Becky Bell, in a special to the Magnolia Reporter, reports on the verdict in a bizarre lawsuit in Columbia County over the sale of a family heirloom that turned out to be a fake Confederate battle flag.
The jury ordered Dorothy Woodward and her son Bruce Woodward to return the five-figure sum paid to them by Bruce’s cousin Reid Woodward to purchase a Confederate flag that once belonged to Reid’s late father, Joe Woodward, former prosecuting attorney for the 13th Judicial District and runner up to Bill Clinton in the 1978 Democratic gubernatorial primary. Confused yet? There’s more.
The testimony was that Joe had given the flag to his brother Mac Woodward, who served as state geologist under Gov. Mike Huckabee. In 2016, Reid agreed to pay $45,000 to buy the flag from Mac’s widow and son, Dorothy and Bruce, believing it to be an original Confederate battle flag. Reid became suspicious of the authenticity after trying to get it insured shortly after the purchase. An expert in the case testified the flag, a reproduction made in the 1940s or 1950s, was only worth $80 rather than the $1 million dollars it would have been worth if it had actually been what it was purported to be. According to Bell, the jury also ordered Bruce to pay Reid $5,000 in damages.