But fellow Republicans permanently ousted him, seeing the controversy as a distraction. A political committee that Sansom controlled in part and that took in $100,000 from Odom was disbanded. And the GOP stopped using Odom's aircraft.

Richburg has felt the sting, too. He was fired after the indictment in April but is contesting the move and the college trustees on Tuesday voted to possibly pursue mediation. The college has abandoned the project, which was only in planning stages, and the money will go to other colleges next year.

All along, the most serious question surrounding Sansom has been the $6 million for the building at Destin Airport.

The Times/Herald uncovered numerous overlapping connections between the college plans and Odom's designs for a taxpayer-funded hangar that he promised to turn over to emergency officials during a storm.

Odom had been trying to build a private jet business at Destin Airport since 2004 but suffered a string of legal and other setbacks.

Then in 2006, he proposed getting $6 million in state construction money to build a hurricane-proof hangar on some of the land he had leased from Okaloosa County to open Destin Jet.

In exchange for public financing, Odom would turn the building over to emergency officials during natural disasters for use as a staging area. Destin city officials endorsed the project, but Odom never got state money.

About the same time, Sansom said he approached Northwest Florida State College with an offer: He could get the school $6 million in unbudgeted money if the school wanted to build a training facility for first responders that could double as an emergency operations staging area in times of natural disaster. The school said yes and Sansom inserted the money into the budget.

Over the past six months, the Times/Herald has made numerous records requests to the college regarding the project, but that e-mail was not included. Nor were scores of other documents recently turned over to investigators.

A college spokeswoman, Sylvia Bryan, said that while compiling files last month, ``archived e-mails were found that contained both materials previously supplied and materials that appeared not to have been previously supplied (and of which college staff were not previously aware.)''

A college attorney on Wednesday provided the records, contained on a computer disc, to the Times/Herald.

Among them is a memo from Odom to Richburg dated April 1, 2008, in which Odom outlines how a lease between the college and Destin Jet could be structured.

After the college builds the facility, ``Destin Jet would like to lease the use of a portion of the facility at times when it is not being used for the college's needs.''

But Bryan again Wednesday pointed to a lease signed in November of the same year that states ``nothing in this sublease is to be interpreted as creating a partnership or joint venture between any of the parties. Only a landlord/tenant relationship is created hereby.''

It also includes a clause that allows Odom first priority to ``repurchase the leasehold.''

Miami Herald staff writers Marc Caputo and Steve Bousquet contributed to this report.

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