Odom Trial Set For December 2
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Odom Trial Set For December 2
Date:
Thu, 26 Sep
2002 10:22:42 -0400
From:
Stephen Tvedten <steve@getipm.com>
Organization: Get Set Inc. (www.getipm.com)
To: Paul Helliker <phelliker@cdpr.ca.gov>
Director, State of California, Department of Pesticide
Regulation
cc: Christine Whitman
whitman.christine@epa.gov
cc:
lmaggi@timespicayune.com
Odom trial set for Dec. 2
La. agriculture chief pleads innocent
09/25/02
By Laura Maggi
Capital bureau/The Times-Picayune
BATON ROUGE -- Flanked by his attorneys, Agriculture Commissioner Bob Odom declared Tuesday that he is innocent of state charges of taking bribes, stealing public property and extorting campaign contributions.
In a brief, no-nonsense hearing at the state district court in Baton Rouge, Odom said only that he is "not guilty of all charges," then left the rest of the talking to his attorneys, who promptly filed a flurry of motions, including a request for a speedy trial.
District Judge Don Johnson complied, setting a trial for Dec. 2. Although court dates tend to get pushed back and such a quick timetable would be remarkable for a corruption case that prosecutors say will last four to six weeks, defense attorney Mary Olive Pierson said that Odom is serious about moving quickly. "We are not here for lip service," she said.
Prosecutors, who are continuing to bring Department of Agriculture employees before a new grand jury investigating the agency, also proclaimed their eagerness to get started. "The state is ready to go to trial, ready to present our evidence," said Tony Clayton, an assistant district attorney.
Many of the details of the mishmash of charges against the longtime agriculture commissioner will not be made public until the district attorney's office files a "bill of particulars," which Johnson said is due by mid-October in response to a request by Pierson.
The six-page indictment handed down by a East Baton Rouge Parish grand jury last month was expansive but vague, alleging a widespread pattern of wrongdoing from 1980, when Odom took office, until this summer. Among the 21 counts are charges accusing Odom of taking bribes to fix a food storage warehouse contract, felony theft, money laundering and the filing of false tax records, as well as a variety of conspiracy charges that allege Odom worked with others for years to commit the illegal acts.
Along with complaining about the indictment's vagueness in a motion to quash the various counts, Odom's defense team took aim at the wide time span, questioning whether the statute of limitations had passed for many of the charges.
Although Louisiana's criminal code provides some exceptions to time limits if a crime is committed by a public official, it does not necessarily apply to all of the charges in Odom's indictment, said Karl Koch, a defense attorney.
"Whether those apply or not is up to the prosecution to establish," he said.
Assistant District Attorney Sandra Ribes said she is confident all the charges were filed within the limits or fall under various exceptions spelled out by law.
If the prosecution can show that various illegal acts were part of a continuing crime that went on for several years, a time limit might not apply, Ribes said.
Flights in question
Although the basis of several charges are not clear, others were outlined in a legislative auditor's report issued in February, including the allegations of fixing the warehouse contract and five counts of felony theft accusing Odom of stealing property from the state.
The theft charges come down to allegations that Odom used Department of Agriculture property, including its airplanes, for personal and campaign use. >From January 1998 to March 2001, Odom used department planes for 321 flights, 52 of which were to go hunting around Louisiana and other states, according to the auditor's report. Altogether, the trips were worth $69,848, but Odom reimbursed the department only $11,316, the audit said.
Pierson has ridiculed those accusations, singling out a couple of the trips as obviously being for agency purposes, such as an event described as "Pentecostal church function" in Alexandria that was a meeting with then-President Clinton. And in the department's response to the report, Odom said the hunting trips were for agency purposes.
Pierson also has mocked other theft charges included in the indictment as ludicrously picayune, such as allegations Odom stole department property by storing personal and campaign belongings, including a piano and his daughter's car, at the agency's headquarters in Baton Rouge.
One of the theft counts accuses Odom of "misappropriating" the value of department pine seedlings. The charge appears to refer to the audit's allegations that the commissioner did not properly pay for the time state employees spent clearing timber and planting agency-supplied seedlings on property Odom owns in Claiborne Parish. The audit estimated the cost of the work and seedlings combined was $4,580.
In the audit response, the agency said Odom received some free services from the department, but only those that other landowners also routinely receive, while other services were paid for.
Also included in the audit were several accusations that Odom used campaign money to buy things for personal use or for his family, a charge the commissioner denies. That allegation appears in the indictment under a count of filing false tax records that did not declare the campaign money as income.
. . . . . . .
Laura Maggi can be reached at
lmaggi@timespicayune.com or
(225) 342-7315.
09/25/02
© The Times-Picayune. Used with permission.
http://www.nola.com/news/t-p/frontpage/index.ssf?/newsstory/odom25.html
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