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OT-Yes indeed, justice has been served--hopefully 30 years of it (personally, I don't think he'll last ten):

Polo magnate Goodman found guilty in DUI manslaughter case

http://www.sun-sentinel.com/news/palm-beach/fl-john-goodman-polo-magnate-trial-day12-20120323,0,979252.story?page=1

By Peter Franceschina and Alexia Campbell, Sun Sentinel
7:57 p.m. EDT, March 23, 2012

Wellington polo mogul John Goodman was convicted of DUI-manslaughter and vehicular homicide Friday after 5 1/2 hours of deliberations and immediately taken into custody and transferred to the Palm Beach County Jail.

Goodman, 48, showed little emotion except for a grimace that flashed across his face. He now faces up to 30 years in prison.

For the family of Scott Wilson, 23, killed in the February 2010 crash, the swift verdict brought some measure of relief.

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"I will always remember my son. I will always share some memories," a tearful Lili Wilson said outside the courtroom. "This is the time for the healing to begin."

"No one should outlive his child," William Wilson said in a statement. "It's painful and horrific to lose a child in a senseless and preventable motor vehicle accident. I have lost my best friend."

Lead prosecutor Ellen Roberts and Lili Wilson embraced outside the courtroom, and then Roberts spoke to reporters outside the courthouse.

"I think justice was served," she said, before thanking the five men and one woman of the jury. "Thank you for seeing that justice was done."

Roberts asked that Goodman immediately be locked up, but Miami defense attorney Roy Black told Palm Beach Circuit Judge Jeffrey Colbath that Goodman was neither a flight risk — he surrendered his passport after his May 2010 arrest — nor a danger to the community, and that he had met all conditions of his bond, including random alcohol and drug testing.

Colbath ordered Goodman taken into custody, and bailiffs led him out a side door of the courtroom minutes after the verdict. There were tears among his extended family and friends.

Goodman will remain locked up for at least a month, until his April 30 sentencing. His attorneys, who immediately vowed to appeal the convictions, could ask the judge to release Goodman on an appellate bond.

As reporters were talking to Scott Wilson's parents in the courtroom hallway, Black slipped by and got into an elevator by himself. "I'm not going to make any comment, thanks," he said.

His spokesman later issued a statement:

"It is our belief that multiple errors were committed during and before the trial that, in effect, denied our client's ability to get a fair trial. We intend to file an appeal so that our client can receive the just and fair proceeding to which he is entitled by law."

Jurors outright rejected critical elements of the defense, including that Goodman, after leaving the scene of the crash, made his way to a nearby barn owned by polo player Kris Kampsen, who described his office there as his "man cave" where he kept several bottles of liquor.

Goodman testified he slugged back the alcohol to alleviate the pain of his broken wrist. Three hours after the crash Goodman's blood-alcohol level was measured at .177 percent, more than twice the legal limit.

"We didn't believe that he was in the 'man cave.' There was no proof that he was in the 'man cave,'" juror Dennis DeMartin, 68, said Friday while riding Tri-Rail home after the deliberations.

What sealed the guilty verdict for jurors was the fact that Goodman's blood-alcohol content was above the legal limit to drive, and he admitted to having a few drinks before getting behind the wheel and then driving through a stop sign.

"We just had to go with the facts," said DeMartin, a retired accountant from Delray Beach.

The verdict represents a dramatic reversal of fortunes for Goodman, an heir to a vast Texas air conditioning and heating fortune. He is a well-known figure in polo circles, and the founder of Polo Club International Palm Beach. His privileged life included living in a $6 million Wellington mansion on 80 acres with elaborate horse stables.

He was frequently chauffeured in his Bentley convertible, but not on the evening of Feb. 11, 2010, when he attended a celebrity-bartender charity event at the White Horse Tavern and then moved on to the Players Club, two Wellington watering holes that cater to the polo set.

Prosecutors were able to positively establish only that witnesses saw Goodman have four drinks that night, a vodka tonic at the White Horse and two shots of tequila and another vodka tonic at the Players Club. But, they argued, he had to have had much more to drink in order to reach such a high concentration of alcohol in his system.

After leaving the Players Club shortly before 1 a.m., Goodman drove his Bentley south on 120th Avenue – past his home and stables – and blew through a stop sign at the intersection of Lake Worth Road at 63 mph, according to the lead Palm Beach County sheriff's traffic-homicide investigator.

His Bentley broadsided Wilson's Hyundai, causing tremendous damage, and shoved it across the intersection and flipped it upside down into a canal. Wilson drowned, and Goodman left the scene.

"He literally pushed that little car into a canal and then he just walked away," Roberts said.

Goodman testified that the Bentley surged out of control as he tried to stop, and the defense presented an expert who said the Bentley's throttles stuck open moments before the crash. Goodman told jurors he suffered a concussion, and didn't see anyone else — or Wilson's car in the canal — after the crash.

Jurors did not believe Goodman had a concussion or that the Bentley malfunctioned, DeMartin said.

And the defense's car-crash expert talked "in circles" without lending much credibility to the idea that the Bentley sped forward out of control.

"That was another story they concocted," DeMartin said.

Roberts also said she believed jurors saw through the defense and the testimony of their experts. "They just weren't real credible. Some of the theories were pretty bizarre."

The defense, in closing arguments, accused prosecutors of putting Goodman's wealth on trial, coloring the jurors' view of him.

Roberts disagreed.

"I don't think it's about that. I think it's about driving when you shouldn't be driving," she said. "This is no different from Paul the plumber."

Roberts said she would consult with William and Lili Wilson before determining the length of the prison sentence she will seek. The judge has wide latitude in imposing Goodman's punishment.

Jurors reached their verdict shortly after asking to hear the four 911 calls made in the case, including Goodman's, an hour after the crash. He told the dispatcher that he knew he hit something, but didn't know what, and repeatedly asked, "Is everybody OK?"

It was clear to jurors that Goodman fled the scene and didn't render aid to Wilson, DeMartin said, because he first called an employee and then his girlfriend before he called 911.

"We felt he evaded his responsibility," he said.

[e-mail] or 561-243-6605, Twitter @pfranceschina