Posted on 12/06/2004 2:59:36 PM PST by Diddle E. Squat
Hall of Fame basketball player Calvin Murphy was found not guilty today of charges he molested five of his daughters.
Jurors deliberated just two hours before finding Murphy not guilty on all six counts.
When the verdict was read, Murphy closed his eyes, then looked up at the ceiling.
Earlier today during closing arguments, prosecutors Murphy as a cheat and a child molester today, while defense attorneys maintained that the daughters accusing him of sexual abuse were lying in an orchestrated effort to make him pay.
"You can never fully repair his reputation," defense attorney Rusty Hardin told jurors during closing arguments. "But you can take that first step in righting an injustice."
Hardin asked jurors to find Murphy innocent of abusing five of his 10 daughters between 1988 and 1991. He faces three charges of indecency with a child and three charges of aggravated sexual assault.
Prosecutors, however, labeled Murphy "a master of manipulation."
"He concealed from his own wife for more than 20 years that he has four other families," prosecutor Paula Storts told jurors. "He's a liar. He's a cheat and he's a child molester."
The monthlong trial's testimony phase ended last week after Murphy testified in his own defense and tearfully denied the allegations.
Jurors began deliberating the case this afternoon following three hours of closing arguments.
If convicted, Murphy faces five years to life in prison for the aggravated offenses and two to 20 years for the indecency violations.
Prosecutors say Murphy tried to maintain a public image of having only one family, even though he has 14 children with nine women. He only married one of the women, according to prosecutors, and accepted her children. They said his children with the other women were told not to call him "Dad."
Prosecutor Lance Long said some of the women's outcries as teenagers went unanswered and one was placed in a mental hospital after speaking out.
Long claimed Murphy molested those he didn't think would tell and those whom nobody would believe. He kept the girls' mothers "under his thumb" through emotional and financial dependence on him, Long said.
Murphy's attorneys say the former Houston Rocket didn't abuse any of his children. They claim the allegations by his daughters, now all adults, stem from a dispute over money and resentment over the way Murphy treated some of the children compared to others.
Defense attorney Rusty Hardin said jurors shouldn't let the way Murphy lived his life influence their verdict.
"Don't be sidetracked by a lot of these issues," he urged. "These are fabricated charges."
He disputed prosecutors' assertion that Murphy controlled the women in his life and said, "the only power Calvin Murphy had was the power of discipline to get into the Hall of Fame at 5-foot-10.
"He is a ruined man," Hardin said. "They have already won. Now, the question is whether he is going to go to the penitentiary."
Defense attorneys say three of the five women have been trying to claim $52,408 in death benefits left in a Teacher Retirement System of Texas account belonging to their mother, Phyllis Davidson. Murphy had a 20-year relationship and four children with Davidson, who died in a car accident in 1996.
This year, the three daughters continued their grandmother's earlier protests over Murphy receiving the benefits. He was listed as the account's beneficiary, according to court records.
On Feb. 20, letters went to Murphy, his three daughters and their grandmother saying that Murphy was the account's rightful beneficiary.
A month later, Murphy, 56, was arrested and charged with sexual abuse and indecency with the five daughters, including three with Davidson.
Murphy was drafted in 1970 by the San Diego Rockets, who moved to Houston the following season. He quickly became a fan favorite. His 17,949 points were a franchise high until Hakeem Olajuwon passed him.
Known as the "Pocket Rocket" because of his small stature, Murphy missed just nine free throws -- and made 78 straight in one stretch -- in 1980-81 for a record single-season percentage of .958.
I'm saying he's not a good guy. And bad guys usually have bad things happen to them.
You're kidding, right? Who was going to tell? A young child who may have been threatened about what would happen to them if they told?
Isn't it amazing how many people missed that?
Totally cooked up by his daughters....all for the mighty buck!!!
Missed all of it.
I was wondering why the Comet coach was there instead of Calvin.
There have been GOOD fathers who had daughters brainwashed by therapists into believing they had "repressed" memories of sexual or physical abuse(normally sexual, as somehow our society believes you can repress THAT but not memories of the frigging Killing Fields of Cambodia or the Holocast.)
But you're right, obviously lots of his daughters are not exactly fond of him.
He was a champion baton twirler in HS/college.
Obviously, you are not familiar with the horrible cycle of childhood sexual abuse. Some repress it, or just keep silent out of fear. Sadly, there are some who falsely accuse, but I would think they are the minority.
This man arguably got away with his crimes, but he will pay someday when he answers to a higher power.
No kiddin'?
No kidding.
Actually I am very familiar with it.
I am also quite familiar with lying, conniving females who use sexual abuse or rape to “get even”.
Murphy did not do this to these women.
They wanted the $52,000, they did not get it. They holler abuse, doesn’t cost them anything. How much and What did it cost him?
Hmm. Cool.
It cost the taxpayers o Harris County and of course Murphy....Hardin's not cheap.
I live here in Houston and most everyone I know think that this pig was guilty....how you would get 5 women (and most of them never even knew each other) to come up with the same story.....ahhhh...yep, this jury was just like the OJ one - overwhelmed by his celebrity....and he's nothing! And now these women who put it all on the line are not believed by the fine citizens of Houston!
We must live in different neighborhoods.
I didn't think he was guilty. But he is a con artist, and I think the daughters tried to use Calvin's own M.O. against him and lost. As Chris Baker said on the radio today: "the moral of this story is don't be gettin' lotsa chicks pregnant-it may come back to haunt you."
"If Scott Peterson was an athlete, he would have been found not guily.
If Sadaam Hussein was an athlete, he would be found not guilty.
Stalin and Hitler should have been athletes."
Clinton too.
People I know in Houston don't think he did it. They did all know each other. A number of Murphy's other children testified on his behalf.
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