who drowned after Goodman's Bentley plowed into his Hyundai and sent it hurtling into a canal.
A few days ago Wilson's parents, William and Lili, had listened as Palm Beach County Medical Examiner Michael Bell told jurors that their son would have survived the crash if someone had rescued him from the canal. After the verdict, the mother hugged Roberts in the court hallway and called the verdict justice.
"I am always going to miss my son and will cherish his memories," Lili Wilson said. "Coming from me and my friends and family, it's time for the healing to begin."
Absent from the courtroom was 42-year-old Heather Colby, Goodman's girlfriend and the woman he legally adopted as his daughter while he battled the wrongful death suit.
Circuit Judge Jeffrey Colbath ordered Goodman, 48, taken into custody immediately after the verdict. Black had tried to get Colbath to allow Goodman to remain free until his April 30 sentencing hearing.
Black, Mark Shapiro and the rest of Goodman's legal team undoubtedly knew they were taking a risk by having Goodman testify in the trial.
DeMartin called it a big mistake.
The jury, he said, relied on Goodman's own testimony that he had three or four drinks before the crash to find him guilty of DUI murder. They also noted a lack of testimony or evidence from anyone but Goodman that he got drunk at the friend's barn - called a "man cave" during the trial - after the accident to alleviate the pain in his broken wrist.
"Nobody could verify that he was in the man cave," DeMartin said. "Also, if he drank there he would have had to have chugged it down."
Roberts said she has not decided what sentence to recommend for Goodman. Under state sentencing guidelines, because Goodman has no criminal record he will get between 111/2 and 30 years.
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