Sansom charged with grand theft
State Attorney Willie Meggs has charged former Florida House Speaker Ray Sansom (R-Destin) with two counts of grand theft in connection with Rep. Sansom’s plan to funnel $6 million of public money to a Destin airport building intended for a private developer’s use.
Mr. Meggs filed similar charges against the developer, Jay Odom, and filed conspiracy to commit grand theft charges against Dr. Bob Richburg, the former president of Northwest Florida State College, who was involved in brokering the arrangement.
The new charges come after previous charges of official misconduct against Rep. Sansom were dismissed last fall.
In a statement to the St. Petersburg Times, Mr. Meggs said:
They took $6 million of taxpayer money by misrepresenting that it was going to be for an educational facility when, in fact, it was going to be an aircraft hangar. We have state employees who haven’t had a raise in three years, who have had their pay cut and in the middle of all this, we can build an aircraft hangar for a political supporter?
Rep. Sansom maintains that the hangar facility was intended solely for use as an emergency operations and training facility, despite emails which have demonstrated otherwise.
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This is silly. Actually it’s more like harassment. If we’re going to start criminalizing the way politicians move and receive money, then they can start in the White House, then Sens. Reid, Dodd, and Rep. Murtha.
Remember the bank bailout money that Obama said was needed to forestall the end of the world as we know it? Without it, he said, the global financial system would collapse. AND further, to persuade us and make his case, he said we (the taxpayers) would be paid back by these same banks. It was like a loan, not a gift.
So some banks paid back $200 billion of it. Now President Obama calls it ‘unused’ money. So now, that $200 billion that is due to us, isn’t coming back to us like he said. Why not apply the same standards as Willie Meggs, else quit the harassment.
Sorry for going national on a local issue. But it looks to me to be no different.