Former House Speaker Ray Sansom and two codefendants in a felony grand-theft case might have gotten off lightly with a bit of “humiliation” in an unsuccessful plea offer, State Attorney Willie Meggs testified Thursday.

Circuit Judge Terry Lewis heard testimony all day Thursday on defense motions to throw out the charges of grand theft and conspiracy against the three men.

Defendants also asked Lewis to sanction Meggs for prosecutorial misconduct and punish him for a misdemeanor of releasing grand jury testimony.

Details of plea-bargain discussions came out during court proceedings.

Meggs said his staff, even his wife, didn’t like the misdemeanor offer he considered for the once-powerful Republican legislator, former Northwest Florida State College President Bob Richburg and Jay Odom, a Panhandle developer and major donor to the state GOP and Sansom’s political causes. But he said he didn’t think Sansom and Richburg deserved to lose their state pensions, which could happen if they pleaded to even a misdemeanor.

But he also didn’t want three wealthy, politically connected men to walk away from what he considered a backroom deal to reward Odom for his political support by having Florida taxpayers build a classroom and emergency staging facility at a Destin airport. Meggs said he thought the real purpose of the hangar was to give Odom a place to park his corporate jets.

Lewis recessed the hearing until Aug. 20.

Meggs testified that in a conference call with attorneys Stephen Dobson, representing Sansom, Jimmy Judkins, representing Odom, and Hank Coxe, who represents Richburg, he “bantered” about finding a way to let the defendants accept some punishment as first offenders.

He said he mentioned a misdemeanor of “attempted official misconduct” in return for repayment of $310,000 in architectural planning fees — the only money spent at that point on the hangar, which was never built.

“There had to be a level of humiliation involved; they had to do some days on the sheriff’s work program as a condition of being in a diversion program,” Meggs said. “The Springtime Tallahassee parade was coming up, and I think I even said I’d like to see the three of them walking behind the sheriff’s posse, picking up horse poop.”

Coxe told Meggs, “You intended this proposition to be mean-spirited and humiliating.”

“I intended for them to give an accounting of their conduct,” Meggs replied.

With that offer rejected, Meggs initially had Sansom and Richburg indicted on charges of official misconduct and perjury. Odom was indicted only on the misconduct charge. But Lewis threw those charges out, and Meggs abandoned them after an appeals court sided with Lewis.

He re-filed a tougher complaint charging all three men with grand theft and conspiracy. Meggs said he could have made those charges from the start but wanted to make “the least intrusive” case against them.

The defense attorneys accused Meggs of “upping the ante” in retaliation for the three men exercising their legal right to seek dismissal of the indictment.

Judkins said Meggs should be punished for distributing two sections of grand jury testimony.

Meggs said he was handling about 16,000 documents and had them put on a computer disc in response to public-records requests from newspapers. He said the secret testimony was included on the disc and he meant to have it deleted, but it got out.

Update 11:20 p.m.

State Attorney Willie Meggs is spending the day in an unusual place -- on the witness stand, as attorneys for former House Speaker Ray Sansom and two co-defendants in a grand-theft case try to quash the charges and get him censured for his handling of the case.

Meggs was relaxed and casual, answering questions with a country-lawyer simplicity most of the time, but showed a few flashes of temper and mockery when lawyers asked him about things he thought were obvious. He insisted that he did not ratchet up the charges after Sansom, former Northwest Florida State College President Bob Richburg and Destin businessman Jay Odom won a dismissal of the first indictment against them.

After the initial charges of official misconduct and perjury against Sansom and Richburg, and official misconduct against Odom, were thrown out of court, Meggs filed an amended complaint charging them with grand theft and conspiracy.

Attorney Jimmy Judkins, representing Odom, called that "prosecutorial vindictiveness." Henry Coxe, representing Richburg, asked Meggs if he knows what statutes and Florida Bar rules say about what an attorney may tell the news media or state publicly about a defendant before trial.

"I can't talk about his momma," Meggs replied, dismissively. But he insisted it's legal to talk about anything that is in the public record. A prosecutor, he said, may also publicly disagree with interpretations of the law taken by opposing lawyers, the attorney general or even a judge who dismisses a case.

Meggs apologized for releasing some transcripts of grand jury testimony that was supposed to be sealed. He said he had about 16,000 pages of documents transferred to a computer disc and meant to delete two portions of still-secret grand jury testimony. But he said he was driving his son to Shands Hospital in Gainesville and forgot to call his office with instructions to delete the testimony before responding to a public-records request.

When he realized his mistake, Meggs said, he phoned the news media which had received the discs and told them it would be illegal to publish the information in any way.

Meggs denied that he intended to release grand jury testimony and said his questioning before the grand jury was always intended to elicit information, not to prejudice jurors against the three men.

The charges grew out of a $6 million budget item Sansom inserted into the state budget when he was House Appropriations Committee chairman, before becoming speaker. The expenditure was for an airport hangar complex that Sansom described as a multi-use emergency operations center for Okaloosa County and a classroom facility for Northwest Florida State College.

The state alleges that it was really intended as a reward for Odom, a Panhandle developer, to be used for parking his corporate jets near Destin. The hangar was never built and Sansom resigned from first the speakership and then from the Legislature.

He also gave up a six-figure job that he had been given at NWFSC in November of 2008, the day he became speaker.

Circuit Judge Terry Lewis dismissed the initial official misconduct and perjury charges, saying it is not possible to falsify a state budget. Meggs then filed the grand-theft and conspiracy charges, which Lewis refused to dismiss this year.

Meggs said he had considered grand theft and conspiracy from the start but wanted to charge the "least intrusive" offenses. He said he had several other options, including offenses involving internet communication, that he could have brought if he had wanted to hit the three with everything in the statutes.

Earlier, Judkins said the defense lawyers don't like grilling Meggs but believe he is abusing his power to hound Sansom, Odom and Richburg for legal uses of their authority.

"This is really hard for us, professionally, to bring this evidence to the court," Judkins said in his opening statement. "We have never brought a motion like this before."

But Judkins said, "he made statements that have the effect of outraging public opinion against the defendants here."

10 a.m.

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Attorneys for former House speaker Ray Sansom and two codefendants are in court today trying to throw State Attorney Willie Meggs off their case for "prosecutorial vindictiveness."

They were apologetic about it. The lawyers said they don't like accusing a fellow attorney of prosecutorial misconduct, but that Meggs committed a misdemeanor by releasing some grand jury testimony and making prejudicial statements to the news media.

Sansom, former Northwest Florida State College President Bob Richburg and Jay Odom, a Destin businessman, face charges of grand theft in connection with a $6 million budget item for an airplane hangar. The state alleges that the hangar, which was never built, was a political reward for Odom for his financial support of Sansom and the Florida Republican Party.

"This is really hard for us, professionally, to bring this evidence to the court," said Jimmy Judkins, representing Odom, in his opening statement. "We have never brought a motion like this before."

But Judkins said, "he made statements that have the effect of outraging public opinion against the defendants here."

He told Circuit Judge Terry Lewis that Meggs "upped the ante" and retaliated against the defendants for exercising their right to get an initial indictment dismissed. That one involved charges of official misconduct and perjury against Sansom and Richburg and only official misconduct against Odom.

When an appeals court upheld the dismissal, Meggs filed felony charges of grand theft and conspiracy, with tougher criminal penalties. Judkins said that amounted to "actual vindictiveness" and a "presumption of vindictiveness" on Meggs' part.

Meggs was the first witness called. He testified that he amassed some 16,000 documents and put them on a computer disc. He said grand jury transcripts were on the disc and were inadvertently left on it when a public records request was made.

Defense lawyers asked Lewis to dismiss the charges, officially sanction Meggs and bar him from any further involvement in the case.