Zikanta, another witness: I was coming back from the land of Hanigalbat, when Kipiya [a mayoral henchman] took away my clothes. Two [measures] of barley I had to give him, and my clothes he released.

The Mayor was even accused of expropriating manure to fertilize his gardens:

Mar-Ishtar, a farmer: The manure for [one plot] of land the gardener of Kushshiharbe took away from me. So I said, ''Why did you take away my manure?'' and thus he spoke, ''As for you, he [the mayor] has ordered you to be flogged, and your district he has ordered to be devastated.''

The case against the Mayor was expanded to include charges that he had committed adultery with a woman named Humerelli. The Mayor vehemently denied the charge. But even one of his agents, Ziliptilla, became an accuser:

Ziliptilla: Last year Pizatu made Humerelli stay with her. Shimitilla and I went over at night, we called to her and brought her to the place of Kushshiharbe; and he had sex with her.

Mayor Kushshiharbe: No! Emphatically no! Not a word of it is true! I did not have sex with her!

Palteya: I called to Humerelli and took her over to the brothel of Tilunnaya, and Kushshiharbe had sex with her.

Mayor Kushshiharbe: May I perish if Palteya did bring Humerelli over to the brothel of Tilunnaya that I might have sex with her!

The scandal produced evidence of a wider conspiracy involving the mayor of a nearby town. It even had its own gate. But in this case the gate was not a suffix. It seems that Mayor Kushshiharbe was accused of adorning his private home with a gate fashioned from wood taken from the palace. Shades of Oliver L. North's security fence in the Iran-contra affair:

Turari, a witness: Thirty pieces of wood were placed in the [palace] gate, and Kushshiharbe took them away.

Mayor Kushshiharbe: I did not take them!

Palteya, another witness: Forty pieces of wood belonging to the palace Hutiya the carpenter took away and made into a door for Kushshiharbe . . . and I transported the wood.