SHERMAN — Both sides rested Tuesday in former Quitman police captain Terry Bevill’s wrongful termination suit that stems from a 2017 affidavit he signed saying he didn’t think a friend could get a fair trial in Wood County in East Texas.
Closing arguments before an eight-member jury in the court of U.S. District Judge Amos L. Mazzant III are scheduled for Wednesday morning.
Bevill sued David Dobbs, who was Quitman’s mayor in 2017; Tom Castloo, the Wood County sheriff at the time; Jim Wheeler, then the Wood County district attorney; and Jeff Fletcher, then the state district judge assigned to the county, of which Quitman is the seat.
Bevill’s suit claims he was fired by Dobbs because of pressure from the other defendants — three of the most powerful law enforcement officials in Wood County. Bevill’s June 2, 2017, affidavit, attached to a motion for a change of venue filed on behalf of his friend, said a fair trial was impossible in part because of the improperly close relationships between the sheriff, the DA and the judge. That assertion was emphatically denied by Dobbs, Castloo, Wheeler and Fletcher, all of whom testified during the trial of Bevill’s suit, which began Sept. 9.
The change-of-venue motion was denied, and Bevill’s friend, David McGee, at the time the Wood County jail administrator, was convicted before Judge Fletcher of tampering with a government record to secure the release of a jail inmate with whom he was sexually involved. On the day jurors found McGee guilty, Fletcher issued a bench warrant for Bevill’s arrest on a charge of aggravated perjury. Bevill was no-billed by a Wood County grand jury, but not until 16 months after his arrest.
By then, Bevill testified, his 19-year career in law enforcement was dead. The former second-in-command of Quitman’s small police force turns 65 next week.
The last of 13 witnesses called by Bevill’s lawyers — counsel for the defendants called none — was his daughter, Misty Bevill, a retired elementary school principal in Lewisville, who testified in anguishing detail about the effects his termination and arrest had on their close-knit family.
Dabbing her eyes with a tissue throughout her hour on the stand, and at times sobbing outright, Misty Bevill glared at the defendants and said, “I had a bad taste because of the people sitting at that table. … They took my mom and dad’s life away.”
She testified that with her father unable to find anything but menial work after his arrest, and her mother afflicted by grave, costly illnesses (the details of which were kept from the jury under an in limine ruling by Judge Mazzant), “They had no money. They didn’t go out. They just sat in the house. … They were selling everything they had,” including land that had been in the family since the 1930s.
She and her brothers helped her parents with their bills to the tune of more than $25,000, she said. “I was proud to be able to do that, but I knew it killed him to ask,” she testified.
Under questioning by Laura Benitez Geisler, one of Terry Bevill’s lead attorneys, Misty Bevill said she prayed her father would have the strength to get through his ordeal, at times fearing that he would kill himself.
Ms. Bevill recounted seeing her father’s mug shot on the front page of the Wood County weekly newspaper while shopping with her young daughter and maneuvering to block her child’s view of the paper.
“My grandkids one day will be able to go to Google and pull up that mug shot,” she said. “It will never go away. … He got thrown into this situation for speaking his mind.”
Throughout her testimony — and throughout the trial, except when he was testifying — Fletcher, the ex-judge who had Bevill arrested, looked without expression toward the wall closest to his seat at the defense table, his back to the witness stand.
Bevill’s lawsuit seeks unspecified compensatory and punitive damages. He is represented by, in addition to Geisler, Sean McCaffity, Jody Leigh Rodenberg and Rebecca Neumann. All are with Sommerman, McCaffity, Quesada & Geisler in Dallas.
Dobbs and the city of Quitman are represented by Lance Vincent of Ritcheson, Laufer & Vincent in Tyler.
Castloo and Wood County are represented by Robert Scott Davis of Flowers Davis in Tyler.
Wheeler is represented by Grant Blaies and James Hryekewicz of Blaies & Hightower in Fort Worth.
Fletcher is represented by Brianna Michelle Krominga and Will Wassdorf of the Texas attorney general’s office.
Correction: An earlier version of this story misstated the employer of Brianna Michelle Krominga. She is an assistant Texas attorney general.