The Joplin Globe, Joplin, MO

Carthage, Jasper County

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May 5, 2008

Jury hearing Carthage sewer-service case

By Jeff Lehr

jlehr@joplinglobe.com

David A. Hagensieker did not intentionally benefit from Carthage city sewer services without paying for them, his attorney, William Fleischaker, told a Jasper County jury during opening statements Monday in Hagensieker’s trial on a felony theft charge.

But Assistant Prosecutor Nate Dally insisted that Hagensieker did steal city sewer services for a motel and bar outside the city limits over a three-year period from 2003 to 2006.

The trial of Hagensieker, 63, stems from a search warrant served May 30, 2006, on his properties along West Airport Drive. Those properties included the Super Six Motel at 529 W. Airport Drive, King Jack Sports Grill & Bar at 533 W. Airport Drive and a trailer home.

A Jasper County Health Department official testified Monday that officials found an illegal connection leading from the motel, bar and trailer to a septic tank and grinder pump at a home Hagensieker owns just inside the city limits at 523 W. Airport Drive.

The health official said the search warrant was prompted by complaints the department began receiving in March 2006 regarding open, standing sewage on the motel and trailer properties.

An order from the Jasper County prosecutor’s office shut down the motel and bar in June 2006, after the Health Department’s inspection of the properties. Carthage Water & Electric Plant’s director said at the time that workers found illegal connections between the county and city parts of Hagensieker’s properties.

A probable-cause affidavit filed when the felony theft charge was filed two years ago put the amount of the alleged theft of services at $34,169.37. Dally did not put a dollar amount on the alleged theft during opening statements other than to claim that it exceeded $500, the minimum amount needed to substantiate a felony charge

Fleischaker told the jury that his client initially received a bill from the city for $50,000 and was given 15 days to pay. He subsequently was told he owed about $23,000, Fleischaker said.

The defense attorney told the jury the truth is that information obtained from flow meters installed on a main along Garrison Avenue, in an effort to determine the rate of sewer water discharge from Hagensieker’s properties outside the city limits, does not constitute evidence. He said there were too many other potential sources for additional sewage flow to the main.

Fleischaker also told the jury that his client’s properties were inspected in 2000 and again in 2003, and nothing improper was noted.

He said that when a grinder pump was installed on Hagensieker’s property within the city limits, a septic tank on that same property was not shut down. That tank had an existing line into it from the properties outside the city limits, and sewage may have continued to flow through the line and into the city’s system, he said. But his client did not hook those properties into city lines deliberately, he said.

“If there was a connection between here and here, it certainly was not intentional,” Fleischaker told the jury, pointing to a diagram of sewer lines.

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Carthage, Jasper County
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