Alabama: ....angry Milton McGregor....

On tape, angry Milton McGregor lashes out at Bob Riley
By: Lance Griffin Dothan Eagle

2:48 p.m. – Hours before the vote-buying investigation in the Alabama Statehouse was made public, an angry Milton McGregor blamed then-Gov. Bob Riley for the investigation, calling him a “sick runaway thug.”

“This is unbelievable Riley would go to these extremes. Riley would do everything above the law, against the law,” McGregor said.

“Yeah, I mean are we in America?” Gilley replied in a phone conversation recorded by the FBI April 1, 2010. The recording was made when Gilley had been informed that investigators were in the Alabama Statehouse meeting with legislators. Gilley then called McGregor to inform him.

The call came two days after the pro-gambling bill SB380 was passed by the Senate. McGregor said the timing of the investigation was designed to kill the bill in the House.

“Riley is destroying this state. He has already destroyed our industry and now he is destroying our state. He is a sick runaway thug,” McGregor said.

Also Friday, McGregor attorney Walter McGowan tried to distance McGregor’s money from Ronnie Gilley Friday afternoon during testimony in the gambling corruption retrial.

During direct testimony Thursday, Gilley testified that McGregor loaned him about $14 million in 2009 in exchange for a percentage of the gross profits from Country Crossing. Gilley said the understanding between he and McGregor would be that about $5 million of the money would be used to “further legislative efforts” to pass pro-gambling legislation.

Under cross examination from McGregor attorney Walter McGowan, Gilley acknowledged that most of that money was gone by December of 2009 when Gilley hosted a fundraiser for Sen. Harri Anne Smith. During the first trial in the summer of 2011, Gilley testified that McGregor’s money was not used to pay for the fundraiser because “that money was gone.”

Gilley testified Thursday that some of McGregor’s money was in play when bribes were being offered to legislators in 2010.

McGowan also pointed out through questioning that McGregor’s money was only a portion of the money available to Gilley.

Gilley acknowledged the following amounts were invested in either Country Crossing or other Gilley projects:

» $33 million: The Miami Pro Group (professional athletes)

» $21 million: Lord Abbet Municipal Income Fund

» $17 million: IGT and Multimedia (Game manufacturers)

» $15 million: Dr. Bob Wright and Russ Wright of Columbus, Ga.

» $15 million: Ronnie Gilley

» $14 million: Milton McGregor

» $4 million: Boxer Floyd Mayweather, Jr.

In other testimony Friday, Gilley acknowledged that he instructed workers at BamaJam to scan tickets not used. Gilley testified similarly in the first trial. He said the sole purpose of instructing the workers was not to artificially inflate attendance numbers, but also to reflect the attendance of people who came to the event, but did not pass through the turnstiles.

12:08 p.m. – Walter McGowan, attorney for Milton McGregor, spent the first 75 minutes of his cross examination of Ronnie Gilley going over Gilley’s plea agreement with the government, as well as past instances in which Gilley said he offered bribes to legislators.

McGowan asked Gilley if he believed he had to “bring defendants down” in order to get a reduced sentence.

“I do not,” Gilley said. “I have to be truthful.”

Read Gilley’s plea agreement here. Read the factual basis for Gilley’s plea here.

McGowan also quizzed Gilley about a recorded conversation involving he and his wife in which he told her that in order to receive a reduced sentence, he had to “bring other people down.”

“I did say that at that time,” Gilley said.

10:56 a.m. – Country Crossing developer Ronnie Gilley said Friday he placed $20,000 in cash in a cell phone box and gave it to former Rep. Terry Spicer in 2008 after Spicer requested money from Gilley through his lobbyist, Jarrod Massey.

Gilley outlined the bribe during testimony Friday in the gambling corruption retrial Friday morning under direct questioning from Assistant U.S. Attorney Kendall Day.

Gilley said his lobbyist, Massey, told him in 2008 that Spicer was feeling “left out” because Gilley had made a sizeable contribution to an Alabama senator. Gilley said Massey told him that Spicer felt he deserved $50,000 because of the work he did in helping pass legislation to create a special “enterprise zone” for the BamaJam property.

“I told Jarrod that Spicer wasn’t even running for re-election and that I couldn’t even write a check to his campaign if I wanted to,” Gilley said during testimony.

“Jarrod told me that he didn’t want it in a check. He wants it in cash,” Gilley said.

Gilley said Massey went on to tell him that he should pay the money because Spicer was a powerful member of the House and that pro-gambling legislation would never passed the House without Spicer’s support.

Gilley said Spicer later came to his office and Gilley gave him a cell phone box with $20,000 in it.

“He said ‘I was needing a new cell phone anyway. Thank you very much,’” Gilley said, adding that Spicer never asked for an additional $30,000.

Spicer has pleaded guilty to a single count of bribery.

In other testimony, Gilley said his ownership in Country Crossing is currently less than 1 percent and that he remained about $116 million in debt.

“I’m broke,” he said.

Prosecutors began Friday morning’s session by playing additional recordings made by Scott Beason, including one in which he referred to patrons of the gambling facility Greenetrack as ‘aborigines’. Day asked Gilley if he would still try to bribe Beason if he had known about those comments.

“Unfortunately, to be perfectly honest, our greed would have led us to purchase his vote,” Gilley said.

Walter McGowan, attorney for Milton McGregor, read from a transcript of a phone conversation Gilley had with his wife after Gilley’s plea hearing in which Gilley said he was drawn into a web of corruption in Alabama politics. During the conversation, Gilley tells his wife that the words he used at the plea hearing were not his, and were the words the government wanted him to use.

Gilley acknowledged the accuracy of the conversation he had with his wife and asked for an opportunity to explain his comments, but has not been given the opportunity yet.

Cross examination of Gilley by McGowan is expected to continue for much of the day.

9:01 a.m. -- Testimony has begun Friday in the gambling corruption retrial. Ronnie Gilley remains under direct questioning from Assistant U.S. Attorney Kendall Day.

At the end of testimony Thursday, Day played a recording from a meeting of Republican caucus members. The recording was played by the defense in the initial trial and apparently picked up a member of the caucus discussing the gambling bill being debated in the Alabama Legislature in 2010. One of the members can be heard saying that if the gambling issue makes the general ballot in November, blacks would be bused to the polls on HUD-financed buses.

Sen. Scott Beason wore a wire as part of the vote-buying investigation, was present at the meeting and testified that his recording of the meeting was accidental. It appears that Beason can be heard concurring with the sentiments.

Gilley testified Thursday that he found the comments “nauseating”, but added that it would not have kept him from offering a bribe to Beason if he believed Beason was the deciding vote to pass the gambling bill out of the Senate.