Alabama: Ross expects more than $1.2M in legal fees

Ross expects more than $1.2M in legal fees
Written by Sebastian Kitchen

Although Quinton Ross was found not guilty of the 16 charges against him, the state senator ex­pects to owe more than $1.25 mil­lion in attorney fees and other ex­penses from the federal corruption trial that ended Aug. 11.

"There's no price that you can put on freedom," said Ross, the Montgomery Democrat. "We thank God for being with us."

The Friends of Quinton T. Ross Jr., Legal Defense Fund and Trust recently sent a letter, one of which was obtained by the Montgomery Advertiser, outlining the "unwar­ranted prosecution" and the cost to Ross and his family.

The trustees for the fund re­quested "your contribution of $15,000 or not less than $7,500."
"Senator Ross incurred and is now obligated to pay attorney fees and expenses that will total more than $1,250,000," according to the letter. " ... He and his family should not be saddled with this burden -- especially when he only law­fully raised campaign funds in the same ways as virtually every other Alabama law­maker."

The letter from the de­fense fund points out that Ross was found not guilty, just as he and his attorneys proclaimed since his arrest in October with 10 other de­fendants. They were charged for their alleged role in what prosecutors contended was a scheme in which casino own­ers and their lobbyists tried to bribe lawmakers to sup­port legislation that would al­low casinos to continue to of­fer so-called electronic bingo.

Ross, who was charged with conspiracy and bribery, was accused of trying to ex­tort casino owners and their lobbyists for money leading up to the March 2010 Senate vote on gambling legislation.

"As unfortunate as it is, you have to pay to prove your innocence," Ross said. "Be that as it may, we're free. We're just moving for­ward."

Ross and lobbyist Bob Geddie were found not guilty on all of the counts against them following a 10-week trial. Although six of the oth­er seven defendants were found not guilty on some of the charges against them, they will face another trial, which is scheduled to begin Jan. 9, because the jury could not reach a unanimous decision on all of the counts. No one was found guilty on any of the more than 120 counts against them. Three people did plead guilty be­fore the cases went to court.

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The more than two-month trial followed, according to the letter, eight months of preparation; thousands of hours to create, review and handle more than 1,600 court filings; and reviewing more than 200,000 pages of docu­ments, thousands of exhibits, and hundreds of hours of audio records.

This all occurred, accord­ing to the letter, "as the gov­ernment ill-advisedly tried, but failed to prove a wide-ranging conspiracy to cor­rupt the Alabama Legisla­ture."

"Facing the seemingly un­limited resources of the United States, Senator Ross' defense required substantial manpower and considerable out-of-pocket expenses," ac­cording to the letter.
Ross attributed the cost to the number of man-hours and to the amount of re­search that was needed.

Attorneys Lewis Gillis, Mark Englehart and Tyrone Means represented Ross.

Gillis could not be reached for comment.

"The issue for them at that time was not the money. It was making sure that they represented a client that they believe in and that is ex­actly what they did," Ross said. "I was fortunate to have attorneys that were not con­cerned about the money at the time."

Ross, who has said the prosecution was political, said the financial hardship "is all a part of the govern­ment apparatus to break you financially, spiritually, social­ly."

Jerome Gray, a trustee for the defense fund and former field director for the Alaba­ma Democratic Conference, said Ross is stuck with the legal bill even though he was found not guilty.
"It is unfortunate the fed­eral government it not forced to pay legal bills when people are found not guilty," Gray said. "It's un­fair, but that's the law. That's the way the system is. The main thing is he has his free­dom."

Gray has known Ross since he was a student at Alabama State University, where the future senator was president of the Student Government Association. He said he watched Ross begin his work with the Democrat­ic Party and become a prin­cipal at Booker T. Washing­ton Magnet High School.

"He's just been in my life for a long time," Gray said. " ... I see him as almost a son in politics."

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He said Ross, who he men­tored, would travel the state with him, and he watched him develop.
"In my mind, he would be the last person I would ex­pect to do anything unethical or take a bribe," Gray said.

Gray said he felt, after reading the indictment, that Ross was innocent from the beginning. He said Ross had sponsored gambling legisla­tion and always had support­ed electronic bingo so sug­gesting Ross was being bribed did not make sense to him.

Gray, who is retired and lives in Evergreen, said Ross' legal team asked him to serve on the committee. Al­though he is retired, he said he does not mind helping be­cause Ross "is most deserv­ing."

"I would have done it any­way. I have contributed, and I plan to do more," Gray said. "I told him I am going to use my influence to try to retire that debt that he has,"

When asked about where they were at in trying to pay off the debt, Gray said those operating the defense fund have not met since Ross' ac­quittal.

Ross, who represents much of Montgomery Coun­ty in the state Senate and who is the director of adult education at H. Councill Trenholm State Technical College, said he had to pay the bill, but said with a smile in an earlier interview that he was on a deferred plan and his attorneys were work­ing with him.

More importantly, the sen­ator said, he had "attorneys who looked beyond the fi­nances and looking specifi­cally to doing a job for a per­son that they believe and think is innocent."
Ross acknowledged that he did not have the means to write a check that size and that he appreciated his friends and family starting the fund and trying to help from the beginning.

Ross said the defense fund, chaired by award-win­ning actress Tommie "To­nea" Stewart, who is the dean of the College of Visual and Performing Arts at Ala­bama State University, oper­ates independent of him. The fund's committee has reached out to churches for financial help and has hosted events to help raise money.

Gray said he is going to push for smaller donations of $25 to $100 because he does not feel there will be as many large donors. He said he has a large mailing list and plans to reach out to those people to ask them to give generously and help Ross retire his debt.

"It is going to take a while," Gray said. "I am not naive to think it is going to happen overnight."

Gray hopes they put to­gether a plan to reach cer­tain levels either monthly or quarterly.

Gray commended Ross, who told the Advertiser he has no malice in his heart and that he has been at peace during the ordeal, for his attitude.

"For Quinton to come out of that and not be bitter, that takes a special individual to do that and say what he did," Gray said.