DANNY’S DEFENDER

LAW Within minutes of the announcement that the largest bank fraud trial in Texas history had ended in a mistrial, Dallas attorney CHERYL WATTLEY was fielding reporters’ questions outside her Lubbock office while photographers immortalized her towering protectively over her prized client, former Garland land developer DANNY FAULKNER.

The coup pulled by Wattley, 35, stunned the high-powered legal eagles who reportedly had lined up for Faulkner’s inspection, including former Watergate prosecutor James Neal, Jerry Spence of Karen Silk-wood fame, and automaker John DeLorean’s former counsel Howard Weitzman.

Faulkner found Wattley in October 1987 at the Dallas law firm of Ravkind, Rolfe & Baccus-Lobel. The original plan was for Wattley, who had worked the federal side of the fence for five years with the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Dallas, to begin the legal grunt work for an expected federal indictment while Faulkner searched for lead counsel. But by the winter of ’88, Faulkner handed Wattley the ball to take it all the way, “Danny has this passionate appreciation for hard work,” explains Wattley, who’s now on her own. “I think he began to see that a woman could fight just as hard for him as any defense attorney.”

Now, the mother of four is bracing for the retrial that federal prosecutors promise is forthcoming. The government may again seek to prove that Faulkner and six associates pilfered more than $135 million from five Texas and Arkansas thrifts through fraudulently inflated condo loans along Interstate 30.

“One legal lesson I’ve learned from all of this is that there should be a respectful fear for the power of the federal government,” sighs Wattley. “A lot of forces came to bear upon federal prosecutors and |Faulk-ner’s] indictment had to come. The savings and loan crisis was just starting and a lot of people had already been indicted. Nothing could have stopped that indictment. Danny Faulkner was going to stand trial, if for no other reason than because he is flamboyant. He was the perfect target, a very nat-ural target.”