Sansom, Richburg to testify before grand jury

Tom McLaughlin , NWF Daily News

State Rep. Ray Sansom and Northwest Florida State College President Bob Richburg have been called to appear Thursday before a grand jury investigating them.

They and "eight or nine others" were summoned to testify regarding Sansom's dealings with the school in the year leading up to his appointment last November as Florida's speaker of the House, according to officials.

The grand jury convenes at 8:30 a.m. EDT in Tallahassee, Willie Meggs, the state attorney for the 2nd Judicial Circuit, said Wednesday.

Meggs confirmed that Sansom and Richburg had been "invited to testify." He indicated testimony taken today will be key in determining which way the inquiry he initiated in January will lead.

"I will know a lot more tomorrow afternoon," he said.

Sansom did not return phone calls seeking comment Tuesday and Wednesday. Richburg was out of the office Wednesday, college officials said, and also did not return a phone call.

Sylvia Bryan, NWF State College's spokeswoman, said no members of the school's board of trustees had been called to testify.

The grand jury was impaneled after the relationship between Sansom and the college became public and ethics complaints were filed.

It was revealed Sansom, R-Destin, who as speaker designate in 2007 and 2008 chaired the powerful House Budget and Policy Council, helped steer about $31 million in construction appropriations to the college.

The funding the college received attracted statewide attention on the November day Sansom was sworn in as House speaker. Richburg announced the same day that he had hired Sansom to work at the college on a part-time basis at a salary of $110,000.

It also was learned that on March 24, 2008, Sansom, Richburg and the college's board of trustees met in Tallahassee under circumstances Florida Attorney General Bill McCollum has called "very questionable."

The meeting "could easily be interpreted" to have violated the state's Sunshine Law, McCollum said in a letter.

Sansom and Richburg have contended the meeting was to discuss then-Okaloosa-Walton College's proposed transition to the state college it is today.

No minutes were taken at the session. But in January, Richburg released what he called a "record" of the events of what he termed a "legislative briefing."

It later was revealed that Sansom and Richburg had worked together to earmark $6 million in education funds for construction of a college facility at Destin Airport that could double as an emergency operations center when required.

Developer Jay Odom is subleasing the property to the college for the building.

Odom is a long-time Sansom supporter who had requested in 2007 that state funds be used for an air-plane hangar-emergency operations center.

The college building will be built on the same parcel of land that would have been used for Odom's hanger. The structural footprint of the college building and the Odom hangar's are identical.

Odom was unavailable for comment Wednesday. His spokesman Martin Owen said he did not know whether Odom had been called to appear before the grand jury.