Ray Sansom, the ousted speaker of the Florida House, was indicted Friday on a felony charge that he falsified the state budget to get $6 million for an aircraft hangar sought by a developer friend and major GOP donor. A scathing grand jury report concluded that Sansom, "because of his friendship and political contributions, violated the trust that the citizens of Florida should expect from its elected representatives." The 46-year-old Destin Republican was booked into Leon County Jail at 3:35 p.m. Friday and was released on his own recognizance. He said he would be vindicated at trial. "As a legislator, I have always worked hard for my constituents and my district to bring needed projects and funding to the Panhandle," Sansom said. The indictment grew directly out of a series of articles by the St. Petersburg Times/Miami Herald Tallahassee bureau, which documented the striking similarities between the college building Sansom funded and the airport hangar his friend had sought. The news stunned Tallahassee, where the backroom budget maneuver at the heart of the criminal charge is practiced this time every year. After the news broke, lawmakers warned that Sansom remains innocent until proven guilty, and no one suggested he leave his seat in the House. But while the grand jury broadly criticized a system that lets a handful of powerful lawmakers make million-dollar decisions in secret, it also used blunt terms to explain what made this criminal behavior: "Sansom used the power of his position to accomplish what (his developer friend) was unable to do for three years." In other words, the primary beneficiary of Sansom's deft budget moves was a private entity, a jet company owned by a wealthy friend and political contributor. The grand jury also indicted Bob Richburg, the president of Northwest Florida State College, which accepted the construction money Sansom inserted into the 2007 budget. The charge against Sansom and Richburg is official misconduct. It is a third-degree felony punishable by a maximum five-year prison sentence and a $5,000 fine. The indictment said the men did "unlawfully falsify or cause another person to falsify, an official record -- the 2007-08 state budget -- with corrupt intent to obtain a benefit" for another person. Richburg also was indicted on a perjury charge for testifying that there was never discussion to have developer Jay Odom use the building to store aircraft after the college got the $6 million. The grand jury said the college had "every intention" of subleasing part of the building to Odom. But for newspaper scrutiny, it went on, the deal would have gone unnoticed and "Jay Odom's planned (hangar) would have been successfully funded by taxpayer dollars." Odom refused an invitation to tell his version of events to the grand jury. To avoid having to offer immunity, State Attorney Willie Meggs sought only voluntary testimony and didn't use subpoenas. He said he did not seek charges against Odom because there does not seem to be a law against a private citizen seeking state money. But the grand jury report makes a strong connection between the $6 million airport building and the political contributions, totaling more than $1 million, that Odom made to the Republican Party of Florida, to a political committee Sansom controlled and to Sansom's own campaigns.
http://www.tampabay.com/news/politics/stat...ticle993222.ece
http://www2.tbo.com/content/2009/apr/17/17.../news-politics/
http://www.nwfdailynews.com/news/sansom_16...rg_project.html
http://www.nwfdailynews.com/news/okaloosa_...state_odom.html
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Thanks to Mark Pudlow for the clip and the leads.