The defense of former pastor Howard "Doug" Porter began this morning in Stanislaus County Superior Court, with attorney Kirk McAllister calling a Baptist minister from Colorado to question the credibility of a key prosecution witness.
Pastor Richard Abbott had a lot to say about James TenNapel's 10-month tenure with his church and none of it was good.
Abbott — who described TenNapel as a man who makes a great first impression — said he hired him in September 2005 and began to have doubts almost immediately.
The pastor said he had endured three alarming encounters by the time TenNapel was fired in July 2006, including a final outburst that ended when a church elder pushed TenNapel out of a church office and bolted the door behind him.
"He told me he was going to smash me in the face," Abbott recalled.
Years earlier, TenNapel worked for Porter at the Hickman Community Church, where he unsuccessfully tried to raise money for a building project that would have included an agricultural museum elderly rancher Frank Craig wanted to build.
When TenNapel testified last week, he told the jury he heard Porter make sinister comments about Craig, a church benefactor who dreamed of a place to showcase agricultural equipment collected over decades.
Porter, 57, of La Grange, is accused of embezzling $1.1 million Craig wanted to spend on the museum, then staging two truck collisions to cover his tracks. Craig was crippled in a 2002 wreck and drowned in a 2004 wreck. Porter was at the wheel both times and walked away from both crashes.
TenNapel told the jury that Porter twice claimed the museum project would be a lot easier if Craig were not around, and also predicted that more money would be available for the building project if Craig were out of the picture. After Craig died, Porter sold Craig's 20-acre ranch for more than $400,000.
Abbott told the jury that TenNapel liked to talk about the case, but he noted that he came to disbelieve TenNapel's stories, particularly TenNapel's claim that a former church elder in Hickman was missing.
That's because Abbott met Gary Kuhlman, the allegedly-missing former elder, at a church conference in Los Angeles months later.
Abbott said TenNapel viewed himself as a key witness in the case against Porter and said he was afraid for his life.
"He told me he left California because he felt that his life and the life of his family was in jeopardy because he found out that pastor Porter had put out a contract on his life," Abbott said.
TenNapel denied making such a comment when he testified last week.
Next up was Porter's mother-in-law, Agnes Dias of La Grange.
She said Craig pursued Porter for four months before Porter agreed to help build the museum. That was back in 1999, after Craig inherited $2.5 million from a brother and believed that farm equipment he collected over decades could be preserved as a testament to the past.
During the prosecution's case, the jury saw a steady stream of checks Porter drew on Craig's accounts. Much of the money was spent on a four-home complex around a small lake in La Grange, where Porter lived with his wife, Dias and her husband, and two of Porter's adult children and their spouses.
Dias insisted that she and her husband, Joe, received no money from Craig's accounts, but Deputy District Attorney John R. Mayne confronted her with a series of checks to Agnes and Joe Dias, which were signed by Porter.
The checks were drawn on a fund Craig set up to fund the Central Valley Museum Association as well as two other funds Porter set up, with Craig's money, after Craig gave Porter control of his finances.
Dias said she did not recall the checks, adding that her husband may have a better recollection of the payments.
Next up was Jeff Porter, a nephew of the defendant, who Porter paid to do work around Craig's ranch.
When McAllister asked questions, Jeff Porter said his uncle took care of Craig after the 2002 wreck, changing the elderly man's diapers and making his meals.
When Deputy District Attorney John Baker took over the questioning, Jeff Porter acknowledged that he was not around the ranch much after Craig was crippled.
Jeff Porter's testimony continues Monday when the trial resumes.
Bee staff writer Susan Herendeen can be reached at sherendeen@modbee.com or 578-2338.
