Miami Herald: State attorney: Evidence reveals Sansom opened key e-mails

Sep 24, 2009

The Miami Herald published this article on September 24, 2009

BY SHANNON COLAVECCHIO
Herald/Times Tallahassee Bureau

State Attorney Willie Meggs told Leon County Judge Terry Lewis on Wednesday morning that he will soon submit discovery evidence showing that e-mails sent to former House Speaker Ray Sansom regarding the $6 million airport hangar sought by developer Jay Odom were in fact opened.

Sansom attorney Steve Dobson recently told Lewis that the state has no evidence to prove Sansom received any such e-mails.

“We keep hearing them say there is no evidence Sansom received those e-mails from [former Northwest Florida State College president] Bob Richburg, but our IT [information technology] people say they can tell they were received and opened,” Meggs said.

Meggs and Dobson appeared before Lewis on Dobson’s motion to have the perjury charge against Sansom dismissed. Sansom also faces an official misconduct charge. Sansom is accused of working with Richburg and Odom to get money for the building that Odom would partly use for his corporate jet business.