The state police and the district attorney had worked out a deal with Shelly’s lawyer. She flew in from California and surrendered herself at the district magistrate’s office and the preliminary hearing for the felony charges took place right there. It was very convenient for Shelly.
Both defendants were held to answer for the criminal charges against them and bound over for trial. Shelly was taken by Jack Holtz and Joe VanNort to a women’s jail for mug shots and fingerprints, and was released to her parents who posted $10,000 bail.
It wasn’t long before Joe VanNort got a telephone call from the district attorney. Shelly had agreed to become a witness against Bill Bradfield if the commonwealth would drop charges against her.
“Of course we will,” Joe VanNort said expansively. “Shelly belongs to us now. Why she’s almost like a daughter to me already.”
He said it so loud the FBI director in Washington could’ve heard. Joe VanNort didn’t believe in making life easy on the feds.
The three-day trial in Media was held before Judge Robert A. Wright, with John Paul Curran and his law partner Charles Fitzpatrick for William Bradfield, and Edward J. Weiss appearing for the commonwealth. The small courtroom was jammed with press and gallery.
Both sides were warned that any undue mention of a murder investigation could result in an immediate mistrial, and the whole show would have to be restaged. Bill Bradfield was being charged with theft by deception and theft by failure to make required disposition of funds received. Shelly was granted immunity.
John Curran made a judgement call and decided that Bill Bradfield would not take the stand in his own defense. He’d said too many things in Orphans Court that Ed Weiss could use as a bludgeon. Bill Bradfield later said that he very reluctantly agreed to heed his lawyer’s advice.
The bankers testified to Susan Reinerts maneuvers to secure $25,000 in cash, and how she insisted that her investment required it.
The father of Chris Pappas was called and testified to getting $3,000 from Bill Bradfield and purchasing money orders which were returned to Bill Bradfield so that he could pay Curran, the implication to the jury being that Bill Bradfield didn’t want the guy defending him to know about all his nice crisp $100 bills. Chris’s brother testified to doing the same with another $2,000 worth of $100 bills.
Chris Pappas took the stand and told of seeing $28,500 in the trunk of Bill Bradfields red Cadillac, and told the bizarre story of wiping down the money in the attic.
All trivia fans from that day forth had a question for the barroom;
Question: How long does it take to wipe the fingerprints off $28,500 in $100 bills?
Answer: Thirty-five minutes.
Then Chris testified to hiding the money and later putting it into a safety deposit box in a bank in West Chester.
The defense was badly hurt when the prosecutor asked Chris if Bill Bradfield had told him where he got the money.
Chris said, “He told me that he had a savings account at the Elverson City Bank.”
“Did he specifically mention that account?” the prosecutor asked.
“That’s correct,” Chris said.
“And did he tell you how he’d been withdrawing that money?”
“He did,” Chris said. “He told me he’d attempted to withdraw all of it at once and the bank officials gave him a hard time about it. He explained that it was his own money and they were reluctant to let that large a sum go all at once. And he told me that he could only retrieve the money in increments of about five or six thousand at a time.”
Of course the jury started to get the idea that Bill Bradfield had merely borrowed Susan Reinerts story of banker problems when he’d explained the money to Chris.
John Curran asked a lot of questions trying to establish that Chris knew his mentor to be a man who owned valuable property, but Chris let the jury know that prior to the spring of 1979 the man of property had not thrown $100 bills around.
Sue Myers took the stand and testified that she’d known Bill Bradfield since 1963 and lived with him since 1973. She said that after she moved in with him, she’d done all the bill paying, and that they didn’t have a savings account at Elverson in the amount of $25,000. In fact, she said that Bill Bradfield had had to take a second mortgage on the property his ex-wife occupied, and had to refinance it in a futile effort to save the business. It was dreary testimony for Sue Myers.
“Did you also put money into the business?” the prosecutor asked Sue that first day.
“Yes.”
“And what profit did either of you earn from that business?”
“None.”
“Zero?”
“Yes.”
“I mean at any time.”
“None.”
“What happened to that business?”
“Mister Bradfield sold it.”
“And the proceeds from that were what?”
“I don’t know.”
It was very embarrassing stuff for Sue. The hummingbirds were flying all over the courtroom and sometimes hovering over the heads of friends and colleagues who were looking at each other in disbelief. Because of all the saps and suckers, she’d been with him the longest time. By virtue of seniority she was the sappiest.
Her testimony was wooden and aided by tranquilizers. It was only as responsive as it had to be. Distance was the best way to deal with utter humiliation. Sue was so distant she couldn’t have been reached by Houston Control.
Shelly took the stand and for the first time began telling the truth. She testified that a friend had flown to California to bring a signature card for a safety deposit box. She testified to coming back to Pennsylvania and getting the money out of the box and counting it and stashing it away in her house.
She testified to sending a couple of $100 bills to Bill Bradfield’s ex-wife later in the summer when she was instructed to do so. That was relevant because it shot down his defense of having saved the money for years; those particular bills were not in circulation until 1978.
An FBI accountant did a good job of proving that Bill Bradfield did not have that kind of cash potential in any bank account. The judge thought it was prejudicial for the witness to say he was from the FBI. So he didn’t, but when his coat fell open the jury saw an accountant who was packing heat.
Bill Bradfields mother took the stand on the second day. She was a refined old woman who was mortified to be there.
“Good afternoon,” Curran said, preparing to ask his first question.
“How do you do,” she answered.
“What is your relationship to the defendant?”
“William is my son,” she said.
And the jurors’ eyes went from his mother to William Bradfield. Questioning eyes asked: How?
She testified to living in a two-hundred-year-old fieldstone home and said that they’d formerly lived on a one-hundred-acre farm in Chester County. She said that she and her husband had built a home for William and one for their daughter.
Curran was trying to show that the money that everyone had been stashing and wiping could have come from Bill Bradfields mother. She testified that over the years she had written him three checks that totaled $17,000.
The old woman said that her son had been raised in a Christian home, and so she did not approve of his living arrangements. “But I accepted it,” she said, “and in no way did it change my love for my son.”
Mrs. Bradfield wasn’t fond of Sue Myers and said, “I considered her a very extravagant young woman. She set a very lavish table. Her clothing was quite expensive and I considered her a woman who spent a great deal of money.”
The prosecutor had a go at Mrs. Bradfield and brought out that the larger amounts that she’d given to her son over the years were loans which had been repaid, and not gifts that he could have socked away.
Toward the end of the trial there was a conversation held in the judge’s chambers among Judge Wright, John Curran, Bill Bradfield and Ed Weiss. It had to do with the judge charging the jury and explaining the defendant’s failure to take the stand.