Gentlemen (mostly), start your engines

A longish post - but, trust me, not near as “longish” as the actual trial proceedings.
Jury selection in the Bobby Medford trial was completed at 4 p.m. on Tuesday, a full day later than initially predicted by Judge Tim Ellis. If this proves to be the rule we can anticipate a month-long trial.

Opening arguments commenced at 4:30.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Richard Edwards laid out the government’s case using three charts. The charts illustrated how the video poker permitting system was supposed to work, how the permit system allegedly worked under Medford’s administration and the complicated flow of cash, checks and money orders from campaign contributors and video poker operators into the sheriff’s office, the campaign coffers, a federal credit union, the U.S. Post Office and various pockets.

Starting in 2000, county sheriffs in N.C. were required to register video poker machines and issue permit stickers. The only machines which could be permitted were those which were in the state before Jan. 1, 2000 and in operation before June 1 of that year. (This was to stem an anticipated flood of machines from S.C., which had banned them.)

Edwards said, “This is a case about public corruption, the abuse of power … and an effort to enrich Bobby Medford.” He told jurors that the government would offer documents that correlated cash deposits, purchase of postal money orders, organized fraud concerning campaign donors, sale of video poker permit stickers (which were supposed to be free with registration) and laundering of money through George’s Mini-Mart and a Bi-Lo grocery store. He discussed Medford’s gambling at Harrah’s with his girlfriend Judi Bell and his secretary Sharon Stewart and the massive losses incurred there, losses which approached Medford’s income of $100,000 - $125,000 per year, as well as “worthless” checks written at Harrah’s by Bell which were covered in the nick of time by large cash deposits to her credit union account.

He also detailed the issuance of special deputy badges to various players in the organized gambling scheme and an attempt to subvert the actions of a federal grand jury. He concluded by reiterating the specific charges which he said the government would prove true.

Defense Attorney Stephen Lindsay was up next, and bent most of his effort toward painting Medford as a sad, sick old man who was taken advantage of by unscrupulous underlings while his attention was on the difficult work of running a large law enforcement department. “Let me take you back to 1994,” he started, “That was a significant election because Republicans got elected across the board.” He characterized it as a “tidal wave” in which Bobby Medford was first elected.

Lindsay noted that video poker was present in North Carolina before 1994 and asserted that it went all the way back past Sheriff Charlie Long’s administration into Sheriff Harry Clay’s era. [A footnote: Johnny Harrison, already convicted in this case, and referred to as “Medford’s bagman” by many of my sources, is married to Harry Clay’s widow. I suspect this will be enlisted in Lindsay’s effort to pin the whole scheme on Harrison.]

Lindsay reiterated Edwards’ observation that the N.C. video poker law was changed in 2000 in response to South Carolina’s ban on the machines. But he went further to describe the state law as an unfunded mandate from the state for local sheriffs, a burden on the overstretched departments which had to assign officers and manage records without extra funding.

The attorney talked about Medford’s sterling record as a police officer and deputy sheriff and his modest apartment in Weaverville. “He rented a little apartment and wore the clothes on his back, even when he went from an income of $25,000 per year up to $125,000 in his last year as sheriff.” [This to establish that he could afford to lose $90,000 per year at Harrah’s.] Lindsay described Medford’s hard work “24/7” as a sheriff, his serious health issues and constant pain which required prescription drugs and finally an implant, and the fact that the only relief he could find from the rigors of office and chronic hurt was to gamble.

Lindsay asserted that the reason small store owners had to violate the law and make illegal pay-offs to gambling customers was that if they stayed within the law no one would play the machines. He said that many mom-0n-pop stores depended on in come from the machines to stay in business. [The law limited winnings to $10 worth of store credit per day. This is a fascinating line of reasoning: Medford permitted illegal gambling in order to help small businessmen.]

As to the government’s assertion that Medford organized the video poker operators in the county by assigning them locations, Lindsay explained that the organization was to prevent operators from engaging in bidding wars for placement of machines. “Say one operator was offering stores a 50-50 split. Another might come along and offer 60-40. Bobby Medford didn’t want operators to be moving machines around the county.” [Another fascinating defense. He’s admitting restraint of trade, which isn’t legal.]

At one point Lindsay asserted that most of the witnesses in the government’s case had been convicted of crimes and that the government had offered them reduced time in prison “if they will say what the prosecution tells them to say.”

Judge Ellis immediately intervened. “Are you going to introduce evidence to that effect?” [See more about this odd interruption at the end of this post.]

“Yes,” was Lindsay’s reply.

In the end, Lindsay said that the “old man” Medford was a better investigator than administrator and suggested that the 350-person department was just too much for him to handle. Then asked that the jury find him innocent.

Next up was Attorney Paul Bidwell, representing Guy Penland.

Penland started out by assuring the jurors that crimes had been committed “things that were wrongful,” but he immediately took care to separate his client from Medford. “Behind me there are two separate people.” He noted that the prosecution had two Assistant Attorneys and an FBI agent while Medford had two attorneys, but he and Penland were facing all of that alone. “In this room it’s just Guy and me as far as I’m concerned.”

He explained that Guy was a volunteer, a man who all his life had wanted to be a police man. He painted a picture of a kindly old man who never had much education but late in life got a General Equivalency Diploma and went through officer training in order to become a Deputy Sheriff under Medford, only to pick up a D.U.I. and have his certification revoked.

But he still wanted to be a cop and Medford, with his unfunded mandate to register machines, needed help. So he enlisted Penland as a volunteer to help with that onerous task.

Unfortunately, Penland was just too nice a guy and got duped by Johnny Harrison and a video poker machine salesman named Jerry Pennington [who has also pled guilty in an associated case.] According to Bidwell, his client was just being helpful to Pennington, in finding locations for machines, because he was an old man “who knew everybody.” When Penland used his sheriff’s department gear to “run a tag” which exposed an undercover officer who was investigating illegal gaming, Penland was just “being helpful,” not obstructing justice.

Bidwell concluded that “The star witnesses for the government in this case are criminals … beyond those witnesses there is very little evidence at all. The evidence is going to fail to show that there was any protection of operators. The evidence will fail to show any connection between money to the sheriff’s department and failure of enforcement. You will find that Guy Penland is innocent.”

The jury was excused for the day at about 5:45 p.m. After the jury exited, Judge Ellis turned to Lindsay. “Mr. Lindsay, it appeared that were saying that the prosecutors were subborning perjury.”

Lindsay attempted to defend his characterization as simply indicating that the witnesses had reason to color their testimony because they were getting reduced sentences.

Ellis retorted sharply, “But that’s not what you said.” He asked Assistant U.S. Attorney Corey Ellis [no relation] for his opinion and the prosecutor quoted Lindsay from his notes, and agreed that Lindsay had done exactly that.

Judge Ellis said, “When I was on that side of these proceedings [meaning, when he was a prosecutor] I would have hit the ceiling if you said that.”

Lindsay apologized and suggested that he had misstated himself in the heat of his defense. The judge told him not to let that happen again, then ended the proceedings at 5:50 p.m.

As an aside, sitting back and looking at the courtroom scene one can’t avoid noticing that the players are mostly male and white. It is no wonder that people of color feel closed out of the justice system, and women need not apply. The five women in the room include two jurors, one of Medford’s attorneys, the assistant clerk and the court reporter. There is one black juror.