DA Blasts Odom's Request That He Be Taken Off Case
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DA Blasts Odom's Request That He Be Taken Off Case
Date:
Thu, 31 Oct 2002 11:19:11 -0500
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
DA Blasts Odom's Request That He Be Taken Off Case
He says defense lying about 1985 civil suit
10/31/02
By Laura Maggi
Capital bureau/The Times-Picayune
BATON ROUGE -- A defense motion asking that East Baton Rouge Parish prosecutors be taken off the case against indicted Agriculture Commissioner Bob Odom is filled with "lies," District Attorney Doug Moreau said in a response filed Wednesday.
In a motion last week, Odom's attorneys asked state Judge Don Johnson to remove Moreau and his staff from the case. The problem, they said, is that when Moreau was a judge he decided a lawsuit over warehouse contracts that prosecutors contend are part of a criminal conspiracy involving the agriculture commissioner and warehouse owners.
Both the state criminal code of conduct and Louisiana Bar Association rules prohibit former judges from acting as attorneys in cases they once had jurisdiction over, Odom's attorneys said in their motion.
In response, Moreau said defense attorneys Mary Olive Pierson and Karl Koch misrepresented his actions during the 1985 civil suit and its pertinence to the pending charges against Odom.
"The facts alleged are not true. They are just the opposite. They are lies," Moreau wrote in a motion containing the kind of personal slights that have become characteristic of filings on both sides of the case. "It seems to be commonplace these days that people lie with impunity, as Odom, Pierson and Koch have done here."
Odom and warehouse owner B. Lehman Williamson, along with Williamson's daughter, Ann Marie, were indicted in August 2001 on charges of organizing a scheme to fix warehouse storage contracts in exchange for bribes for the commissioner.
All three defendants have pleaded innocent, and Odom has requested a speedy trial, which is scheduled to begin Dec. 2. The bribery charges are three of 11 counts of wrongdoing in office filed against Odom.
The 1985 contract dispute involved Williamson and the Department of Education, which was in charge of a program to store commodity food until it was taken over by the state Department of Agriculture. Williamson sued the agency, saying he should get a contract instead of the lowest bidder.
The suit was assigned to Moreau, who was then a judge. In his response, Moreau said that his handling of the case does not pertain to the Odom trial because the 1985 contract is not included in the charges against Odom. The contracts in question were listed in the bill of particulars outlining the charges against the commissioner, he wrote, with the first one beginning in 1991.
But Koch questioned that assertion, noting that the bill contains a detailed paragraph describing Williamson's protest in 1985 of a storage contract being awarded to another company. The original indictment also says that the conspiracy to fix the contracts began "on or about January 1985," he pointed out.
Last week, after the recusal motion was filed, Assistant District Attorney Sandra Ribes amended the bill of particulars, saying Odom's involvement in the alleged conspiracy began in 1987. In an interview, she said the inclusion of the 1985 protest was to provide background on the history of conspiracy to fix the contracts.
Moreau also wrote that defense attorneys lied about his actions in the 1985 case, saying he sided with Williamson when he in fact had dismissed the lawsuit.
Koch said the defense will produce evidence at a hearing today that Moreau dismissed the lawsuit because everybody involved had decided to award the contract to Williamson's company. Johnson is expected to make a decision on the motion to remove the prosecutors, as well as consider several defense motions asking that various charges against Odom be dismissed.
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Laura Maggi can be reached at lmaggi@timespicayune.com or (225) 342-7315.
© The Times-Picayune. Used with permission.
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