HOW DID TOM CAVE HAPPEN?

RUMORS WERE RUNNING RAMPANT IN FORT Worth. The air was thick with scandal. Those in the know weren’t talking. Those who didn’t know, didn’t stop. Not since the murder trial of T. Cullen Davis had the courthouse grapevine hung so heavy with gossip. Something had to be done. On July 30, 1986, Judge Tom Cave walked briskly into his courtroom and mounted his bulletproof bench. His 213th District Court became a press conference, called at the behest of Judge Cave to respond to allegations that he traded sex for leniency in certain cases.

All eyes focused on the fifty-six-year-old Cave, a slight man made to look more formidable by his black robe and full beard. Television cameras searched his face for clues to emotional sincerity,

Cave barely glanced at his audience as he read a prepared statement, “I am the target of a conspiracy by the criminal element, which has apparently influenced new Police Chief Thomas Wind-ham and Captain Jerry Blaisdell.” Cave’s voice trembled, lacking its usual firmness and authority. “I have been on the hit list of criminal defendants before and apparently I am again…” He took a deep breath, summoning righteous indignation, “I will not be intimidated… Criminals would like nothing better than to take the spotlight off themselves and place it on a law enforcement judge…” Although Cave denied all the allegations against him, he admitted he was engaged to Rachel Tallent, a former probationer in his court. “It’s no secret,” he said. “I love her.”

So began the bizarre saga of Judge Tom Cave. Some viewed Cave as the man of reason undone by his emotions, a powerful man left vulnerable from a bitter divorce and seduced by his love for the beguiling Rachel Tallent, a former prostitute, drug dealer, and police informant.

But others saw Cave’s fall as less a tragedy than a necessity; a man seduced by power rather than by passion, coercing sexual favors from women who were in no position to refuse him.

Eventually, Tom Cave had his day in court, and felt the full weight of the laws he had sworn to uphold. Although a federal jury would find him innocent of conspiring to trade sex for leniency, questions of ethics and morality remained unanswered-questions not only relating to Tom Cave, but to the Fort Worth legal community and its good ol’ boy system which rewards those who get along and work things out-a system that grants unbridled power to those who play the game.



IN THE LATE SUMMER OF 1950, WHEN POLLY MET CAVE AT THE University of Texas, she desperately needed a knight in shining armor, someone to rescue her from her memories- Orphaned when her mother committed suicide after her father’s untimely death, Polly somehow felt responsible.

When friends introduced Tom to Polly, she immediately grew fascinated by the brazen yet charming boy from Graham, Texas. Tom was an incurable romantic-in love with love, he worshiped the romantic ideal. Although he showered Polly with romantic attention, she often felt awkward and undeserving. But that never stopped Tom. Outgoing and fun-loving, he drew Polly out, encouraging her to socialize, making her laugh. “He introduced me to a lifestyle devoted to partying,” she says. Yet Polly became attracted to his more rebellious spirit. ’’He was fiercely independent-no one was going to tell Tom Cave what to do,”

They married in 1951 and Polly promptly became pregnant. She wanted the big family she never had as a child; he wanted to keep his wife “barefoot and pregnant,” as Polly puts it. The result was five children in ten years.

When Polly became pregnant with her last child, she thought she was having a nervous breakdown. She couldn’t cope with the responsibility of raising five kids. “Tom was seldom home-always working,” she says. When he was home, he was a demanding perfectionist. “I felt I had to meet his romantic ideal of the perfect wife and mother-house spotless, kids impeccably behaved-I just couldn’t do it.”

Polly spent the early Sixties in and out of psychiatric hospitals. She was given pills and shock treatment for her depression. But her condition grew worse as she saw her children suffer from her absence.

Again, Tom came to the rescue. He spent more time with the children and with Polly. His remedy for her depression was simple. “Enjoy yourself-let’s go out and party,” he would tell Polly. But the more she partied, the more dependent on pills and alcohol she became.

Despite all the emotional problems surrounding Tom Cave, he refused to let them affect him at work. He had too much to prove. Poor grades in law school and hungry mouths at home forced him to take a job as an insurance adjuster, Finally, in 1957, he broke into the legal community, landing a job with the small but well-respected law firm of Spurlock and Schatt-man. As a plaintiffs’ lawyer, Cave worked tirelessly for his underdog clients, championing their causes and fighting hard to gain the respect of his adversaries, whom he labeled “those silk-stocking lawyers from Seventh Street.”

With or without Polly, Cave remained a social animal, politicking his way from one function to the next, shaking all the right hands and kissing all the right babies. His down-home charm served him well in all circles. Whether by scheme or circumstance, Cave was building a constituency, gaining influence in the bar association, collecting political friends and favors wherever he went.



WHEN TOM CAVE TOOK THE BENCH IN January of 1975, he wanted to be “the best damn judge there ever was.” Far from being humbled or frightened by the majesty of the law, Cave enjoyed the trappings of his new authority. Like many judges, he used his power to maintain control over his court. Each day his bailiff instructed the gallery to rise when Cave entered the courtroom. He was seldom seen in open court without the formal attire of his black robe. Conscious of his judicial demeanor, Cave deliberately deepened his voice, giving it a sterner, more authoritarian ring. “He would practice at home,” said Polly. “He would pull his chin back and speak slower, deeper.”

But when Tom Cave came down off the bench and took off his robe, he removed all pretense of formality, giving full rein to his truer self. His good ol’ boy charm ingratiated him to the courthouse crowd. Fort Worth lawyers have always been known for their more relaxed, somewhat provincial style. Boots are as common as three-piece suits, and the courthouse has reflected the small-town attitude of knowing the right people to get the job done. The small community of lawyers who practice before the criminal courts often socialize with each other, exchanging favors, making deals, keeping things friendly and functioning. Prosecutors become defense attorneys and both become judges. And judges become politicians who need to be reelected, soliciting funds from lawyers who practice before them. To the outsider it smacks of cronyism, but it is the way business gets done. “The problem is endemic to our entire legal system,” says one Tarrant County judge. “But it does seem particularly acute in Fort Worth,”

Tom Cave thrived in this environment. He made himself accessible to prosecutors, police, defense attorneys, trying to accommodate them all. And he took a special interest in his probationers, particularly those with drug problems. By giving them a second chance, he rescued them from the strong arm of the law. But they knew one thing: if they violated their covenant with the judge, they risked incurring his wrath.

It was no secret that Cave had a penchant for pretty girls. He loved to look at them, flirt with them, make them the topic of amusing, sometimes caustic comments. It seemed all in good fun, just part of being one of the boys.

Although Cave, reserved the right to engage in comic relief, the seriousness of jury trials challenged him most. He loved the guts and glory of being in the trenches. “He became obsessed with trying the perfect case,” recalls Polly. Then came T. Cullen Davis, the richest man ever to go on trial for murder in America.

On August 23, 1976, Davis stood before Judge Cave accused of murdering the daughter of his estranged wife Priscilla. District Attorney Tim Curry and his top assistant Marvin Collins argued that Davis was guilty of capital murder; they wanted him held without bond since, they argued, he had burglarized his own home in the course of committing murder. The Davis mansion had been temporarily awarded to Priscilla during their divorce, and Cullen was prohibited from entering the premises. Although there was no legal precedent for his decision, Cave denied bond. One of the richest men in the world couldn’t buy a ticket out of jail.

During the Davis trial, Cave appeared incorruptible, an overnight celebrity. He constantly courted the media, calling news conferences to announce important rulings, making certain the national press were properly accommodated with courtroom space.

At home, Cave made no secret about his personal feeling for Davis. “He would rant and rave about ’that son of a bitch Cullen Davis,’” says Polly. “Even before trial, he would tell me about how guilty Cullen was, how he was getting away with murder.”

Apparently Cullen Davis was equally obsessed with Tom Cave. Davis reportedly prepared a “hit list” of fifteen people, Cave among them. Cave joked about being so far down the list, but he bullet-proofed his bench and began carrying a pistol in his briefcase.

Although Cave was forced to declare a mistrial, and subsequently an Amarillo jury found Davis innocent, the case greatly enhanced Cave’s power and prestige. By ruling so consistently in favor of Tim Curry, Cave was not only perceived as a law enforcement judge, but he became more firmly ensconced in the buddy system of the courthouse.

Statewide, Cave gained a reputation as a gutsy yet enlightened jurist, and began collecting accolades from his brethren on the bench. In 1982, the Court of Criminal Appeals selected him as one of nine judges in the state authorized to issue wire taps. He became a vocal advocate of “the open courtroom” and the media’s access to it. He chaired a state bar committee on the use of television cameras in courtrooms, and received a presidential citation from the state bar for his efforts.

By August of 1983, Judge Tom Cave was rising as the shining light of the Fort Worth judiciary. Then he met Rachel Tallent.



RACHEL TALLENT WAS ALWAYS ATTRACT-ed to powerful men, and now this fact of her emotional life had once again landed her in big trouble. As she stood before Judge Cave awaiting sentencing, she was frightened. By stealing thousands of dollars worth of radar equipment from the airplane of Tex Moncrief, head of a powerful Fort Worth family, she had forfeited what little control she had left over her life: her fate now lay in the hands of Tom Cave, Her attorney, Ronald Aultman, assured her she would get probation-but only if she turned state’s evidence against her former lover, Kevin Nelms, who also awaited sentencing that day.

Kevin told Rachel he wanted to marry her, but he needed money for a divorce. He convinced Rachel to hide in a dark hanger at Meachum Field, wait for the Moncrief airplane to arrive, then steal $80,000 worth of radar equipment, Only one thing went wrong-she got caught. If not for that fact, Judge Cave might have been marrying Rachel and Kevin instead of sentencing them.

As Rachel looked up at Judge Cave, she tried to make eye contact; her deep brown eyes grew watery with sadness, and her cherubic, innocent face belied her criminal past.

Rachel, thirty, had been a heroin addict since the birth of her child in 1977. She claimed she was a “good girl turned bad,” an intelligent woman who believed in all the traditional virtues of home and family. But her husband got caught up in narcotics trafficking and Rachel became a user, developing “a $300 a day habit.” As her drug usage increased, she turned to dealing to help pay for it. Whether because she shot up all her profits or became destitute after the eventual breakup of her marriage, the Fort Worth police say she hit the streets; they busted her twice for prostitution in a two-week period in June 1981. Strung out, Rachel committed herself to Trinity Oaks Drug Treatment Program, relinquishing custody of her son to her parents in San Antonio. But her drug-dealing days were far from over. She attached herself to some prominent Fort Worth drug moguls, transporting drugs and money to and from Las Vegas. She enjoyed life on the edge, quickly developing a taste for easy money, fast cars, and expensive jewelry.

Somehow it all came tumbling down. The Moncrief affair and a subsequent drug possession charge left Rachel too hot to handle; her drug friends cut her off.

So she turned to her friend and bondsman Dorsey Adams, who referred her to lawyer Ronald Aultman. Aultman told her she was headed for the penitentiary; the Moncrief case had generated too much political heat. He advised her to cooperate with the police any way she could.

Judge Cave took that cooperation into consideration when he sentenced her to a five-year probation. Aultman became Rachel’s hero, her father figure. That’s why she did not take the lawyer seriously when he later told her that the judge found her attractive and wanted to meet her.

Rachel also didn’t take her probation seriously. She continued to use heroin and failed to report to her probation officer. But before she could get herself into further trouble, the lawlessness of others sent her life in a new direction.

On November 3, 1983, three men attacked Rachel outside a 7-Eleven in Dallas. Two Cuban males took her purse and her jewelry; a third tried to rape her but she resisted. In the struggle, one of the men picked up a broken bottle and jammed it into her throat. The last thing she remembered was blood spurting all over her face. Then she blacked out,

When Rachel told Judge Cave about the stabbing in early February, he seemed visibly moved. A motion to revoke her probation was pending in his court. Dorsey Adams brought her into Cave’s chambers. The doors were closed and then she revealed her near-fatal wound, the one hundred stitches across her throat hidden beneath her high-necked blouse. She hoped the stabbing would provide the excuse she needed to stay on probation. Later that afternoon, Ronald Aultman told her she could expect to go to the penitentiary.

What happened next is still the source of great controversy. According to Rachel, Judge Cave arrived at Aultman’s office and Aultman conveniently left the room. “I could see the handwriting on the wall,” she said. “The judge put his hand on my shoulder and said, ’We both know why you’re here and what I want.’”

The next day at noon, Judge Cave came to Rachel’s room at the Metro Center Hotel in downtown Fort Worth. Few words were spoken; they took off their clothes and had sex.

Rachel’s probation revocation hearing had been rescheduled for a month later, on Monday, March 5. By then she was living in San Antonio with her parents. She arrived in Fort Worth the Friday before and checked into the exclusive Americana Hotel-all charges billed to Ronald Aultman.

At seven o’clock the following Monday morning, Rachel claims, Cave again came to her room. “I can’t even say it was a romantic encounter. It was a cut and dried deal-we had sex.”

Just ninety minutes later, flanked by Ronald Aultman, Rachel ap-peared before Judge Cave in open court. “I didn’t know if he was sincere or sadistic. I saw this as an opportunity-a way out,” she says. Judge Cave denied the motion to revoke, continuing Rachel on probation. He would later deny that any sexual encounter occurred prior to the time he ruled on her probation.

Back in San Antonio, Rachel hoped the “whole sordid affair” was behind her. Then a letter arrived from Judge Cave. “Would it surprise you to know I think of you many, many times every day?” Cave wrote to his probationer.

Rachel fired back an angry letter to Cave demanding to know his intentions. Within days, Cave called and she agreed to continue their liaison. “That was when the emotional seduction began,” said Rachel. “I was vulnerable-I had no self-esteem, no man in my life.”

Once again, Tom Cave played the role of rescuer, saving his new damsel in distress, romancing her the only way Tom Cave knew how: secret rendezvous, expensive dinners, generous outpourings of affection in countless love letters. ’”There is a little piece of me, way down deep inside,” he wrote. “The most intimate, private, secret, and sacred piece of me-it’s where God lives-you live there too.”

“He knew my favorite flowers were gardenias,” said Rachel. “He is the only man who ever sent me gardenias.” Slowly, she began to develop feelings for him, but more for the judge, the figure who held her freedom in his hands, than for the man.

“After all, he was a district judge. I was infatuated with his power, his position.” His old war stories about Cullen Davis and others rang fresh with her. As for Cave the man, “he was fastidious to a fault. A perfectionist. I mean the man carried a coffee maker in his briefcase.”

But he listened to Rachel and gave her an air of legitimacy she desperately desired. Throughout their relationship, she would constantly urge Cave to take her off of probation, help expunge her prostitution record, clear up an old theft case in San Antonio. She needed his power to wipe away the blemishes.

And he needed her love to break away from his marriage. Polly and Tom had grown distant over the years. “He felt like an outsider in his own home,” says Rachel. Polly had beaten her problem with pills and alcohol and had begun to take control over her life, She was going back to school to get her master’s degree. Later she would agree with friends who said, “Tom was a good husband when she was sick, but when she didn’t need him so much, he found a woman who did.”

In May of 1985, several weeks before Cave separated from Polly, he asked Rachel Tallent to marry him. “He got down on bended knee and proposed,” she said. Rachel put Cave off, time and again. “Ask me when I am not on probation. Better yet, ask me when you are not married.”

Rachel resented Cave’s attempts to squeeze her into his romantic notion of the perfect woman. “He picked out my wedding dress, made all the wedding plans, decided what school my son would attend in Fort Worth. He planned my whole life without me.”

All the while, Rachel was hearing rumors about Judge Cave. Sherry Danford, Ronald Aultman’s secretary, had told her about other Aultman clients who Cave had been dating. Although Rachel would later admit she also had other affairs, “I still felt betrayed,” she said. “He told me I was the only woman in his life.”

For the next several months, Rachel continued the pretense of their relationship, accepting his affection as well as a Cadillac and a full-length mink coat. “Mink is one thing, integrity is another,” she would later remark. Although she definitely wanted out, she feared the judge might retaliate. Perhaps that’s why she agreed to speak with the Fort Worth police when they knocked on her door on January 23, 1986, asking some very personal questions about her association with Judge Tom Cave.



WHEN POLICE CAPTAIN JERRY BLAISDELL, HEAD OF THE SPECIAL operations division, known as “The Project,” entered his chief’s office in late January of 1986, he couldn’t help noticing a poster board filled with photographs of every politician in Tarrant County.

Brought in from Los Angeles to help make the Fort Worth Police more professional and less provincial, Thomas Windham had been police chief for only thirty days. He was still an outsider, unfamiliar with the Fort Worth political scene-but the photographs helped.

Blaisdell had requested the meeting upon his return from San Antonio. Although pleased by his interview with Rachel Tallent, he still felt troubled. “He wanted some guidance,” said Windham. “Essentially he said, ’here’s what we got. Do you want to bury this investigation or proceed?’”

What the police had accumulated was a combination of strange facts and bizarre hearsay. “In June 1985, we had information from several prostitutes that some unnamed judge was ’kind of kinky,’” said Captain Ray Armand, head of Fort Worth Vice. “The ladies claimed this judge would do just about anything for them.”

Then in July 1985, Tammy Gunter, a topless dancer, approached the police, fearing retaliation from Judge Cave. She had three pending drug cases in his court. Gunter said that Dorsey Adams, her bondsman, suggested that she have sex with the judge. He attempted to arrange a meeting between them but she backed out. Several other prostitutes surfaced with similar stories, again naming Cave as the judge in question.

In the fall of 1985, the police received what they believed to be an unrelated complaint from a Fort Worth hotel. It concerned Rachel Tallent and her activities within the hotel. The police set up a surveillance of Rachel, not suspecting that Tom Cave would walk right into the middle of it.

“Now, we have a judge in a hotel room with his probationer,” said Jerry Blaisdell, “and to complicate matters, all her expenses were being picked up by her defense attorney.”

From that point forward, the police made the whereabouts of Rachel Tallent their business. She became the key to unlocking the mystery; she knew all the players and how the game was played. After her interview in San Antonio, the police felt they had a much stronger case.

Blaisdell’s concerns that day in Wind-ham’s office were more political than legal. “No one wants this investigation from a prosecution standpoint,” he told Windham. Tim Curry did not want the case. He was a Democrat, running for reelection that year. Cave was also a Democrat; a scandal could hurt the entire party. Besides, Curry felt Cave’s behavior only amounted to “abuse of office”-a misdemeanor under state law, hardly worth the effort.

So Blaisdell turned to the federal government, consulting Marvin Collins, now the U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of Texas. Collins contacted the Justice Department, but officials there refused prosecution, saying that no crime had been committed under the Federal Public Integrity statutes.

Blaisdell could sense resistance to his investigation from nearly every sector of the criminal justice community. “Everybody was such good friends, long-time associates.” Marvin Collins, Tim Curry, and Tom Cave had all cut their teeth on the Cullen Davis trial; they told the same war stories.

Many Fort Worth lawyers had a vested interest in seeing Cave remain on the bench. “They liked the way Cave did business,” said Blaisdell. Even within the police department, the investigation was unpopular. “Cave was pro-law enforcement, accessible to the police,” said Ray Armand. “If we were out to get a judge, we wouldn’t pick Cave.”

Tom Cave himself tried to dismantle the investigation. After phone calls to Curry and Collins, he contacted the police the day after they visited Rachel in San Antonio. No need to be running around the state, he told them. Why didn’t they just come over to the house, let him fix a steak and some coffee? Then they could talk.

But Chief Windham didn’t know Cave, and he was a stranger to the inbred Fort Worth courthouse system. All the informality and back-scratching were foreign to the chiefs more cosmopolitan roots. Windham, by the time he left the Los Angeles Police Department, had risen to chief of staff, handling all questions of integrity. “To turn his back on the Cave investigation,” said one police observer, “he would have to turn his back on his entire career.” So when Jerry Blaisdell detailed the results of his investigation to Chief Windham, his response was predictable. ’”We have a moral obligation to proceed.”

By April 1986, the investigation had snowballed. The police had interviewed more than twenty women who claimed some sexual involvement with Cave. According to Cave’s defense attorneys, that snowball effect was produced by the police, who put the word out that they would help anybody who said they had sex with Judge Cave. But many of the women did fit the same pattern-passed from Adams to Aultman to Cave. The police saw it as a conspiracy, but they were uncertain as to what kind. After nearly a year of investigation, having accumulated 2,500 pages of fact and conjecture, nobody knew if a crime had been committed.

Finally, the civil rights division of the Justice Department agreed to take the case. By May of 1986, a federal grand jury had been convened in Dallas. But no indictments were handed down until November 14. 1986. When they came, the indictments charged Cave, Adams, and Aultman with conspiring to violate the civil rights of seven women who had appeared before Cave. In addition, the men were charged with three counts of mail fraud.

When Polly Cave learned of the indictment against her ex-husband, friends asked her if she was surprised. “Not about the women,” she said candidly. “I’m surprised the investigation wasn’t killed.”



WHEN TOM CAVE STOOD BEFORE HIS AC-cusers on May 4, 1987, he looked as vulnerable as any defendant who had ever come to his court for judgment. He watched as his lawyers, Tim Evans and Tom Hill, went about the business of selecting his jury. However, Judge Mary Lou Robinson of Amarillo, who personally conducted the voir dire examination, limited their role. She had been brought in to try the case after the two Fort Worth judges had recused themselves, citing personal friendships with Cave. Judge Robinson probed each juror for potential bias or prejudice.

Although Cave’s lawyers deny any efforts to manipulate the media, Cave couldn’t have hoped for better publicity if he had orchestrated it himself. Once the indictment was returned, Fort Worth citizens were treated to a stinging series of articles showing glaring weaknesses in the government’s case. One article declared that Cave’s accusers had twenty-nine convictions among them. One witness, Linda Ervin, totally recanted her testimony. Another witness, Angela Smitherman, claimed she was coerced by overzealous police out to get the judge. Two witnesses told the press that they were having second thoughts about testifying. The government’s case appeared to be crumbling right before the public eye.

Although Cave initially refused to step down from the bench, the Texas Commission on Judicial Conduct had other ideas, and suspended him pending the trial’s outcome. His costly divorce and generosity with his ex-lover left him without funds. Stripped of his power and penniless, Cave seemed the tragic victim of circumstance.

The jury of ten women and two men spent the next two weeks listening to the often sordid testimony of the seven female accusers. According to the scenario sketched by the prosecution, bondsman Dorsey Adams would get the women out of jail and befriend them. As a Fort Worth bondsman for over fifty years, he knew the courthouse as well as the street and these women often took his advice. Many times he would refer them to his “good friend,” lawyer Ronald Aultman. Although Aultman’s reputation as a fighter had declined with his age, he was still a well-connected lawyer, now known as a courthouse fixer and deal maker.

If a woman’s troubles were serious enough-and Judge Cave’s interest in her strong enough-Adams or Aultman would make some vague suggestion or sexual innuendo about how Cave liked pretty girls, or how things might go easier if she gave in a little, played along with him.

Several of the witnesses testified that they refused Cave’s advances; some claimed that they had slept with him; but only one, Dedria Nelson, a black prostitute and something of a courthouse groupie, graphically detailed the full extent of Cave’s alleged sexual proclivities. Not only did Nelson claim that Tom Cave had sex with her; she went further, saying that she watched and participated as Cave had sex with his own son, Paul, in an Arlington hotel room.

Despite these damaging accusations, the problems with the government’s case were readily apparent. The government set out to prove these women were denied their rights to an unbiased tribunal. To some jurors, they came off as willing participants and opportunists merely taking advantage of the situation. If they refused Cave’s advances, some witnesses testified, he didn’t retaliate against them. He took it like a “gentleman,” Angela Smitherman said. When forced to rule on their cases, Cave would either transfer them to another judge or rule in their favor. Well into the testimony, many courthouse observers felt that Cave didn’t deny these women their civil rights-if anything, he restored them.

Rachel Tallent had yet to testify, and Cave’s standing with the jury might dramatically change if she had her way on the witness stand. Cave’s lawyer, Tim Evans, was well prepared for Rachel Tallent, having spent months before trial digging deep into her past. “I wanted to know who supported her.” said Evans. “She lives in a $100,000 house, jets around to Vegas and Acapulco, and she’s virtually unemployed.” Evans hoped to find Cullen Davis lurking behind some rock. Perhaps he was financing Rachel’s escapades, trying to get even with his old nemesis. Evans was struck by the coincidence that alleged co-conspirator Ronald Aultman had also been Priscilla Davis’s divorce lawyer and reportedly the target of another Davis hit list.

Although Evans’s efforts failed to dig up Davis, they did antagonize Rachel and drive her firmly into the prosecution’s camp. By the third week of trial, Rachel was not only ready to testify against her former fiance-she was willing to do so with a vengeance.

When Rachel began her testimony, she appeared cloyingly sweet, and her soft, almost melancholy voice seemed to keep the defense lawyers at bay, lulling them out of their objections. While other women spoke of threesomes and nude photographs, of hand vibrators and incest. Rachel’s testimony seemed much more clinical. “We exchanged pleasantries. . .we took our clothes off…we engaged in sexual intercourse…” She made the government’s strongest case for the coercion charge when she related an argument between her and the judge outside the Americana Hotel. “The judge told me. ’I’m going up to your room and make love to you whether you want me to or not… I need not remind you that your fate lies in my hands:” She admitted that she became involved in a one-sided love affair with Cave. “What was I to do? I was still on probation.” She denied that she loved him or that she seriously considered marrying him. By the time Assistant U.S. Attorney Terry Hart had finished his direct examination, Rachel had clearly made herself out to be an unwilling victim.

Now it was Tim Evans’s turn. He knew that Rachel had a difficult time deciding which side she was on. The police were always her enemy; Cave, Adams, and Aultman were “the ones who wore the white hats.” Evans knew that Rachel had told her story on at least seven different occasions and “each version was different depending on her audience,” he said. By having Rachel read from the more than twenty love letters introduced by the prosecution, Evans painted the judge as a man smitten with a deep and longing affection. For two days. Evans hammered away at Rachel, forcing her to grudgingly admit that she accepted the bounty of Cave’s affection: a fur coat, a Cadillac, probation fees and restitution paid in full, judicial leniency. When Tim Evans finished, he began to walk away from the podium, then hesitated. He turned to Rachel and asked rhetorically, “And you’re telling this jury that you’re the victim in this case?”

Although Evans had done his job well, he remained worried. “You can clean the judge up and give him a bath just so many times. Eventually some of the dirt is going to stick,” he said during the first week of the trial.

The next bit of “dirt” came from Cave’s own son, Paul. At first. Paul Cave took the stand as a defense witness, denying that he engaged in sex with either a prostitute, his father, or any combination thereof. He completely denied Dedria Nelson’s allegations. Several days later, Paul again took the stand, this time as a witness for the prosecution. This time, he altered his story under penalty of perjury. He admitted that he drove a black prostitute to an Arlington hotel to be with his father. Although Paul Cave denied any sexual encounter of his own, he admitted being an accomplice to his father’s adultery. And he breathed new life into the testimony of Dedria Nelson. Few people in the courtroom understood what motivated Paul Cave’s change of heart. “It was Polly Cave,” said Tim Evans later. According to Mrs. Cave, Paul had confided in her before testifying. She knew the truth and wanted the whole story told.



AFTER FIVE WEEKS OF TRIAL, BOTH SIDES closed and delivered their final summation, Evans and Hill granted that Cave’s behavior might have been immoral and unethical, but not illegal. They claimed the prosecution had manufactured a crime by claiming these women were victims coerced into sex; actually they were just manipulating the system the only way they knew how, the defense attorney said.

The prosecution saw things differently. They chose to address the three counts of mail fraud stemming from the love letter that Judge Cave sent Rachel with $400 enclosed to pay her probation fees. They claimed his use of the mails was part of a scheme to deprive the citizens of Tarrant County of their right to an impartial judiciary.

After a day and a half of deliberation, the jury reached a compromised verdict. Ault-man and Adams were cleared of all charges. Cave was found not guilty of any civil rights violation-but guilty of all three counts of mail fraud.

Barely twenty-four hours after the jury’s verdict, Tom Cave married Cheryl Vaughan, a former clerk in the Tarrant County probation department. His wedding fit that of a country gentleman: horse-drawn carriage, formal attire, vows of undying devotion. “To the greatest gift God ever created,” Cave said in a toast. While still awaiting sentencing, Tom Cave plunged into his new life with his characteristic romantic fervor. Within two weeks of trial, he had a new bride, four new stepchildren, and a new law practice on the north side of Fort Worth.

With the judicial commission breathing heavily down his neck, Tom Cave chose to resign his judgeship. His lawyers believed this act of contrition might help him during his punishment hearing, but that hearing never took place. On June 24, 1987, the U.S. Supreme Court held that the federal mail fraud statutes apply only to schemes involving money or property-and not the right of the citizenry to good government. Tim Evans claimed he couldn’t have written a better opinion himself. Judge Robinson agreed. Tom Cave was a free man.



JUDGE CAVE DIDN’T HAPPEN OVERNIGHT. He was years in the making; in part, he was the creation of the Fort Worth criminal justice community. It took the unheralded efforts of an outsider, Police Chief Thomas Windham, to go against the grain of the good ol’ boy network and bring Cave off his bench. Certainly, a spirit of cooperation is necessary to keep the wheels of justice turning. But when the pursuit of harmony becomes paramount, it can weaken and besmirch a system that only works when adversaries clash in the search for truth.