A reporter's account of the prison cell phone controversy By Mike Ward AMERICAN-STATESMAN STAFF Thursday, October 23, 2008

I'm returning the medal.

On Tuesday, after a Senate Criminal Justice Committee hearing on the controversy over cell phones in prisons, Oliver Bell, the chairman of the Texas Board of Criminal Justice, approached me with a pewter- color medal.

Thanks for your cooperation with the two-week investigation into how death row convict Richard Lee Tabler got a cell phone, Bell said, shaking my hand.

"Presented by the chairman for outstanding performance, " the medal says.

"I was just doing my job," I told him.

It was no ordinary job.

The story began two weeks earlier, when an anonymous man called the newspaper with complaints about how Tabler and another death row inmate, Bill Mason, were being treated. He said he knew them both well.

He told my editor he was calling from death row, but there was no way to verify that. I told him I would check out the information. I was suspicious.

Then, the Senate Criminal Justice Committee chairman, John Whitmire, D-Houston, called me to say he had received a similar call from someone claiming to be an inmate. After several more calls, Whitmire was convinced the caller was actually on death row.

"I told him you thought it was a hoax, and he held out the cell phone so I could hear the clanging," Whitmire said. "It was prison."

On a subsequent call, Whitmire said, the caller identified himself as Tabler, asked for help with his appeal and told the senator that he knew the names of Whitmire's daughters, their ages and where they lived.

Whitmire called the police.

John Moriarty, the prison system's independent inspector general, was soon on the phone with me.

So, this guy called you, too? Yes.

How many times? Two or three.

Do you know who it is for sure? No.

Conversations with my editors ensued. And with their blessing, I proceeded into a murky area of journalism: being on the inside of a big police investigation, waiting until the case broke (if the calls turned out to be legit) for a front-row seat to an exclusive. It was an easy call for me and my editors to make because we didn't even have the basic information needed for a story.

Investigators would do their work. My job was to wait, watch and keep my mouth shut, so as not to jeopardize the ongoing investigation. In no way did I participate or help in their effort.

Based on the initial discussion with the caller, I had requested prison interviews with Tabler and Mason. Both agreed — "I've talked to them. They're looking forward to talking to you," the caller said — but the trip to the Polunsky Unit, where death row is located, was canceled at the request of my editor, who thought we should stay away.

In the next two weeks, the caller phoned Whitmire several times, me less frequently. During the conversations, I mostly listened to what the caller had to say, asking a few questions, such as how he had obtained a cell phone in prison.

At one point, toward the end, he identified himself to me as Tabler. How do I know that? I asked.

I can prove it, he said. I can get you all kinds of details, he promised.

On Monday, when prison investigators arrested Tabler's mother at the Austin airport on a felony charge connected with the case, I was sitting in the baggage claim area — still waiting for the story to break.

Tabler had called me during the weekend, but I had missed the calls. I asked investigators if calling him back would interfere. Not at this point, they said. We know he's in his cell and has the phone.

So I called.

I asked him about a shakedown in his cell several days earlier, and how the searchers had missed getting the phone. He said he had "sold" it (traded it, presumably) to another inmate. It was just a random shakedown, he said, and everyone had been eating peanut butter sandwiches ever since — a prison staple during such shakedowns.

He asked me about a call I had received several days earlier from a prisoner advocate. I played dumb. He provided more details, specifics only I and the other caller knew. I asked him how he knew.

"I know a lot," Tabler said. "Give me 15 minutes and I'll tell you what kind of car you drive, I'll tell you your Social Security number, all kinds of other things. I can pull up a police database" on a Blackberry, he bragged.

Then, at 10:22 a.m., came a shout: "Stand away from the door."

"What the (expletive), " someone, possibly Tabler, shouted.

Clanging and banging noises ensued. The phone line went dead.

Prison officials later said Tabler had barricaded himself in his cell for a brief period before giving up. The phone was found inside, partly disassembled.

I wrote my story and filed it online. The big secret was out.

That's how I came to be involved in a story I was covering, a rare and often uncomfortable occurrence for reporters, in an area where you can be accused of crossing an ethical line.

All I did was research and write a story for the American-Statesman.

Just like I told Mr. Bell.

mward@statesman. com; 445-1712

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