Ely Trial Spectators Listen to Mostly Inaudible Tape

They sat on the edges of their chairs Wednesday straining to hear the secretly tape-recorded comments that Ventura County Community College District Chancellor Barbara Derryberry made about district officials.

It was to be the climax of a long day of testimony in the trial of Trustee James (Tom) Ely and his wife, Ingrid.

The jury had been dismissed, and Judge Lawrence Storch had agreed to play the videotape, which Derryberry said Ely had threatened to make public unless she approved the trustee’s disputed expenses.

Court spectators and attorneys had waited all day to hear the juicy tidbits.

But what had started Tuesday as a strange twist in the complicated conspiracy and embezzlement trial turned into a heap of garbled words Wednesday afternoon.

The “private and personal” comments Derryberry said she made about district officials were mostly inaudible. At one point during the recording, Derryberry mentioned former district Chancellor Al Fernandez, but most of her words were jumbled throughout the remainder of the recording.

“So much for that,” said one spectator as she left the courtroom.

Nevertheless, Deputy Dist. Atty. Carol Nelson is asking that the garbled tape, made while Derryberry and the Elys were sightseeing in Louisville, Ky., in 1988, be used as evidence. She said there are two comments that Ely made on the tape that could be considered threatening.

The tape started with a conversation between the Elys and Derryberry about the Kentucky countryside. But later, Ely referred to a discussion that he had had with beleaguered Moorpark College President Stanley L. Bowers and Ventura College President Robert Long.

“Stan and Bob were saying something about all the enemies I’ve had in the district,” Ely said on the tape. “I said, ‘Yeah, and they’re all gone . . . aren’t they?’ ”

And at the end of the tape, Ely told Derryberry: “All the stuff you said about Al is all recorded.”

Derryberry responded: “Ah, that’s terrible.” Then her voice faded.

The chancellor testified that she asked Ely to erase the tape. She said she could not remember exactly what she said, but added that the conversation was “very private.”

She sat tensely in her chair Wednesday as the tape was played. She said it was the first time that she had heard it all the way through.

Storch is expected to consider whether to allow the jury to hear the tape when the trial resumes today. He is also expected to decide whether to admit into evidence two letters that Derryberry said Ely wrote to her in 1990. The chancellor alleged during testimony Tuesday that Ely threatened in the letters to expose the contents of the tape if she did not authorize payment of his expenses.

The Elys are accused of conspiring to steal more than $15,000 in district funds by padding their district expense accounts between April, 1988, and January, 1990.

Tom Ely is charged with two dozen counts of fraud and embezzlement and one count of conspiracy. Ingrid Ely is charged with one count of grand theft, one count of conspiracy and one count of embezzlement.

If convicted, Tom Ely could spend up to six years in prison and Ingrid Ely up to three years in prison.