Alabama gambling corruption retrial will be 'a new game'

Alabama gambling corruption retrial will be 'a new game'
Written by Sebastian Kitchen

An attorney in the second round of the federal corruption trial of VictoryLand owner Milton McGregor and six others compared it to the national championship game between Alabama and Louisiana State University.

"We played the game before, but this is a new game," said Jim Parkman, a defense attorney for state Sen. Harri Anne Smith, an independent from Slocomb.

LSU beat Alabama in the first contest. But in the second, Alabama overwhelmed LSU to win the national championship.

Parkman said, although there were no convictions out of the more than 130 counts in the first trial, they are taking nothing for granted. They are preparing an offense and a defense and will be ready to go a second time.

Jury selection begins at 9 a.m. Monday.

The new trial will feature two fewer defendants, a different prosecution team, the absence of key prosecution witnesses from the first trial, and at least the possibility former Gov. Bob Riley could be called by the defense.

McGregor, Smith, and five others are accused of having taken part in an alleged scheme in which casino owners and their lobbyists bribed state lawmakers to support pro-gambling legislation.

Country Crossing developer Ronnie Gilley and two of his lobbyists, Jarrod Massey and Jennifer Pouncy, pleaded guilty before the start of the first trial, which ended in August.

The jury found two of the nine defendants in that trial not guilty on all of the charges against them, and found the defendants not guilty on a total of 91 counts.

U.S. District Judge Myron Thompson also threw out several counts before the case went to the jury and declared a mistrial on 33 counts after the jury could not reach a consensus on those counts.

After declaring a mistrial on those undetermined counts against the remaining seven defendants, Thompson set a retrial for Monday.

Much like that national championship game, the retrial could be a very different affair than the first.

Change in prosecution team

The lead prosecutor for the federal government, Justin Shur, left the U.S. Department of Justice in the last month for private practice. And the two local assistant U.S. attorneys who handled much of the heavy lifting in the first trial, Louis Franklin and Steve Feaga, will not be prosecuting the case.

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Parkman said the prosecution has "plenty of good lawyers" and he does not believe that the change in prosecutors would "affect anything."

"I think they will have somebody to fill in for (Shur) and do a good job," he said.
Franklin and Feaga questioned some crucial witnesses, including Gilley, state Rep.
Barry Mask and state Sen. Scott Beason.

Beason, R-Gardendale, and Mask, R-Wetumpka, recorded conversations for the FBI.

A juror who spoke to the Associated Press after the trial said there were credibility issues with Beason and other witnesses, including Gilley and Massey. She also said that a majority of the jury leaned heavily toward not guilty verdicts on those charges they could not agree on.

Different witnesses for prosecution

Parkman said other defense attorneys told him that prosecutors said they do not plan to call Beason or former state Rep. Ben Lewis, a Dothan Republican who is now a judge.

But defense attorneys could call them as witnesses.

"If they're not going to call them, they believe the credibility issues outweigh the evidence they could get in -- (that it) could be more damaging to have their testimony than not to," Parkman said.

One of the conversations that Beason recorded -- one in which he talked to Lewis and another Republican lawmaker -- referred to supporters of a west Alabama casino in predominantly black Greene County, as "aborigines." Beason, who has since announced he is running for Congress, later apologized for the comment, but fellow Republican leaders in the Senate stripped him of a key leadership post.

Thompson, in a ruling leading up to the second trial, wrote that Beason and Lewis lacked credibility and that their intentions had political and racial roots.
New testimony, faster trial?

Attorneys for McGregor, after a ruling from a magistrate judge, could call Riley, who did not have to take the stand in the first trial.

McGregor and his attorneys have been bitterly critical of Riley, who formed a task force to shut down what he believed was illegal gambling in the state.

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McGregor has long contended that part of the impetus for the crackdown was because of campaign funds Riley received from Mississippi Indian casino owners who wanted to shut down competition in Alabama.

Parkman expects the second trial to be smoother than the 10-week trial that started in June 2010 and ended with the attorneys for the nine defendants only calling one witness.

He expects "it to be a little faster than last time and not as drawn out."
"Of course we're taking this very seriously, and we're not relying on what happened the last time," Parkman said.

Parkman said they have discovered new information since the first trial, which he said could shed some "more light on people there and their thought process."
Parkman said they will "face good lawyers with the government," which he said has power with the number of investigators it can use.

"We're nervous about it. We always are," Parkman said.

The other defendants are McGregor lobbyist Tom Coker; former state Sens. Jim Preuitt of Talladega and Larry Means of Attalla; former Country Crossing spokesman Jay Walker; and former legislative analyst Ray Crosby.

Federal authorities arrested the defendants Oct. 4, 2010, and charged them with conspiracy, bribery and other crimes.

Prosecutors have declined to comment throughout the trial.