Zapata Trial: State Traces Zapata's Money Through Mysterious Dallas Attorney

SAN ANGELO, TEXAS — Thursday afternoon, the Zapata trial continued with the testimony of Juan A. Marquez, an attorney out of Dallas who, as was revealed in the courtroom, knows Zapata personally. He gave the defendant access to the Interest On Trust Account (IOTA) that was holding the money Zapata had received from the estate of John Sullivan.

Marquez told the jury that he was present with Zapata at the Bank of America when they went to cash a check for $65,000 from the IOTA account. He told the jury he not aware that check was in his name. Marquez gave Zapata control over the account by adding him to the signature card. Zapata also ordered a checkbook with new checks that same day for $69.

In the following months, from Sept. 2014 until Jan. of 2015, there were eight checks cashed from Marquez's account. One of those included a check for $31,679.12 which paid for property on South Chadbourne. Marquez assumed this was for the restaurant Zapata owned (The Mejor Que Nada?). 

The state showed the checks to the jury and asked Marquez to point out the amount, date and the handwriting that appeared on the checks. He acknowledged that on every check it was either Zapata’s handwriting or that of the defendant's wife, Julie Zapata .

When the state asked if he had any knowledge of the checks, Marquez stated he did not know about any of them. He mentioned that Zapata reached out to him in Feb. 2015 and said he had ran into some trouble. Zapata wanted to transfer the $65,000 back to Marquez so he could then get a cashiers check and send the refund to John Sullivan's probate attorney Chris Hartman. Marquez agreed to help the defendant with the transfer.

When asked if Marquez knew about the Texas Rangers' investigation of Sullivan’s estate, with an estimated worth of just over $8 million, he responded saying he was not aware of it prior to transferring the money to Hartman.

A few months later, Marquez learned Zapata had been arrested, and then he made sure to clear the IOTA account. He said he saw there was just $5,000 left in the account that Zapata had not withdrawn. Marquez told the jury he did not deactivate the account because he may need to use it in the future.

The state then passed the witness to the defense council for cross-examination. Defense attorney Mark Snodgrass asked repeatedly for Marquez to answer if the proceeds from a theft or forgery would be considered criminal activity. Marquez believed it wouldn’t be in this case because he was unaware of how the money came to be in Zapata's possession.

“I don’t have a thing to hide here, sir,” Marquez told Snodgrass.  In response, Snodgrass asked him to answer the question instead of avoiding it.  

After repeated questioning about the money being attached criminal activity, which lasted a few minutes, Snodgrass asked why Marquez didn't know the check was for his account.

“All I knew was that a check was going into my account,” Marquez said.

Marquez said he would have to endorse the check that was going into the IOTA account. It was Zapata’s money and he was only there to give him access to the account.

“I was not a contributor,” Marquez told the jury. “I was an instrument of [Zapata’s] deception.”

Before Marquez took the stand, the jury had the opportunity to listen to the testimony of Michael Deadman and Sarah Pryor. Deadman serves as the court-appointed administrator of the Sullivan estate and Pryor as DPS Crime Lab Forensic Document Examiner who was in charge of authenticating the holographic, or hand-written, will Hartman had presented days after John Sullivan’s death.

Deadman spoke about the issues the estate faced, such as pending lawsuits, back taxes and penalty fees to the IRS, and the overall management of the estate. There are currently multiple lawsuits filed against the estate by two of Sullivan’s alleged victims and one of the of them is currently on appeal after John Young sued the estate for $500,000 in legal fees that he accumulated while litigating a lawsuit with the Tom Green County’s District Attorney’s Office. 

The estate also faced problems with the IRS that required Deadman and his lawyers to re-file 12 years of taxes to correct the mistakes. Sullivan was also the owner of an overseas account that held nearly $4.4 million dollars, which he failed to disclose to the IRS. The penalty for that is approximated to be $1.25 million is still in negotiation between the IRS and the estate's current lawyers.    

It appears that after all the penalties, lawsuits, and legal fees the Sullivan estate has lowered in value significantly. It appears what began as an $8.2 million inheritance has slowly been chipped away, including the $1 million plus that Young spent while he controlled the estate and the $500,000 trust fund he reportedly he set aside for his children. The final heir of the estate may face a severely diminished inheritance after all matters are taken care of, likely an amount less than $1 million.

During Sarah Pryor's testimony, the state prosecutor presented an extensive PowerPoint presentation that detailed the handwriting analysis she had conducted on the will. According to her findings, the comparisons made between the will and known documents with Sullivan’s signature seemed to indicate that Sullivan probably had not written the will or signed it. The analysis conducted of Zapata’s and Young’s handwriting was accomplished by comparing over 20 handwriting examples from each defendant in which they were dictated to write the will over and over again to use as comparison. In Young’s case he tended to print, rather than write in cursive, and thus the results were inclusive on the signatures and there were indications he may have not written the will.

For Zapata the results were a little different. According to her analysis, there were some indications that he may have written the will, but she was not conclusive in her judgment. Zapata's defense attorney keyed in on the fact there is no definitive match of the handwriting to his client. Although, Pryor did state that in her personal experience in prior handwriting analysis studies for other cases, she had never seen a conclusive identification of anyone's handwriting. Even though it could not be stated with certainty that Zapata had written the will, out of the three potential authors of the will, his handwriting seemed to have some matching characteristics, she stated.

The trial was called for recess and is scheduled to continue at 9 a.m. Friday.

Zapata’s trial is expected to continue on to next week and may change location once again as the courthouse attempts to accommodate the volume of trials currently in session.  

This story was written in collaboration with Sonia Ramirez-Muñoz.

For more on the case against Ray Zapata, click here.

Below is a complete timeline of LIVE!'s coverage of the Trial.

• 3/27/2014 – “DPS Arrests 77-Year-Old Man for Child Pornography and Online Solicitation of a Minor”
• 6/4/2014 – “Accused San Angelo Pedophile Dead at 77”
• 6/6/2014 – “Affidavits Detail How Sullivan Preyed Upon Young Boys” 
• 8/2/2014 – “The Will: Sullivan Leaves His Fortune to His Defense Attorney” 
• 3/26/2015 – “San Angelo Bail Bondsman, Defense Attorney Accused of Forging Will of Alleged Pedophile” 
• 3/27/2015 – “A San Angelo Lawyer Tipped Off Texas Rangers About Ray Zapata” 
• 4/6/2015 – “Woman Claims The Late John Edward Sullivan Was Her Brother and Wants His Estate”
• 5/8/2015 – “Victim's Attorney: Sullivan's Estate Could be Drained Before Trial” 
• 5/28/2015 – “Attorney Ordered to Reveal What He Did With Sullivan's Money”
• 6/8/2015 – “Handwriting Samples: Who Penned Sullivan's Will?” 
• 7/7/15 – “Zapata's Accused Accomplice Aces Polygraph” 
• 8/7/15 – “Tom Green County Suspends Licenses of Two Local Bail Bondsmen” 
• 8/21/15 – “Zapata Bail Bonds Barred from Business in Tom Green County” 
• 9/24/2015 – “Attorney Ordered to Pay Back Funds to Sullivan Estate”
• 4/12/2016 – “Ray Zapata’s Attorneys Get Closer to Trial”
• 10/20/2016 – “Wheels of Justice Slowly Turn in Ray Zapata, John Young Perjury Cases”
• 1/3/2017 – “Top January Felony Court Cases in Tom Green County” 
• 1/30/2017 – “Zapata & Young Attend Pre-Trial Hearing That Occurred Behind Closed Doors” 
• 1/31/2017 – “State’s Case Against Ray Zapata, John Young Falls Apart”
• 4/3/2017 – “Ray Zapata & John Young Finalize Trial Dates in Forgery Case” 
• 5/10/2017 — "State Suggests Zapata Was Paid $65,000 to Forge John Sullivan’s Will"
• 5/11/2017 — "Zapata Trial: Defense Dirties Local Attorney Up"