Reckoning Day

Public feeling in Buncombe County, N. C., was high against Wallace B. Davis, president of the collapsed (Nov. 20) Central Bank & Trust Co. of Asheville. So a jury from neighboring Haywood County was called in to try him. Co-defendants in the case were famed Col. Luke Lea of Nashville, his son Luke Lea Jr., 23, and Col. Lea's associate E. P. Charlet.

Last week the jury showed the strain of four long weeks of pondering complex banking documents and technicalities. They looked tired when young Judge M. V. Barnhill (who two years ago presided at the labor war trials in Gastonia) read his charge to them. This took him five hours. Then the jurors filed out.

Early the next morning the Buncombe County Court House, one of the most lavishly furnished in the South, was filled. The shades were drawn and many electric lights gave a dramatic atmosphere to the scene. When the jury came back they gave no verdict, merely asked for further instructions. The defendants grew restless. John Thrash, deputy sheriff, followed the jury out, went to the rest room. Col. Lea thought he had entered the jury room and told him so when he came back. For a moment it looked like a real fight; then Col. Lea settled back into his chair.

Finally the jury returned. Foreman Hurst Justice reported on four counts.* The Leas were found guilty on all four, Mr. Davis on three, Mr. Charlet on none.

That afternoon Judge Barnhill, his pale face grave as the Law, his voice almost a whisper, his hands trembling, read his penalties. Col. Lea's wife gripped her husband's hand so tightly that her knuckles were white. Their daughter, Mary Louise, 7, who had spent the weeks romping through the court room, sat quietly next to him, looking scared. For Col. Lea the Judge ordered imprisonment for from six to ten years. The Colonel paled, then flushed, but his lips were motionless. His wife nearly sobbed. When Luke Lea Jr. heard he had been fined $25,000 he sat unmoved. Mrs. Davis wept when she heard her husband sentenced for from four to six years. But the former bank president looked as unconcerned as he had last May when he was sentenced to from five to seven years for making a false bank report.

Although Luke Lea Jr.'s penalty was kept down in consideration of his youth and the fact that he had merely obeyed his father, Col. Lea offered to assume an other two years if his son's conviction might be set aside. Judge Barnhill offered to do so if Col. Lea would agree not to appeal, but the condition was too stiff. The case was closed. The Leas posted bonds and went off to Nashville, free pending their appeals.

Col. Lea must face other trials. There are still the Federal and State matters of the Holston-Union National Bank in Knoxville. And there is still to be a trial in connection with the defunct Liberty Bank & Trust Co. of Nashville, whose president shot himself two weeks after it closed. But last week's sentence marked the complete deflation of a great southern hero, one who had attempted to build an empire on the pillars of politics, finance and the Press, who was once the youngest U. S. Senator (32), who was given the Distinguished Service Medal for his courageous actions at the front in the War.

With an Old Testament sonority the Chattanooga Times editorialized: "The label of criminality has been stamped upon the name of the once great Luke Lea. . . . Instead of serving the people who had honored him he elected to serve Mammon. His ambition for great riches led from the path of honor. And the day of reckoning is at hand."

*The counts were: 1) conspiracy to misapply $300,000 worth of the bank's certificates of deposit; 2) conspiracy to misapply $100,000 more of certificates of deposit: 3) actual misapplication of funds: loans to Col. Lea totalling $572,000; City of Asheville notes worth $45,000 delivered to Col. Lea without payment: delivery to Col. Lea of $214,000 worth of the bank's bonds without payment; 4) The count on which the Leas alone were declared guilty: conspiracy to misapply $10,000 worth of cashier's checks. The Court, however, later held that there could have been no conspiracy without the conjunction of a bank officer, ruled the charge out.

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