Newport
Maurice Temple testified that he did not take seriously discussions Pauline Chase and Plainfield resident Mark Horne had about having Temple’s ex-wife, Jean Temple, killed. Horne cooperated with police and secretly recorded conversations between himself and Chase in June and July, some of which Temple was present for.
“He is always prodding her about Jean … always asking if she wanted to do something,” Maurice Temple said under questioning by his attorney Donna Brown. “It was kind of a standing joke as far as I was concerned.”
“Did you take it seriously?” Brown asked of the alleged plot.
“No,” Temple replied.
Sullivan County Attorney Marc Hathaway scrutinized several of Temple’s statements on cross-examination, which came on the third day of his trial in Sullivan Superior Court in Newport.
Temple has pleaded not guilty to charges of criminal solicitation of murder, conspiracy to commit murder and attempt to commit murder.
Temple was present when Chase handed Horne a $5,000 down payment to kill Jean Temple, according to a video recording played in court last week.
On Monday, Temple maintained that he didn’t know what the cash was for and that it was his mother’s money, so it wasn’t up to him how she spent it.
“Five thousand dollars is leaving your mother’s possession and going to Mark Horne, who you think is a real rascal, and you are doing nothing about that?” Hathaway asked Temple.
“He said he needed the money,” Temple replied, alluding to Horne’s finances. At other times on the stand, Temple testified that he was “shocked” to see that exchange between Chase and Horne and that he “didn’t know what the (expletive) was going on.”
Horne, who is friends with Jean Temple, has filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy since the case became public, and Temple testified that Horne had trouble paying on time the mortgage he owned to Chase for a property he bought. Chase also faces charges in the case, but she has been found not competent to stand trial.
Hathaway questioned Temple about a statement he made in one of Horne’s video recordings: “Make it look like a robbery and burn the (expletive) place to the ground.”
Temple testified that was a sarcastic statement to Horne and a way for Horne to get a “(expletive) load” of money, not a way to destroy evidence.
Hathaway asked Temple why he patted Horne down for a wire, an act that is seen in one of the videos, and Temple said he did so because he thought the conversation was a setup.
Temple and his ex-wife had been fighting over assets in their divorce. He had been arrested in June on contempt of court charges related to their divorce decree.
“I had no plans to do anything to her,” Temple testified.
Hathaway also focused on Temple’s statements to police on July 27, the day he was arrested and charged.
Temple told Hathaway on cross-examination that he lied to police in those statements at the Claremont Police Department because he was trying to protect his mother. For example, he told police he never had conversations with Horne and denied that cash was ever exchanged.
“In fact, the reason you lied … is because you believed your efforts to make sure there was no tape (or wire) was successful, didn’t you?” Hathaway asked Temple.
“No,” he replied.
Jean Temple was never attacked, and she took the witness stand in the case on Monday morning. She told prosecutors that she wasn’t aware of the alleged plot until her ex-husband and Chase were arrested on the charges.
The case started at a retirement party on June 25, when Jean Temple told Horne that Maurice Temple had been arrested on charges related to the divorce proceedings. Horne then called Chase, and that is when Chase allegedly said she wanted Jean Temple dead.
Brown, Maurice Temple’s attorney, asked Jean Temple if she ever contacted the police after Horne came back and told her about Chase’s alleged wishes.
She didn’t contact the police, she said.
Plainfield Police Chief Paul Roberts and South Royalton resident Dean Goulet also took the stand on Monday.
Roberts, who is friends with Horne, testified that the investigation into the alleged plot started with just Chase and it wasn’t until after several recorded phone calls with her that police also focused on Temple.
Goulet, who met the Temples back in the late 1970s when they all worked at the post office in White River Junction, testified that he asked Maurice Temple last if he would take on an excavating job on his son’s property.
Temple agreed, but Goulet said their conversations often shifted from the work at hand to Temple’s frustrations with his ex-wife over money. He testified that Temple said he was “done paying” Jean Temple and described Temple’s demeanor as “angry.”
“I just have one question for you,” Brown, the defense attorney, said to Goulet. “During these conversations … he never said he was going to kill Jean Temple, right?
“That’s correct,” Goulet said.
Three state police troopers also took the stand, with one testifying that large amounts of cash were found within the home Maurice Temple and Chase shared, including more than $16,000 in a female’s bedroom.
The state rested its case on Monday afternoon, and the trial is scheduled to resume this morning.
Jordan Cuddemi can be reached at jcuddemi@vnews.com or 603-727-3248.