^COLEMAN FAMILY - Mom and 2 boys - Columbia IL

WATERLOO — A judge declared Friday that accused killer Christopher Coleman qualifies for taxpayer-funded defense lawyers even though attorneys paid by his father will remain on the case
Coleman, 32, charged with first-degree murder in the strangulation in May of his wife and two sons, claimed in a court motion to have more debts than assets, and no income.

Circuit Judge Milton Wharton declared Coleman indigent and appointed John O'Gara and James Stern, who practice law in Belleville and are state-certified for death penalty cases. Wharton said he could find no certified lawyers to appoint from Monroe County, where the crime occurred.

The judge could not name Art and Bill Margulis, a prominent father-son team from Clayton who have represented Coleman so far, because they have not yet been certified for Illinois capital cases. State's Attorney Kris Reitz has filed notice of seeking a death sentence.

The Margulises said they will stay on the case, too. Art Margulis said in court Friday that they had been paid by Coleman's father, the Rev. Ron Coleman of Chester, Ill., and may continue to be from time-to-time.

Wharton did not object but emphasized that the Margulises cannot be paid with taxpayer money. They have represented Coleman since shortly after the bodies were found May 5 and are in the process of obtaining the certification needed to continue representing him.

All four lawyers are deeply experienced in criminal defense, including capital cases.

O'Gara, considered by the court to be Coleman's lead attorney now, won an acquittal in 2005 for James Wiley, who was prosecuted by Reitz in the murder of Wiley's wife, Twila, in Waterloo.

Coleman once made $100,000 a year as security manager for televangelist Joyce Meyer. Now he gets access to the taxpayer-supported Illinois Capital Litigation Trust Fund, which pays defense costs for indigents facing a possible death penalty.

The fund was set up in 2000 out of concern that some innocent men had been sentenced to death. But it has been the subject of public scorn. Gov. Pat Quinn signed a bill overhauling the fund last month, in response to a Post-Dispatch investigation which found the money had been abused by some lawyers, private investigators and expert witnesses who charged steep fees just to drive, make copies or send e-mails.

O'Gara was involved in writing the reform legislation. Stricter spending rules won't go into effect until January, but Judge Wharton said he would enforce them immediately.

By law, O'Gara must submit an estimated budget and vouch under oath for every expense submitted.

The average cost to defend a death penalty case ranges from $500,000 to $700,000, according to the Illinois Treasurer's Office.

O'Gara said the case has so far produced around 2,000 pages of documents from police for him to review.

Officials claim that Coleman was having an extra-marital affair when he fabricated threats related to his work with the Joyce Meyer Ministries and strangled his wife, Sheri, 31, and sons Garett, 11, and Gavin, 9, in their beds at home in Columbia, Ill

Coleman lawyer: 'I try to see Jesus Christ in the face of everyone I defend'

Belleville lawyer John O'Gara, has stood beside people accused of the most heinous crimes committed in the state -- a necropheliac serial killer who targeted children, a murderer convicted of shooting a 9-week-old infant in the face with a shotgun and most recently, a Columbia father and husband accused of strangling his whole family.
"I try to see Jesus Christ in the face of everyone I defend," O'Gara said. "Does that mean I love all my clients or have loved all my clients? Absolutely not. I'm a person like everybody else. There are clients who have pushed every button and make me angry, then I have to draw inspiration from the people who love them."
O'Gara, 48, has a new client, Christopher Coleman, former bodyguard for television evangelist Joyce Meyer, who faces the death penalty if he's convicted of the strangulations of his wife and two young sons.
O'Gara defends clients facing the death penalty because his love of the law and his Catholic faith compels him to do it, he said.
There's a portrait of Thomas Moore, patron saint of lawyers, in the lobby of his office. O'Gara keeps a prayer written by Moore in the center drawer of his desk. O'Gara attended St. Stephen's Catholic Grade School in Caseyville, then Althoff Catholic High School, Quincy College and St. Louis University Law School.
"I'm a complete product of the Catholic school system," O'Gara said.
As a testament to his faith, O'Gara opposes the capital punishment, championing death penalty reforms by former Gov. George Ryan.
"He really believes that what people do to the least of his brothers and sisters you do to Jesus Christ," said the Rev. Clyde Grogan, O'Gara's friend. "He stands with people who have no one to stand beside them. He's a true Catholic."
In 2001, a jury recommended the death penalty for O'Gara client Lorenzo Fayne, who pleaded guilty to four counts of first-degree murder in connection with the deaths of East St. Louis children, but Ryan commuted the sentence to life in prison. In the 20 capital cases O'Gara's represented, it's the only case where one of O'Gara's clients received the death penalty.
O'Gara also speaks passionately about the U.S. Constitution.
"What makes this country great? The fact that we have a system of laws that protects even those individuals that society has decided should just be thrown away," O'Gara said. "It's a protection that we all have, not just those accused under the Constitution."
By "all," O'Gara means even those who can't afford a lawyer. Last year, St. Clair County judges named him the county's public defender, earning $25,000 a year for mentoring five full-time and 13 part-time public defenders who handle about 700 to 800 cases a year for the county's poor who are accused of crimes.
The first client a public defender has is the Constitution, Madison County Public Defender John Rekowski said, and O'Gara believes this -- especially when the client is facing the death penalty.
O'Gara worked on a murder case in 1984, assisting the Knox County public defender by preparing motions and interviewing witnesses, earning $75 a week and sleeping on his college roommate's floor. The prosecutor dismissed the case the day it was set to go to trial. O'Gara was hooked.
He passed the bar exam in November 1987. Less than six months later, he defended a man accused of residential burglary and arson. The man was acquitted.
O'Gara still has a bank statement from that some month that shows he had $3.33 in his bank account. He had just bought a 1979 LTD, then he said he gathered all the change from his apartment and went to the store and bought a bunch of macaroni. It was nine days from payday, O'Gara said.
"You don't do this to get famous and you don't do it to get rich," he said. "You do it because you love being in front of a jury and getting justice."
But even when the crime is less serious, O'Gara always advocates for his clients.
"His clients always come first, and he treats them with such respect," said Sharon Norsigian, office manager for the St. Clair County public defender's office. "He has the highest character and he expects the same from the other attorneys who work at the public defender's office."
O'Gara's father was a receiving clerk at an auto frame manufacturer in Granite City. His grandfather was the original member of Labor Union 100 and worked for the East St. Louis Street Department until he was 79 years old. O'Gara was the first in his family to go to college.
"My roots are really very blue-collar," he said.
O'Gara will get paid for representing Coleman from the Capital Litigation Trust Fund, earning $151 an hour, about $100 less than the rate for criminal defense lawyers.
A colleague chuckled at an online comment regarding the Coleman case posted by a News-Democrat reader who called O'Gara a "silk-stocking lawyer."
"He's probably the most underestimated lawyer in the state," East Alton lawyer John Stobbs said. "He looks and acts just like normal guy, but he's just brilliant."
Empathizing with clients is one of O'Gara's greatest gifts, Stobbs and Rekowski said. "He's a nice guy with a big heart who is absolutely, truly genuine," Rekowski said.
O'Gara's mother, a German immigrant, died the day after he turned 13. His father died just nine years later when O'Gara was in law school. Both died from the effects of alcoholism, O'Gara said
"Everyone is flawed, but they were great people," O'Gara said. "I wished they hadn't checked out so early."
But he's surrounded by family now. He and his wife, Anna, have been married 17 years and have two daughters, Maggie and Mary Kate. Jim Gomric Sr. founded the firm where O'Gara works with Jim Gomric Jr. and his wife, Julie. Jim's mother, Rose, is their legal assistant.
"He's a devoted family man," Rekowski said. "He's just all about his wife and kids."

A wrongful-death lawsuit filed against a man charged with murdering his wife and two sons is now seeking to add the ministry of televangelist Joyce Meyer as a defendant.

The proposed amendment to the suit, filed on behalf of the family of the slain mother of two, suggests that May 5 killings of Sheri Coleman and her sons might not have occurred if Joyce Meyer Ministries had followed its own policy and taken action.
“The plaintiffs are informed, and believe, that JMM negligently and carelessly failed to do any of these things,” the suit claims after listing four possible courses of action, including confronting its security manager, Christopher Coleman, “with the fact that JMM knew that he had written and delivered all three threats against his wife and children;” warning Sheri Coleman directly; turning the matter over to one or more police agencies; and immediately dismissing Coleman from employment.
“As a direct or proximate result of one or more of these negligent acts or omissions by JMM, neither Sheri Coleman nor any police agency was properly warned of the danger to Sheri Coleman, Garrett Coleman, and Gavin Coleman; Christopher Coleman was not prevent from carrying out the threats he had written and delivered to JMM; and, instead, Christopher Coleman was able, without hindrance, to murder [his family] in their own home,” it adds.
The latest development comes nearly three months after JMM turned over 400 pages of documents that included Coleman's work timetable, salary, benefits, life insurance information, ministry's employee handbook and airline tickets and schedules on commercial flights and private airline passenger lists from JMM.
Though JMM was initially named a “respondent in discovery” in the case, Sheri Coleman’s family is asking the court to add the ministry as an additional defendant in the case, which will be heard at Monroe County Circuit Court in Waterloo, Mo.
If the family’s motion is granted, they would be seeking at least $50,000 from JMM, in addition to the costs of their suit.
In response to the new filing, JMM insisted that it had “directed that appropriate law enforcement be contacted regarding the threats.”
“The Ministry has cooperated in every respect with law enforcement in the investigation of these crimes," it added, according to the St. Louis Post-Dispatch.
Previously, the ministry stated that "no reasonable person would suggest that any employer should be responsible for the criminal acts of its employees committed against his or her family outside of work just because that person is an employee."
"Joyce Meyer Ministries had no knowledge prior to these tragic deaths of an extra marital affair involving Chris Coleman. Neither did the Ministry have prior knowledge that Chris Coleman allegedly was the source of threats against his family," responded JMM’s attorney, Michael King, in a prepared statement. "
According to investigators, Coleman had called police from a gym on May 5 and asked a police officer who had investigated prior threats related to the family to check on them after calls to the house allegedly went unanswered.
When police got to the house later that morning, they found the bodies of Coleman’s 31-year-old wife and two children, 11-year-old Garett and 9-year-old Gavin, all strangled with some type of wire, rope or cord. Spray-painted across the walls of the house, meanwhile, were obscenities that appeared to have been directed at Sheri Coleman, including the words “punished,” “wh*re paid,” “u have paid,” and “I saw you leave, [expletive] you, I am always watching.”
Though it was well-known that the family had received threatening letters and that their mailbox was tampered with, police arrested Coleman around two weeks later after more evidence came forward.
The week before, Coleman had resigned from his position at Joyce Meyer Ministries after being questioned about a violation of the organization's moral conduct policy, according to Roby Walker, a spokesman for Joyce Meyer.
Walker would not say what policy Coleman allegedly violated but reports have alleged that he was romantically involved with a woman from Largo, Fla., and had visited her while traveling with the ministry.
Coleman, who pleaded “not guilty” on May 20, has since remained in jail and denied bond by the judge.

Lawyer: Televangelist Joyce Meyer knew Coleman was having affair; should have warned family


Ministry denies suit allegations


WATERLOO -- Televangelist Joyce Meyer knew that her former bodyguard, Christopher Coleman, was having an affair with a Florida woman and should have warned Coleman's family that he had made veiled threats to kill them, a Belleville lawyer said Monday.




Joyce Meyer Ministries denied those allegations in a written statement issued Monday afternoon.
Attorney Jack Carey, who represents the family of murder victims Sheri Coleman, 32, and the couple's sons, Gavin, 9, and Garett, 11, said Meyer knew that Christopher Coleman was having an affair with Tara Lintz, a family friend from St. Petersburg, Fla. Carey said he based his allegation that Meyer knew about the affair before the murders of Sheri and the boys in May through a review of police investigative files of the murders.

Lawyer: Joyce Meyer's son traveled with Coleman, his Florida girlfriend

BY BETH HUNDSDORFER - News-Democrat

Monday, Nov. 02, 2009

Excerpt:

WATERLOO -- Televangelist Joyce Meyer's son traveled with accused killer Chris Coleman and Coleman's Florida girlfriend, Chicago area attorney Enrico Mirabelli said today after a civil court hearing that seeks to add the Joyce Meyer Ministries as a lawsuit defendant.

. . . . . .

Mirabelli made the statement that the accused murderer and his girlfriend, Tara Lintz of St. Petersburg, Fla., traveled with the famous minister's son in connection as part of Mirabelli's effort to convince a judge to add Joyce Meyer Ministries as a co-defendant in a civil lawsuit stemming from the deaths.

. . . . .

Mike King, attorney for Joyce Meyer Ministries, denied the allegations. King would not state whether he will oppose efforts to have Joyce Meyers or any of the ministry's employees deposed. King filed objections to convert the ministry to a defendant in the suit on Friday. King also did not waive the necessity of calling witnesses.

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