No Fool Like an Old Fool (Female Version)
Maggie
June 16, 2000
Neighbors fear fiance will bail Barkley out
Sex offender returned to jail Frederick Allan Barkley, engaged to 84-year-old
society matron, ordered to serve the remainder of his six-month sentence
06/16/2000
By EDDIE CURRAN
Register Staff Reporter
Frederick Allan Barkley walked Thursday into Mobile Circuit Court with the
woman he said is his fianc<thorn>e: 84-year-old society matron Louise
Chamberlain Hearin. But the two left separately - Mrs. Hearin by the public
elevator, and Barkley through a rear entrance, accompanied by a deputy and
bound for Mobile County Metro Jail.
The 38-year-old Barkley - who has used the alias "Fred Hollywood" - pleaded
guilty May 3 to enticing a «4-year-old boy for sex, and was sentenced to six
months in jail. Due to a series of apparent blunders, Barkley walked out of
Fairhope City Jail on May 18.
Mobile authorities learned of his premature release after Mrs. Hearin's
neighbors in an upscale Point Clear condominium community complained that the
man they thought had been sent to jail on a sex charge was spending a
considerable amount of time in their neighborhood.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Crime news and statistics | Speak your mind
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Thursday's hearing, like a related hearing the day before, involved a probation
revocation request by the Mobile County district attorney's office. Mobile
Circuit Court Judge James Wood ordered Barkley returned to jail to serve the
remaining time in his six-month sentence.
"Are we agreed that Mr. Barkley will stay in Metro Jail? It's an excellent
facility," Wood said, in a pointed reference to the foul-up that allowed
Barkley to walk out of Fairhope's jail in May.
The partnership of Barkley and Mrs. Hearin has raised eyebrows and tempers in
Magnolia Trace, a $400,000-and-up condo community on one of the Lakewood golf
courses near the Grand Hotel. Mrs. Hearin is the sister of wealthy former
oilman Bart Chamberlain, and the former wife of Mobile Register chairman of the
board Bill Hearin. She is elderly, wealthy and socially prominent; Barkley is
47 years her junior, has little money, and has been adjudged guilty of assault,
drug crimes and sex offenses.
The pair make no secret of their engagement to be married.
When one of his former lawyers approached Barkley in court prior to Thursday's
hearing, Barkley introduced Mrs. Hearin.
"This is my fiance, as you probably read in the paper," Barkley said, referring
to a story about the couple in Thursday's Register.
In a separate development Thursday, the Register learned that on May 18, within
hours of his release from Fairhope's jail, Barkley was charged with assaulting
a 17-year-old boy.
On July 5, Barkley is due to appear in a Fairhope court to answer the charge
that, if proved, could lead to him spending the next 10 years behind bars.
Mobile officials were not aware of the May 18 incident until told about it
Thursday afternoon by the Register, though they certainly would have learned
about it soon.
"I'm filing a motion to revoke his probation tomorrow," Assistant Mobile
District Attorney Steve Giardini said Thursday afternoon.
When he pleaded guilty to the sex charge on May 3, Barkley was sentenced to 10
years in prison, but was given what's known as a split sentence. He was ordered
to serve six months, and placed on probation for three years. A condition of
probation is that Barkley not get into trouble with the law, Giardini said
Thursday.
"Certainly, if he is convicted, it could have huge implications," Giardini said
of the Fairhope charge. "Even being charged has implications."
Revocation of his probation could result in Barkley spending «0 years in
prison, Giardini said.
Prosecutor: 'I'm appalled'
On May 3, prior to the guilty plea in Mobile, Barkley's lawyer, Mobile attorney
John White, asked Wood and Giardini to let Barkley serve his sex offense
sentence "concurrently" with a sentence for assault that he was already serving
in Fairhope. Wood and Giardini agreed, and Barkley was returned to Fairhope
after signing his guilty plea.
By all accounts, though, Mobile authorities failed to notify Fairhope officials
of their new responsibility to oversee Barkley's Mobile sentence.
"No paperwork, no nothing," Fairhope Police Chief Jerry Anderson said Thursday.
At the time, Anderson was familiar with Mrs. Hearin, who frequently visited
Barkley at the jail, he said. On the morning of May «8, Fairhope police -
unaware of the Mobile plea - released Barkley on good behavior after he served
almost two months of a four month sentence for a June «999 assault.
On Thursday, as on Wednesday, White argued that Barkley shouldn't have to
return to jail. When Giardini and Wood agreed to let Barkley serve the sex
charge sentence concurrently with the Fairhope charge, White said, they
implicitly agreed that if Barkley won early release in Fairhope for the charge
there, he would also win early release on the Mobile charge.
If his client "slipped through the cracks and didn't serve his time," that was
the fault of the state, and not his client, White argued.
Giardini told Wood that it was the defense, and not the district attorney's
office, that sought permission for Barkley to serve his sentence in Fairhope.
White had led the court to believe that the defense would make the arrangements
in Fairhope for Barkley to serve his time there, Giardini said.
The defense "didn't make the arrangement they claimed they could make,"
Giardini said. He accused White of acting "in incredibly bad faith."
"For them to come up now and blame the state is the definition of chutzpah. I'm
appalled," Giardini said.
After Wood ordered Barkley back to jail, White told the judge that his client
might appeal. He asked Wood to set an appeal bond - a bond Barkley could post
in order to remain free pending an appeal of Wood's ruling to send him back to
jail. Wood set the bond at $100,000.
"Mr. Barkley has been a very difficult person to pin down," Wood said.
To go free, Barkley would have to file an appeal, then either come up with
$100,000 cash, or arrange for a bonding company to bond him - which would cost
about $10,000, or 10 percent of the bond.
One of Mrs. Hearin's neighbors at Magnolia Trace, 86-year-old Lillian Vaughan,
said she feared that Mrs. Hearin would post his bond.
"He's going to be around this afternoon," Mrs. Vaughan predicted Thursday.
"She's going to pay that $10,000, that's easy for her."
As of late Thursday, Barkley remained in jail. White said he did not know if
his client planned to appeal and post bond.
His past catching up
Barkley has been arrested numerous times since the 1980s, and has served two
stints in the Alabama prison system, both times on the same 1993 drug charge.
According to the Alabama Department of Corrections' public information office,
Barkley was incarcerated from January «993 to January 1994, at which time he
was placed on probation. His probation was revoked in «996, and he served an
additional «3 months.
Barkley was arrested in May «998 for enticing a 14-year-old boy into his car,
then sodomizing him. Giardini said he'd have preferred a sterner sentence than
six months, but the victim, now almost 17, was ashamed of the incident, and
didn't want to appear in court and testify.
Also, Barkley was claiming the sex was consensual, Giardini said. Under the
law, it doesn't matter if sex with a minor is consensual - it's still a felony.
But Giardini feared that some jurors might suspect that the boy also wanted the
sex.
"Whenever you go to trial you're rolling the dice to some extent," Giardini
said Thursday. "If you've got a victim who is reluctant to come forward and
give testimony, sometimes you compromise."
Barkley was back in trouble almost immediately after his prematurely early May
18 release, said Anderson. According to a complaint filed that day by Margaret
D'Angelo of Fairhope, Barkley attacked D'Angelo's «7-year-old son within 45
minutes of getting out of jail.
D'Angelo, who called the Register Thursday after reading its story about
Barkley, said that about a year ago, Barkley frequented a restaurant where her
son worked as a busboy. Barkley made suggestive sexual advances at her son and
other busboys, D'Angelo said.
On the morning of May 18, Barkley was driving down a street in downtown
Fairhope and shouted a lewd comment at her son, who was walking to work,
D'Angelo said. She said her son yelled back a derogatory term sometimes used to
describe homosexuals.
According to the complaint she filed with Fairhope police, Barkley did a U-turn
in the street, drove up to her son, put his car in park, hopped out and
attacked her son, she said. Her son has a witness who is also willing to
testify, she said.
"They took pictures of my son's face. He busted his eye up. My son's a big boy
and he still beat him up," she said, reflecting allegations she made in her
complaint.
She said in her opinion Barkley is prone to violence. "Now," she said, "my
son's terrified of this guy."
After the incident but before D'Angelo filed the complaint, Barkley and Mrs.
Hearin found D'Angelo and her son at D'Angelo's place of work, and pleaded with
mother and son not to file charges, D'Angelo said.
Barkley posted bond that afternoon. D'Angelo said Mrs. Hearin posted the bond,
but Fairhope officials say their records don't show who paid the $300 bond.
Maggie
"Ah yes. Republicans. Those fine folks who were incensed that Murphy Brown's
kid didn't have a father and are now equally incensed that a real child does
have one." WestLulu (stolen from Baran)