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Judge Schedules Ex-TSU President's Retrial

POSTED: Friday, October 19, 2007
UPDATED: 6:06 pm CDT October 19, 2007

A former Texas Southern University president accused of spending school money on herself will face a second trial after her first ended in a mistrial, KPRC Local 2 reported Friday.

Priscilla Slade, 55, was charged with two felony counts of misapplication of fiduciary property with a value over $200,000.

Jurors in the original trial were deadlocked three times during their week of deliberations. The started deadlocked 8-4, moved to 7-5 the next day and the following day declared they were "hopelessly deadlocked" 6-6.

Judge Brock Thomas scheduled Slade's retrial to begin in March. She was given until Nov. 9 to choose an attorney.

Defense attorney Mike DeGeurin, who represented Slade during the first trial, said the retrial was pointless.

"A waste of taxpayers' money to try to try her again," he said. "This obsession with the District Attorney's Office needs to stop. The jury was clear that no jury is going to find Dr. Slade guilty of any crime."

Prosecutors said Slade spent more than $500,000 of taxpayer money on her custom-built, 6,000-square-foot home that she moved into in 2005. She spent more than $86,000 on furniture, more than $138,000 on landscaping and about $61,800 on a high-tech security system, officials said.

DeGeruin said all of her purchases were legitimate and done to improve the school's status. DeGeurin said Slade never tried to hide her purchases. He blamed the purchasing problems on other TSU employees who had mismanaged the paperwork and said Slade became the scapegoat for all of TSU's problems.

Slade became president of TSU in 1999. In June 2006, the university's board of regents voted to fire Slade for violating university policy and state law.

Three other TSU officials were also indicted. Quintin Wiggins, a former financial officer, has already been convicted and sentenced to 10 years in prison.

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