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RAY SANSOM CASE

Document could be the key in Sansom case

Some seemingly cryptic information on a document could be crucial in the prosecution of Ray Sansom, former Florida House speaker.

Herald/Times Tallahassee Bureau

A crucial document in the criminal case against former Florida House Speaker Ray Sansom is one spare page: three typed lines, a handwritten note in the margin and the number 1, circled.

No studies. No reports. No backup material. In the orbit of real power in the state Capitol, that's all it took for the House's top budget writer and soon-to-be speaker to direct $6 million to a ``Jt-Use Emergency Response Workforce center w/Okal Co. Destin Airport.''

The margin note, with the initials of Sansom's top aide, said ''per S.D. (speaker designate) to fund.'' Underlined. The circled number 1 meant it was Sansom's first priority.

To prosecutors, this simple document dated April 17, 2007, shows that Sansom intended all along for the $6 million building to be constructed at Destin Airport. The final budget entry omits the location, which prosecutors contend was part of Sansom's attempt to conceal the true purpose of the building: to store private aircraft for Jay Odom, a Sansom friend and political contributor.

The document is one of almost 16,000 pages prosecutors have made public by releasing them to defense attorneys as Sansom prepares for trial on felony official misconduct and perjury charges. In the mountain of documents and testimony transcripts are new details that Odom was going to store planes in the building, something Sansom, Odom and the college president long denied.

DETAILS AVAILABLE

Among the newly public details:

• The man who oversaw Destin Airport testified that he contacted the Federal Aviation Administration to say that in addition to college classrooms, the building would serve as storage and maintenance space for Destin Jet, Odom's company.

• A Northwest Florida State College official in charge of the construction confirmed for the grand jury that the building design was similar to what Odom wanted, and that massive hangar doors were to be included to accommodate aircraft in the event the college decided to lease the staging area. The official testified that he and college president Bob Richburg discussed allowing Odom's company, Destin Jet, to lease space.

• A top Okaloosa County official testified that he attended a meeting at the college on May 2, 2008 -- a year after Sansom got the money -- and was told that Odom would store aircraft in the building.

All that builds on numerous ties reported during a months-long investigation by the Herald/Times Tallahassee Bureau, which triggered the grand jury. The newspaper stories began when Sansom took a six-figure, part-time job at the college on the same day last November that the Destin Republican became House speaker. The $6 million was part of about $35 million Sansom secured for the school in the two years he controlled the House budget.

''I don't know how to tell you in any other way other than it stinks to high heaven,'' State Attorney Willie Meggs said to Sansom as he sat in the witness stand two months ago. ``It just has a rotten smell to it.''

GRAND JURY

A review of the case file shows how the grand jury became convinced that the airport building was going to be used by Odom despite contrary and statements from Sansom, Richburg and Odom.

Richburg and Odom have also been indicted. A trial could be months in the making. The college and Sansom insist the project had only two uses: To serve as a training facility for emergency workers and to be used as a staging area for first-responders in a storm.

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