LEXINGTON, KY - Does the jury believe Jim Rummage? Or is his tale of bribery and conspiracy just a fish story, with a tangled net of sub-plots?
Jim Rummage is the former Kentucky Transportation Cabinet engineer who says the man who once led the cabinet, Bill Nighbert, told him to leak confidential information to one of the state's largest road contractors, Leonard Lawson, during 2006 and 2007. In return, Rummage says Lawson gave him four cash payments of $5,000 each and some frozen grouper and snapper from one of Lawson's fishing trips off the Florida coast. Prosecutors also say Nighbert benefited from a "fake job" that Lawson arranged after Nighbert was removed from his secretary post in a change of administrations. Lawson and Nighbert are charged with bribery, obstruction of justice and conspiracy. Nighbert, because of his position as a state official, also is charged with conversion of public funds.
Rummage's testimony was spread over three days in U.S. District Court in Lexington in a trial that is now in its third week. The prosecution wraps up the presentation of its case today, with FBI agent Clay Mason, the lead investigator in the case, on the stand for a second day.
Mason spent Monday defending the key witness, describing a man who blew the whistle on corruption because he was weighed down by the guilt of being a part of it. A man so distraught over the scheme to give Lawson's companies an edge and then his lies about it to investigators, that he couldn't eat. A man willing to secretly make recordings of Lawson, Nighbert and others to prove his accusations without a promise that he won't be charged.
The defense will begin calling witnesses today, but already has taken many shots at Rummage's story and Mason's investigation.
They characterize Rummage as a man with his own schemes to cover his tracks. A man who didn't lose weight because of guilt, but because was participating in a "biggest loser" competition at the Lexington district office he headed at the same time an investigation into leaked information was being launched. A man with a history of deceit who was more than willing to lie for investigators while secretly recording conversations to try to ensnare Lawson and Nighbert.
Mason testified Monday that those recordings, which have been played for the jury, "speak for themselves."
The recordings include Lawson urging Rummage to get a lawyer when Rummage tells him the FBI is on the case. Rummage also frets about the FBI obtaining his bank records - which Rummage actually volunteered. Lawson tells Rummage that he has had his whole life to save cash, that perhaps he worked a second job or even sold some fish. And Lawson says, "they can't prove cash."
That may turn out to be true, because Rummage says he burned through all $20,000 in cash before cooperating with investigators. But he has little to show for it other than a new drier, an air compressor and some rock for landscaping.
Defense attorney Guthrie True lamented Monday how much easier the case would have been to prove if Rummage had only brought in one of the $100 bills that could have had Lawson's finger prints on them.
Rummage did turn over the fish, which he says Lawson pulled from his freezer back in 2006. It was the day Rummage said he first delivered the inside information to Lawson, going to his Lexington home to hand-deliver what is known as an engineer's estimate, the Transportation Cabinet's final calculation of what a road project should be worth to a contractor as the contractor prepares a bid.
After delivering the estimate, Rummage says Lawson pulled some packages of fish out of a freezer and later slipped a wad of $5,000 in cash into Rummage's pocket.
Without the cash, the FBI was left looking for Lawson's fingerprints on the fish packaging, but could not find a usable print.
Fingerprints are not the only piece of evidence missing from the case, True says.
* There are no recordings of engineer's estimates being passed to Nighbert or Lawson.
* Rummage has no firm record of how many estimates he leaked.
* There is no one else to confirm that Rummage received cash.
* There are no recordings of Lawson giving Rummage cash.
Lawson even flat out denies giving Rummage cash: "I can honestly say I never gave you a nickel," Lawson tells Rummage on one recording.
And there are the many subplots: The investigation of Nighbert, a Republican, beginning just as the Democratic Beshear administration came to power. Lawson, who aided the Beshear campaign in 2007, got a personal call from Gov. Steve Beshear as the investigation gained steam in 2008, leading prosecutors to call the governor to the witness stand. Also called was Senate President David Williams, who gave his old friend Bill Nighbert a job in Frankfort in 2008 at the same time prosecutors say Nighbert was holding a "fake job." There are many more.
But the key to the verdicts will likely be whether the jury believes Rummage, who has retired.
"I wanted to tell the truth," Rummage testified. "And that's what I've done."