One of the prosecution's key witnesses in the trial of three people charged with conspiring to defraud Owsley Brown Frazier and his International History Museum was forced to admit yesterday that he had fabricated part of his resume.
Appraiser C.W. Slagle, presented by the government as an expert witness, acknowledged that he had falsely described himself as a graduate in civil engineering from the University of Illinois.
In response to questioning, Slagle claimed he attended the university though he didn't finish -- but an attorney for one of the defendants showed the jury letters from the university saying there was no record that he'd ever enrolled.
The government claims that Slagle's appraisals show that defendant Michael Salisbury overpriced weapons he acquired for Frazier and that another defendant, antique weapon expert R.L. Wilson, inflated their value when he and Salisbury appraised them.
But Wilson's lawyer, Laura Wyrosdick, a federal public defender, attacked Slagle's credibility by showing he had violated standards requiring appraisers to be truthful and honest by lying on his resume and by failing to fully research the history of weapons that he valued.
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