John Wiley Price Bribery Trial Boils Down to Opposing Expert Opinions on Nature of Multiple Payments

Prosecutors call them unusual and shadowy banking transactions that are meant to hide the truth.But defense lawyers say they have records to prove most of them were repayments for loans John Wiley Price made to close friends as well as reimbursements for expenses. They say that understandably, the passage of time has made it difficult to reconcile all of the payments over a decade.In the eighth week of trial, it has come down to dueling accountants.It will be up to the jury to decide the credibility of the CPAs on both sides and the validity of the Price payments. Unlike most large public corruption cases, the government in this trial is relying mostly on circumstantial evidence to try to prove bribery. There are no wiretaps or video recordings, no suitcases stuffed with cash.Bank records tell the tale, prosecutors say. During the opening days of testimony, David Garcia, an FBI accountant, told jurors how he calculated that Price earned $950,000 in bribes from his political consultant, Kathy Nealy, in the form of cash, vehicles and land. Price earned another $127,000 from a business belonging to his chief of staff, Dapheny Fain, and about $83,000 from an art gallery that he didn't report on his taxes, the indictment says.Even a defense expert, accountant Chris Dellinges, conceded on Thursday that Price's banking activity raises questions."On the surface, all of that looks suspicious," he said. "But that's subject to explanation."Prosecutors say Price's use of multiple accounts, his split deposits and cash withdrawals were intended to obscure the truth about the bribes and make them difficult to detect. Price used a bank account in his mother's name, for example. He handled banking transactions for a business owned by Fain even though he didn't have any signing authority for the account, according to the evidence.But Dellinges, a paid expert, told jurors Thursday that he found documentation showing that Nealy and Fain were repaying Price for the financial assistance he gave them over the years. He said close friends usually do not draw up formal agreements when loaning money. And he told the jury that prosecutors did not look at the "global picture" of money going back and forth between Price and Nealy over the years that explains what was going on.Money in, money outOn his second day of testimony, Dellinges said Thursday that he was able to account for all but about $140,000 of the roughly $447,000 that prosecutors say Nealy paid Price from 2001 to 2011 in the form of checks, cash and account transfers.With help from a team of law students, Dellinges produced a chart for the jury along with corresponding documents to explain the payments.Dellinges said he assumed Nealy's written explanations in the memo lines of her checks to Price were accurate. Prosecutors said Nealy lied on the check memo lines to hide the fact that they were bribes.The accountant said his job was difficult due to bank statements, receipts and credit card statements that are no longer available. But Dellinges said he tried to reconcile the records as best he could."The problems were related to the passage of time," Dellinges said. "A lot of times it wasn't penny for penny."Dellinges said looking at patterns between people "indicates the intent behind the transactions." And he agreed with defense attorney Chris Knox that a "steady stream in and a steady stream out" would be such a pattern.Dellinges said Nealy showed transparency by writing the reasons for Price payments in the check memo lines. He also noted that she wrote "cash to Price" on some bank records.It's normal for the IRS to have difficulty matching every payment with a receipt or other record during an audit, he said, especially when the transactions happened years ago.But during cross-examination, Dellinges acknowledged some errors in his calculations.Assistant U.S. Attorney Katherine Miller said Dellinges made incorrect assumptions when matching Nealy and Price payments.She asked Dellinges why Price signed the back of an $81,000 check to Fain's side business, MMS Co., when he didn't have any signatory authority over that account. MMS provided office supplies and trinkets like TVs and key chains."It may require an explanation," he said.Price did so more than once, Miller said. Did he think it strange?"I think he's assisting her" with banking transactions, Dellinges said.Miller asked him if that's normal for small businesses. He said it happens.In some cases, Nealy wrote checks to herself and to her bank and some or all of that money went to Price, Miller said.She asked Dellinges if he pays his business expenses by writing checks to himself. He said no. She asked him: if your clients consistently wrote checks to themselves, endorsed them and then handed them to you, would you question that?"Well they wouldn't do that," Dellinges said.Miller cited a June 2003 transfer of $1,500 into an account in Price's mother's name that Price controlled."There's no idea where this money is going, correct?" Miller asked."Not just from these documents," Dellinges said.Dellinges agreed with Miller that such methods would make it difficult for agents to follow the money.Beating the rapThe defense got a boost toward the end of the government's presentation when it was revealed that they never got certain government evidence in time before the trial started. That created delays and resulted in U.S. District Judge Barbara Lynn telling the jury about the government's blunders.That has led to speculation that Price could emerge from the trial and its four-year investigation with an acquittal.Price has taken on and beaten the feds in court before.He faced a felony charge in the mid-1970s for making a false statement to a Dallas bank over a loan. Price's attorney told federal prosecutors at the time that Price was ready to plead guilty. But a judge later refused to sign off on the plea after Price disputed how his alleged crime was described in court by a prosecutor.Price later pleaded guilty when his case was about to go to trial again. A judge sentenced him to six months in prison.Price then tried to withdraw his guilty plea and appealed the case. His attorneys were "wholly unprepared" to defend him, he claimed.The U.S. 5th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that Price should be allowed to withdraw his plea, in part because of his objections to the accuracy of the prosecutor's statement.The case was sent back to the trial court. A jury found Price not guilty in late 1976.  Continue reading...