Alabama: Defense lawyers cross-examine over phone records

Defense lawyers in bingo trial cross-examine FBI agent over phone records
By Brendan Kirby, Press-Register Press-Register

MONTGOMERY, Ala. — Defense attorneys took turns this morning attacking the meaning that prosecutors tried to attach to hundreds of phone calls among defendants in a State House vote-buying trial.

Attorneys for VictoryLand casino owner Milton McGregor and lobbyist Tom Coker asked during cross-examination how many of those calls went to voice mail or were less than a minute long. FBI Special Agent Nathan Langmack, who reviewed the thousands of calls on more than 20 phones, said he did not know the number.

But he acknowledged that many of them were.

McGregor and Coker are 2 of 9 people on trial on allegations that bingo bosses bribed 4 state senators and tried to buy support from others in a campaign to win passage of a bill giving voters a chance to legalize electronic bingo.

One of the defendants, former state Sen. Jim Preuitt, can be heard on one of the calls between Country Crossing owner Ronnie Gilley and another person. Investigators had wiretapped the first call but were not listening on a different phone he used to take a call from Preuitt on March 22 of last year, a week before the bingo vote in the state Senate.

On the snippet captured on tape, Gilley suggested that country music star George Jones would buy a truck from Preuitt’s car dealership in Talladega.

During cross-examination, defense attorney Ron Wise demanded to know if Langmack had ever looked to see if Jones, casino public relations man Jay Walker or Gilley had ever bought a vehicle from the dealership. Langmack said he did not.

Wise also noted that phone records showed the call between Gilley and Preuitt was 24:36 minutes long. Only a few seconds were played for the jury.

“Where’s the rest of the call?” Wise asked.

Langmack replied that investigators do not have a recording of the call because that phone was not tapped.

“All we have is Mr. Gilley saying a few lines (of a transcript prepared by authorities) of a 24-minute and 36-second call,” Wise said. “And there’s nothing said on these less than a dozen lines about Jim Preuitt voting for anything, is there?”

Wise asked Langmack if there was any recording of his client telling Gilley he did not want his money.

David Martin, an attorney for McGregor, asked several questions in which he suggested there is nothing illegal or unusual about a businessman having lots of conversations with his paid lobbyists or political allies during a legislative session in which lawmakers were debating important issues related to his industry.

Martin also sought to raise other possibilities for the conversation between McGregor and the others that had nothing to do with the proposed legislation, like the anti-gambling raids that then-Gov. Bob Riley was directing against casinos.

Langmack testified, however, that he was not keeping up with state politics at the time and could not discuss those events.


Martin also tried to distinguish the 9 cell phones used by Gilley with the multiple phones that McGregor used. Langmack testified that many of Gilley’s 9 phones were prepaid “drop phones” used to avoid detection. But he acknowledged that of 2 alternate phones used by McGregor, one was his office phone and one was a cell phone registered to his business.