State Attorney Willie Meggs shows Circuit Judge Terry Lewis an aerial photo of the Destin airport complex in Leon County Circuit Court on Thursday.
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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.
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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.
