Start of gambling corruption trial features plenty of fireworks

A brief recap of the Alabama players was offered:

Start of gambling corruption trial features plenty of fireworks

Beason said he talked with Smith, a fellow state senator, and after a dinner with supporters of Country Crossing he was told they could help him with as much as $500,000 for a future run for lieutenant governor if he supported their effort. Smith said the conversation never happened.

Bobby Segall, attorney for McGregor, pointed out that Beason did not go to the FBI after the $500,000 was mentioned, but only weeks later when he felt he was being blackmailed politically.

A prosecutor played several conversations Beason taped including those with Country Crossing developer Ronnie Gilley and his lobbyist Jarrod Massey.

In a recording at Zoe's Kitchen in Homewood, Massey offers Beason $1 million a year to use for campaigns, which could make him more of a player in state politics, or that he could use personally. Massey said Beason could be paid through a "store front" public relations operation where little was expected of him.

Beason acknowledged taping not just those the FBI instructed him to, but anyone he thought might talk about gambling. Segall accused him of even recording conversations with friends, including Republican political consultant Monica Cooper. He also recorded Randy Brinson of the Christian Coalition of Alabama.

But U.S. Attorney Louis Franklin asked Beason if he knew McGregor was paying Cooper and Brinson. Cooper at the time was the top aide to Senate Republicans. Franklin asked Beason if he knew a company Brinson owned received $300,000 from McGregor.

Ray Crosby, an analyst for the Legislature who was also being paid as a consultant for McGregor, drafted anti-gambling legislation during the time of the alleged conspiracy. Prosecutors have accused Crosby, one of the nine defendants, of drafting legislation that favored McGregor. Beason said he requested a bill in January 2010 that came from Crosby, but that it was worded in a way that did not stop all gambling in the state. He acknowledged that Crosby immediately corrected the error, which he said could have been the product of miscommunication, and had previously drafted legislation for him that would have hurt VictoryLand and other operations.

Beason told the Advertiser on Thursday that he would not talk to the media about his testimony until after the trial was over.

State Rep. Barry Mask, a Wetumpka Republican who also recorded conversations and cooperated with authorities. He told the court he went to the Alabama Department of Public Safety after someone he said was close to McGregor tried to call and buy all 100 of the $50 tickets to a fundraiser he was having.

Mask told the woman handling tickets not to do it and that he did not want gambling money. The man said he would come anyway, which Mask said concerned him because it was about the time of the state raids on gambling facilities. McGregor, who Mask said he had not talked to in at least 18 months, then called and left a message for the legislator two days later. The combination of those events prompted Mask to call an attorney he knew with DPS.

Prosecutors and defense attorneys argued over what Mask could be questioned about during cross-examination. Potential questions included: a comment he made comparing Greene County to a third-world country; his possible connections to the Poarch Band of Creek Indians; a squabble with Rep. Paul Beckman of Prattville over taxes in Elmore County; and about him receiving two government-funded checks, one as a legislator and another for his job at the Elmore County Economic Development Authority.

Mask will continue his testimony Monday.