It appears the Republican franchise is, hmmm, a bit tainted.
A Leon County grand jury added an additional count of perjury Wednesday to the official misconduct charge state Rep. Ray Sansom already faces.
It also indicted prominent local developer Jay Odom for official misconduct.
Both charges are felonies. Read the indictments for Sansom, Richburg and Odom ?
The indictments came from the same panel that indicted Sansom and Northwest Florida State College President Bob Richburg on April 17. It was its final act as a grand jury.
The panel took action after hearing testimony from two witnesses and reviewing documents State Attorney Willie Meggs said were obtained from Northwest Florida State College after Richburg left the school.
Richburg stepped down from his post April 20 after he was indicted. The college's board of trustees later fired him.
Odom joins Sansom and Richburg in facing a charge of official misconduct.
Sansom, R-Destin, the former House Speaker, now faces the same charges as Richburg. Both men are accused of perjuring themselves in testimony given to the grand jury.
Meggs, the state attorney for Florida's Second Judicial Circuit, presented the new evidence.
"We got some new documents from the school," Meggs revealed as the grand jury was deliberating Wednesday. "I don't know if they didn't want us to see them or they just didn't give them to us until after Richburg left."
The indictments stem from what the grand jurors say was a conspiracy involving Sansom, Richburg and Odom to use $6 million in state school construction funds to build an airplane hangar at Odom's business, Destin Jet.
Sansom, who then was the speaker designate, quietly had the funds appropriated to the college in 2007, the grand jury said in its April report.
Richburg claimed the funds were to be used for a building at Destin Airport that would serve as an educational facility and as an Emergency Operations Center during a disaster, the report said.
The educational facility, subleased by Northwest Florida State College, would be leased back to Odom and function as a hangar, grand jurors surmised.
Meggs said the perjury charge against Sansom stems from testimony he gave regarding the use of the airport building.
"He testified that no private individual would have use of the building," Meggs said after the indictment was handed down. "There is much evidence to the contrary."
Meggs said one piece of that evidence is a lease, or a partial lease, his investigators uncovered among the documents the college turned over after Richburg stepped down. He said the document indicates "the intent and plan was for Jay Odom to use the building."
College spokeswoman Sylvia Bryan said the lease Meggs spoke of was a document that already had been given to his office and to the Daily News.
She said in a prepared statement that the new documents provided to the state attorney were discovered the week of April 20, as college officials were "compiling files ... for different investigative bodies."
She said the documents "contained both materials previously supplied and materials that appeared not to have been previously supplied (and of which college staff were not previously aware)."
She did not disclose who had discovered the documents.
(Upon their discovery) "The college immediately supplied a copy of all the files to all three investigative bodies," Bryan said.
Meggs said the charge of official misconduct against Odom was justified because Odom acted as a "principal" to Sansom in funneling the $6 million appropriation to the college.
"He was a participant in getting this funding for Sansom," Meggs said.
Odom's attorney issued a response on his behalf.
"He (Odom) said the allegations of the indictment are false. He is not a public figure and he never suggested or advised anyone to falsify any official record or document as alleged," Odom's attorney, Jimmy Judkins, said in a news release.
"Odom will plead not guilty to the charge and expects to be totally exonerated when the facts are presented in an impartial arena and all parties have the chance to present evidence," Judkins said in the release.
Sansom's attorney, Stephen Dobson, said his client would be found not guilty when all of the evidence is presented at trial.
Dobson said the perjury charge "is misguided in its notion and we think we'll be able to show that."
Dobson also stated there is a "mountain of evidence" available to prove Sansom's innocence of colluding to allocate funds for Odom.
"This grand jury hasn't heard about the appropriateness of this building and the need it would have served," Dobson said. "It would have benefitted all the citizens of Destin.
"I'm confident that an unbiased jury will return a verdict of not guilty and Ray Sansom will be vindicated."
