Evening star., 1952-12-06
.Cowart, Now Serving
Term, Indicted With
z Warehouse Officials

Jack Cowart, former Agriculture
Department official now serving a
prison term for accepting bribe,
has been indicted on a new charge
OF fraud against the Government,
together with two officials of a
Louisiana warehouse corporation
After 31a days of quizzing sew
'eral dozen witnesses, a grand jury
returned the indictment yesterday
in Alexandria District Court. Cow
art was convicted in the same
court last May of accepting a
81 300 bribe while he was assistant
to the production and marketing
administrator. He is serving an
18-month prison term for that
conviction.
The new indictment charges
that Cowart received 1863 shares
OF stock worth $26,375 from the
Baton Rouge Warehouse Co., Inc,
"for services rendered and to be
rendered" for that firm. He is
accused Of exerting his official in
fluence as deputy PIMA admins
traitor in behalf of the warehouse
firm.
Deny Guilt.
Named with Cowart in the in
dictment are Jack Motley. 43, and
Tom E. Foster, 46, both of Center,
Tex. Motley said he formerly
was president of the warehouse
firm and Foster was vice president.
They were in court when the in
oictment was returned and told
reporters afterwards they were not
guilty. The indictment specifically
charges that they aided and
abetted Cowart by mailing or
causing to be mailed compensa-
ton to Cowart.
The indictment lists four speci-
f1c matters in which it claims the
warehouse firm received help from
Cowart: CD A request that the
Baton Rouge warehouse be ap-
proved for storage of cotton by
the Commodity Credit Corp; (2)
use OF the warehouse to store
Mexican canned meats; (3) OBJ
tanning certain transit privileges
on cotton. and a. replacing GER
tain goods that had been moved
from the warehouse.
A. Carter Whitehead, United
States attorney for Virginia, said
no trial date had been set, be-
cause it will be necessary to make
arrangements for bringing Cowart
to Alexandria from Texas, where
he is serving his sentence.
Free on $1,000 Bond.
Both Foster and Motley were
released under $1,000 bond by
Judge Albert v. Bryan.
In their statement OF reporters.
Foster and Motley said they would
resist the charges to the fullest
extent.
I'm our opinion, this is part of
a grand scheme by the Justice
Department and the United States
Army Engineers to force us to ac-
cept the Governments terms for
our property which the Engineers
condemned and seized at Baton
Rouge in July of 1851 and for
which there is now pending a civil
law suit in Baton Rouge" they
said.
Motley explained that the Baton
Rouge warehouse firm had bought
the warehouse from the Govern
ment in 1949 and the engineers
had seized it back. He said they
have not been able to agree on a
price for repossession of the ware
house.
I'VE were never involved in any
commodities being short, nor is
there any claim against us now.
nor has any claim ever been made
against our company by the Agri-
culture Department" they added.
The Baton Rouge warehouse
firm first was mentioned at Senate
Agriculture Committee hearings
last spring. One of the names
mentioned during those hearings
was Alexander Campbell, former
head of the Justice Department
criminal division, who resigned in
1850 to make an unsuccessful race
against Senator Capehart, Re-
publican, Of Indiana. An investi-
gator for the committee testified
that the warehouse firm used Mr.
Campbell to relay $4,000 to Cowart :.
MI. Campbell. who now is an at
torney at Fort Wayne. Ind, con-
tended he was used" in the deal.
The grand jurors indicated
they were through with their cur
rent investigation, but the records