Alabama: 7 defendants could be retried

7 defendants could be retried in gambling corruption trial
Written by Sebastian Kitchen and Brian Lyman

None of the defendants in a high-profile federal corruption trial were found guilty Thurs­day. Two were exonerated. Mistrials were declared for the seven others after the jury failed to reach unanimous deci­sions on some counts against them.

The jury found state Sen. Quinton T. Ross Jr., D-Mont­gomery, not guilty on the 16 counts against him and Mont­gomery lobbyist Robert B. Geddie Jr. not guilty on the 13 counts against him.

None of the other seven, in­cluding VictoryLand owner Milton McGregor, were found guilty on any of the more than 120 total counts against them in the high-profile case that was first announced from the U.S. Department of Justice in Wash­ington -- not in Alabama -- and that was headed by top prose­cutors from the Public Integri­ty Section at the Justice De­partment.

"It's a great day. We walk out of the courthouse and go home," said Joe Espy, lead at­torney for McGregor. " ... On this day, we're pleased."

Six of the other defendants -- McGregor; former Sen. Jim Preuitt, R-Talladega; former Sen. Larry Means, D-Attalla; Sen. Harri Anne Smith, I-Slo­comb; lobbyist Tom Coker; and former County Crossing spokesman Jay Walker -- were found not guilty on some of the charges against them. But the judge declared a mistrial for the six because the jury could not reach a consensus on all the charges against them.

The judge also declared a mistrial for former legislative analyst and attorney Ray Cros­by with the jury deadlocked on the one bribery count against him.

"It feels pretty good, but I feel so damn bad for everybody else," an emotional Geddie said while leaving the courthouse.

Geddie's attorney, Jimmy Jud­kins, slammed the prosecution's case, said it was ill-conceived and said his client should have never been involved in the trial.

"It is a terrible thing what our government has put innocent citi­zens through," Judkins said.

McGregor and other casino op­erators and lobbyists were accused of bribing state lawmakers to pass legislation that, if also approved by voters, would have allowed Victo­ryLand, Country Crossing and oth­er casinos in the state to stay open. Some of the lawmakers are ac­cused of extorting casino owners and their lobbyists for campaign contributions leading up to the vote on gambling legislation.

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The pressure to pass legislation increased after then-Gov. Bob Ri­ley formed a task force in Decem­ber 2008 aimed at ending games that he thought were played on ille­gal slot machines at those estab­lishments. The task force raided or attempted to raid several casinos in the state.

Three people, Country Crossing owner Ronnie Gilley and two of his lobbyists, Jarrod Massey and Jenn­ifer Pouncy, pleaded guilty in the case. They all testified for the pros­ecution in the case.

After a two-month trial, the jury began deliberating Friday af­ternoon. On Tuesday and again Thursday morning, the jury indi­cated in a note to the judge that it had reached a unanimous decision on some counts but felt it would "never" reach a unanimous verdict on some of the others.

U.S. District Judge Myron Thompson then decided to allow a partial verdict and to declare a mistrial for those deadlocked counts. The judge expects to set a new date for the trial within a month or two.

Bobby Segall, an attorney for McGregor, said he was "a little bit disappointed, but I guess we'll do it again."

McGregor, the once outspoken casino owner who lives in Mont­gomery about 20 miles from his dog track and casino in Shorter, was found not guilty on three counts including one bribery charge, but the jury could not reach a decision on 14 counts against him.

Espy said they wanted all of the counts decided Thursday but that the jury did not find McGregor or anyone else guilty on any of the counts.

"I'm disappointed any time I don't win 100 percent," Espy said.

Espy said McGregor, who de­clined to talk, "feels good and posi­tive."

"He was probably the least ner­vous of all of us waiting for the verdict," Espy said.

McGregor had a team of high-profile attorneys.

When McGregor was asked to comment, Espy said he "can't do it at this point." Espy said McGregor would talk when the situation has been resolved.

Coker, a well-respected Mont­gomery lobbyist who represented McGregor along with other clients, was found not guilty on 11 of the 14 counts against him.

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"We're obviously happy for the 11 not guilty counts and we're dis­appointed (the jury) didn't finish the job on the other three," said David McKnight, attorney for Cok­er, who lives in Lowndesboro.

The jury found Smith not guilty on 11 counts but could not reach a decision on the remaining eight.

Jim Parkman, attorney for Smith, said he was disappointed and had not done his job as well as he should have.

"I thought we had done enough in the trial ... to get all not guilty," Parkman said.
Preuitt, who decided not to run for re-election to the Senate after entering the race in 2010, declined to comment on the outcome of the deliberations.

Means, who lost his bid for re-election a month after he was in­dicted, said he felt "good, like I did when I came here."

Susan James, an attorney for Walker, said they hoped he would be found not guilty on all counts "so Jay's family could get on with their life." She said they were opti­mistic about the remaining counts.

Walker was found not guilty on 11 of the 13 counts against him.

James said the bigger message was that there was not a single guilty verdict.
"Not one single guilty verdict is huge," James said.

James also declined to have Walker speak to the media, saying he would talk when he was found not guilty of all the charges.

There were a total of 37 counts in the indictment with eight of the nine defendants named in 12 of them. The charges in the indict­ment included conspiracy, bribery, extortion, obstruction of justice and honest services fraud.

With no one being found guilty of one of the more than 100 total counts, several defense attorneys also said they hoped the federal prosecutors would consider not pursuing the case further.

Unlike several of the defense attorneys, federal prosecutors have declined to talk to the media during the trial, and made no comment Thursday. The U.S. Attorney's Of­fice in Montgomery referred com­ment to the U.S. Department of Justice in Washington.
"We appreciate the jury's serv­ice in this important public corrup­tion trial," Laura Sweeney, a public affairs specialist with the Justice Department, wrote in a statement. "Our prosecutors will discuss next steps as we move forward in this matter."

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Several attorneys said they saw the emotion on the faces of the ju­rors on Thursday. They also said they thought most of the jurors leaned in favor of acquitting the defendants, but there was a small minority holding out.

"When I went to the podium with Jim, there were tears in some of the eyes of the jurors so I feel there were people fighting for me," Smith said.

Smith looked directly at the jury smiling as her verdict was read to her. Most other defendants looked down or looked straight for­ward to the court officer reading the verdict, who stood in front of the judge.

Each of the defendants was called up one-by-one to stand at the podium where their attorneys had argued on their behalf. One or two of their attorneys would stand be­side them as the verdict was read.

Defense attorneys only pres­ented one witness during the 10-week trial. The government presented 17 witnesses, including several current and former state legislators, and FBI agents who worked on the case.

The charges stemmed from an FBI investigation that began in 2009. Three legislators -- Sen. Scott Beason, R-Gardendale; Rep. Barry Mask, R-Wetumpka; and for­mer Rep. Benjamin Lewis, R-Dot­han -- wore wires during the inves­tigation and recorded conversations for the FBI. All three testified for the prosecution and said casino owners or their lobby­ists had tried to bribe them.

The FBI also wiretapped the phones of McGregor, Gilley and Massey to secretly record their conversations, voicemails and text messages.

Parkman said the not guilty verdicts indicated that the jury did not think much of the testimony of the three current or former state legislators who testified against his client, Beason, Lewis and former state Sen. Steve French, who claimed Smith tried to bribe him.

"They took care of those for us," Parkman said.