Billy Davis and the Curious Mel Reynolds Phone Calls

So, we are told, seven lawyers and 12 nights in jail later,Beverly Heard will be set Monday to tell her story, or one of themanyway, from the witness stand in the Mel Reynolds trial.

Up to now she has obviously been a liar - either under oath inher grand jury testimony about having sex with Reynolds at age 16 orin the contrary affidavits in which she recanted her charges. Takeyour pick.

But Heard and her ragged credibility quotient are almostirrelevant to what seems to me a larger public-interest concern atstake here.

And that is the allegation that Reynolds, himself purportedly apublic servant, has relentlessly sought not only to obstruct justicein this case but in the process also to corrupt another publicofficial.

Last week, as you may have noticed, the prosecution presentedevidence of 89 phone calls between Reynolds and former Chicago PoliceDepartment spokesman Billy Davis in the roughly six weeks betweenJune 7 and July 23, 1994.

There are several things to be noted about this. First, Davisonce worked for Reynolds in a political campaign; they know eachother.

Second, phone records also show no phone calls between Davis andReynolds in at least eight months prior to the sudden surge of 89calls starting June 7.

Third, that initial call was made from Reynolds in Washington toDavis' home in Chicago within hours of a meeting at PoliceHeadquarters of top officials involved in the then-secret Reynoldsinvestigation.

Lt. Joseph Murphy testified in court last week that civilianDavis, then chief of news for the Police Department, entered andlingered in the room where Murphy was briefing his superiors on theReynolds case.

Davis was indicted last October on three counts of officialmisconduct for allegedly tipping Reynolds on details of the caseagainst him, and subsequently was fired by Police Supt. MattRodriguez.

The indictment was dismissed on grounds of being too vaguelyworded; the state's attorney's office is appealing. And Davis hasfiled a $5 million lawsuit against the city charging he was firedwithout due process.

On Friday, just as Heard had finally agreed to testify, Davisturned up at the Criminal Courts Building to talk to reportersbecause, he said, media reports on the trial and all those phonecalls were "damaging my reputation."

Davis now acknowledges that he did enter the office where thebriefing was going on but did so only to see the chief of detectivesabout something else and "did not take any information away from thatmeeting."

He refused to say what he heard while there and what he andReynolds talked about in all those phone calls. The timing of thatfirst call, hours after the meeting, was a coincidence, says Davis.

Davis also now acknowledges that Reynolds was "badgering" himfor information about the police investigation but denies that hegave him any.

However, law enforcement officials have developed information(and Davis must know they have) on two points about thoseDavis-Reynolds phone calls:

First, that Davis confirmed to Reynolds in the first call thatthe phones on which police listened in to that notoriously raunchyphone conversation between Heard and Reynolds were "law enforcement"phones.

This relates to the fact that phone records show Reynolds thenplaced a call to the reverse directory information service in Chicagowhich can provide the addresses of listed phone numbers.

However, the phone number for the line on which theHeard-Reynolds conversation was taped is not listed because it isrestricted for law enforcement investigations.

Second, that Reynolds informed Davis that Heard, her mother andher mother's boyfriend, Eddie McIntryre, now on trial with Reynoldsfor obstruction of justice, were in Tennessee at a point when policecouldn't find them.

At minimum, whatever else he did or didn't do, it would seemDavis had an obvious obligation to inform his employer, the PoliceDepartment, that Reynolds was badgering him for confidentialinformation about an ongoing criminal investigation.

Obstruction of justice is something that touches, and offends,us all.