Word: belled
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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Until last year, Texas was the only state where such increases had to be approved by city officials, and they were frequent and large enough to make it traditionally one of the most profitable states in the entire Bell system. Ashley claims that Southwestern Bell officials were constantly wooing and bribing politicians in such cities as Austin and Dennison...
Among other things, he says, the executives entertained politicians on hunting expeditions at Bell resorts in rural Texas gave them credit cards to make free long-listance calls-and, in one case, staged a three-day orgy at the TraveLodge in downtown San Antonio, where some Bell women employees became party girls Ashley also accused the company of giving top executives a $1,000 raise on the understanding that it was to be donated in $50 installments to a political slush fund. The pot was used for contributions to local and state officials friendly to Bell rate increases. Ward...
Ashley claims that when Bell learned that he and Gravitt were planning to expose such practices, the company started investigating their private lives. Houston Psychiatrist Gary J. Byrd told the court two weeks ago that Bell had "harassed" Gravitt until he committed suicide. Ashley claims that a Bell vice president at Gravitt's funeral warned him not to join the dead man's family in a suit against the company, saying "You file that suit and the Bell employees will hound you to death. That son of a bitch [Gravitt] lies in the grave-you're next...
Southwestern Bell last week presented an entirely different scenario. Harvard psychiatrist Shervert Frazier, testifying for the company, told the court that the "bad part" of Gravitt's life was about to be exposed and "he didn't want to face the music." Bell lawyers charged that Gravitt had spent $200,000 in company money remodeling his private office, $4,831 of company funds on repairs to his home and thousands more on padded expense reports. The company maintained ftat Gravitt was being investigated at the time of his suicide for philandering with employees on company time...
...Ashley, Bell claims that he was fired for joining with Gravitt to create fictional expense accounts and for forcing female employees to trade sex for promotions. On the witness stand, Ashley-who already has won 1 million suit against Southwestern Bell for tapping his phone-admitted falsifying expense forms but claimed he did so to cover up political payoffs. Said I didn't take one penny of Bell money for my use ever. I spent a lot of money on whiskey and a lot of money on politicians...