Owen Hawkins tries to talk his way out of the Petro America mess

• File
• Hawkins wanted to represent himself at trial.

Paul Bax was asleep when he got the call. It was May 8, and he’d finished working his graveyard shift for the U.S. Postal Service. He was being summoned to testify in one of the oddest trials in Kansas City memory.

Bax wasn’t blowing off a subpoena. Rather, this was his first notice that Isreal Owen Hawkins was trying to get him on the stand. By then, the prosecution had rested its case against Hawkins, the founder and CEO of Petro America, who is accused of securities fraud (“Fleecing the Flock,” October 28, 2010).

So Bax, a proud father of two straight-A students and an investor in Petro America, hopped out of bed, donned a two-piece suit and zipped downtown to the federal courthouse in Kansas City, Missouri. He was Hawkins’ first witness – but not the first sign that Hawkins was in trouble.