Virginia Governor facing corruption trial
Gov. Bob McDonnell of Virginia and his wife, Maureen, engaged in a corruption trial, described on Thursday a private meeting at which he and Mr. McDonnell had discussed ways to secretly transfer $50,000 to the governor.
The witness, Jonnie R. Williams Sr., a wealthy Virginia businessman, testified that the governor had not wanted to report the money on a state financial disclosure form. “He said, ‘I’d just as soon keep this between us,’ ” Mr. Williams recalled of the meeting, which took place in February 2012 at a state office building named for Patrick Henry.
The McDonnells are charged with conspiring to use the power of the governor’s office illegally in exchange for more than $165,000 in cash and luxury goods from Mr. Williams, who was trying to persuade Virginia health authorities to back an untested nutritional product sold by his company.
On Mr. Williams’s second day of testimony in federal court, he offered new details about his lavish gifts, including an engraved Rolex watch for the governor. He described taking the first couple to a luxury resort on Cape Cod on a trip that included golf, a chartered sailboat and a clambake at which he served a $5,000 cognac.
However, Mr. Williams said he declined a request from the governor’s wife that he buy a car for one of her daughters.
Because it was not illegal under Virginia’s ethics laws for the McDonnells to accept Mr. Williams’s largess, the government has sought to show that Mr. McDonnell took official actions to help Mr. Williams in exchange for the gifts.
Prosecutors argued that Ms. McDonnell’s appearances at events around the country on behalf of Mr. Williams’s company, Star Scientific, as well as a party held at the governor’s mansion to promote the product, were part of a quid pro quo. The defense has argued that the governor would have made such efforts on behalf of any Virginia business.
The $50,000 transfer from Mr. Williams in the spring of 2012 followed a conversation in which Ms. McDonnell told him that the couple was financially desperate as a result of some real estate investments, Mr. Williams testified.
At the time, he was trying to persuade researchers at the University of Virginia to study his nutritional supplement, Anatabloc, to give it credibility among investors and consumers. He complained to Ms. McDonnell that his calls to university officials had gone unreturned.
Soon after, Mr. Williams said, the governor called him and told him, “I’m following up with the situation at U.V.A.”
“Then he shifted,” Mr. Williams said. “He needed some more money” to make his real estate payments.
Mr. Williams said he had agreed to write a $50,000 check to the governor’s real estate company. “I made a bad decision,” he said. “But I thought the ends justified the means.”
The governor later sent him a text: “Per voicemail, would like to see if you could extend another 20k loan for this year.”
Mr. Williams replied 12 minutes later that he would. He testified that they had not discussed loan terms, and that there had been no written agreement.
In testimony on Thursday, Mr. Williams, who has been given a guarantee that his cooperation will exempt him from prosecution, described loans and gifts, including a $20,000 shopping spree in New York City for Ms. McDonnell. Defense lawyers have just begun to subject his account to cross-examination.
Ms. McDonnell’s defense team argued in opening statements that she accepted Mr. Williams’s gifts because she had a “crush” on Mr. Williams and was hungry for his attention. She promoted Anatabloc aggressively, her lawyers said, because of a longstanding interest in nutritional supplements. The two exchanged more than 1,200 emails and texts.
Asked by the prosecution whether he and Ms. McDonnell had been romantically involved, Mr. Williams said no. “It was a business relationship,” he said.
He described attending a charity dinner at Ms. McDonnell’s request, at which one of the items being auctioned to raise money was a trip to New York with the governor and his wife. Mr. Williams said he was the only bidder. “I bid against myself,” he said, until the price reached about $12,000.
When the trial resumes on Friday, Mr. Williams will face cross-examination from lawyers for both McDonnells.
Late on Thursday, he described how he first realized that his relationship with the couple was under investigation by the F.B.I. and state police. In early 2013, a large box arrived at his home near Richmond. It contained the Oscar de la Renta dresses he had bought Ms. McDonnell to wear to her husband’s inauguration and to the couple’s 35th wedding anniversary celebrations. Mr. Williams had “a sinking feeling,” he said. “It was like, ‘Oh no.’ ”
Enclosed was a handwritten letter from Ms. McDonnell, explaining that she was returning the dresses as they had always agreed so that the Williamses’ daughter could have them or they could be auctioned for charity.
“I sat down in a chair in the den and read the letter over and over,” Mr. Williams said. “This letter was a fabrication.”
He immediately called his lawyer.
Source: NYT
