Over the weekend, the Augusta Chronicle had an excellent piece on the role of a prominent local boy, former state lawmaker Robin Williams, in the federal pursuit of three executives with the Smyrna-based Facility Group.
But the real news was the fact that the Chronicle also pinned down the rumor that former Senate majority leader Charles Walker, another Augustan public official behind bars, had also been moved to an Oxford, Miss., jail to help with the investigation.
Wrote the Chronicle:
In his grand jury testimony, Mr. Williams was asked by a juror whether the official knew Mr. Moultrie was holding a fundraiser for him before the contract was signed. Mr. Williams said “they had done their deal.”
“On the phone this is what was told,” Mr. Williams’ testimony reads. “We got the contract. I’ve (Moultrie) got to do a fundraiser for the (public official). I’ve got to raise $100,000 .
“He said we’re going to be in Smyrna at my home. I need you to bring some money,” Mr. Williams continued.
At a July fundraiser, Facility Group employees were told to donate $1,000 each, then were reimbursed $1,500 by the company. They raised $25,000, and Mr. Williams provided a check for $25,000 to the Democratic Governors Association, court documents say.
The company created a political action committee and gave two more contributions of $20,000 and $25,000, for a total of $95,000. Later, The Facility Group billed the state for false labor expenses, trying to recoup the campaign donations and the money spent reimbursing employees, documents say. It also submitted invoices for Mr. Moultrie’s travel and dinner at the meeting arranged by Mr. Williams.
The newspaper was less sure about Walker’s value to prosecutors:
Mr. Walker’s name doesn’t come up in case filings, but campaign disclosures say Mr. Moultrie donated $1,000 to his filed Senate campaign in 2002 and $1,000 the same year to the failed congressional campaign of his son, Charles “Champ” Walker Jr.
Champ Walker said he doesn’t know what his father had to do with the Mississippi prosecutions, nor does he know Mr. Moultrie.
Both Walker and Williams are back in a federal prison in Estill, S.C.
Atlanta Journal Constitution
10/1/8
Magnolia Tribune
