By Jennifer Emily
The Dallas Morning News
DALLAS, Texas — A Dallas County jury has found a fired Dallas police officer not guilty of aggravated assault after he was accused of pointing a gun at a man during an alcohol-fueled incident at the home of country singer Steve Holy.
Paul Loughridge had been accused of aiming the gun at Walter McRae while he and another officer were drinking with Holy in December 2007.
Outside the courtroom, Loughridge said that, despite the win, it isn’t a happy day.
“There’s really nothing to celebrate here,” he said, noting that he lost his job and health insurance over the incident and has had to move in with friends.
Loughridge said he hopes to reclaim his job.
“I’ve done nothing wrong to lose it, which was proven today in that courtroom,” he said.
After the jury’s verdict, Loughridge walked up to prosecutor Frank Able and shook his hand.
Able and another Dallas County public integrity prosecutor, James Bagnall, had told jurors that all four men were drinking that night, when the situation got out of hand. They urged jurors to find Loughridge guilty.
“We cannot protect the citizens of Dallas County,” Able said in closing arguments earlier Thursday. “You must do that.”
Able told jurors that Loughridge “jacked one of our citizens up” and they shouldn’t tolerate it.
Bagnall declined to comment after the verdict.
Loughridge’s attorneys, Phillip Hayes and Vanita White, said in closing arguments that prosecutors didn’t prove their case.
“Paul got a raw deal,” he said. “There’s no credible evidence.”
Loughridge said after the trial that the accusations against him were “nothing more than an intoxicated fabrication.” He said he couldn’t speculate on why the accusations were made.
The confrontation between the officers and Holy occurred in December 2007 after another Dallas officer introduced Loughridge and Officer Randy Anderson to Holy at a bar near Holy’s house. Both officers were off-duty and not in uniform.
When the bar closed, the singer invited the two officers and McRae, a friend of his, to his home, where they drank and played foosball.
The situation changed when Anderson demanded Holy’s identification later in the evening after McRae was too drunk to tell them where he lived, and Holy was unable to say McRae’s last name or where he lived.
Holy said his identification was upstairs and he didn’t want to go get it because he didn’t want to wake his wife.
Testimony showed that Holy showed him a credit card with his name on it, but he told Holy that he still wanted to see identification.
Anderson testified at his October trial that he only pulled his gun on Holy after the musician tried to shut a door on him and acted as if he was going to charge at him.
Anderson and Loughridge were both fired within weeks of the off-duty, alcohol-fueled confrontation that occurred at Holy’s Greenville Avenue-area home.
Anderson was sentenced to four years’ probation and 45 days in jail in December 2009 for his role in the incident. If he successfully completes his probation, he will not have a felony conviction.
Copyright 2011 The Dallas Morning News