William E. Eddins-Deposition of Investigator Randy Crowder From State Attorney Bill Eddins Office--Illegal Bonus Scheme of Bill Eddins EXPOSED by candidate for Okaloosa County Sheriff, Austin Sheridan Lowrey II

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DEPOSITION OF RANDY B. CROWDER 03/18/10
IN THE CIRCUIT COURT IN AND FOR OKALOOSA COUNTY, FLORIDA _______________________________________________ STATE OF FLORIDA, Plaintiff, vs. CASE NO.: 2009-CF-1481
JAMES DAVID YACKS, Defendant. _______________________________________________/
DEPOSITION OF RANDY B. CROWDER
Taken on Behalf of the Defendants
DATE TAKEN: Thursday, March 18th, 2010 TIME: 10:08 a.m. - 4:15 p.m. PLACE: Anchor Court Reporting 229 South Baylen Street Pensacola, Florida 32502
Examination of the Witness reported by:

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Pamela Dee Elliott, Florida Professional Reporter Notary Public, State of Florida
ANCHOR COURT REPORTING 229 South Baylen Street Pensacola, Florida 32502
www.anchorreporters.com (850)432-2511
2 1 2 FOR THE PLAINTIFF: 3 4 5 6 FOR THE DEFENDANT JAMES DAVID YACKS: 7 8 9 10 FOR THE DEFENDANT MICHAEL COUP: 11 12 13 14 15 FOR THE DEFENDANT SANDRA NORRIS: 16 17 18 19 COURT REPORTER:
APPEARANCES
RUSSELL G. EDGAR, ESQUIRE Assistant State Attorney M.C. Blanchard Judicial Building Pensacola, Florida 32502
NICKOLAS G. PETERSEN, ESQUIRE Chesser and Barr 1201 Eglin Parkway Shalimar, Florida 32579
JAMES MURRAY, ESQUIRE and JULIA O. MURRAY, ESQUIRE Attorneys at Law 420 East Pine Avenue Crestview, Florida 32536
CHRISTOPHER JOHN KLOTZ, ESQUIRE Attorney at Law P.O. Box 12906 Pensacola, Florida 32591-2906
20 21 22 23 24 25
PAMELA DEE ELLIOTT, FPR ANCHOR COURT REPORTING 229 South Baylen Street Pensacola, Florida 32502 (850)432-2511 1-800-563-6409 FAX: (850)432-2302 www.anchorreporters.com
3 1 INDEX OF TRANSCRIPT
2 WITNESS: 3 4 5 6 7 8 RANDY B. CROWDER Direct Examination by Mr. Petersen.............06 Cross-Examination by Mr. Murray................37 Cross-Examination by Mr. Klotz................119 Cross-Examination by Mr. Edgar................183 Redirect Examination by Mr. Petersen..........184
9 Certified Questions...................................05 10 Certificate of Oath..................................191 11 Certificate of Reporter..............................192 12 Witness Review Letter................................193 13 Errata Sheet.........................................194 14 ______________________________________________________ 15 16 17 NO. 18 1 PLAINTIFF'S EXHIBITS INDEX DESCRIPTION PAGE NO. 48
Recordings Provided in Discovery CD
19 _______________________________________________________
20 DEFENDANTS' EXHIBITS INDEX 21 NO. 22 23 1 FDLE Investigative Report 98 DESCRIPTION PAGE NO.
24 _______________________________________________________ 25
4 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 It is stipulated and agreed by Counsel for the parties that the deposition is taken for the purpose of discovery and/or evidence; that all objections save as to the form of the question are reserved to the time of trial; and that the reading and signing of the deposition are not waived, together with notice of the original hereof. ******* STIPULATION
20 21 22 23 24 25
5 CERTIFIED QUESTIONS FROM THE DEPOSITION OF RANDY B. CROWDER
Page 117, Lines 19-21 (By Mr. Murray, Cross-Examination of RANDY B. CROWDER) Q. "Did you recommend anyone for prosecution that
was not subsequently charged?"
Page 119, Lines 6-9 (By Mr. Murray, Cross-Examination of RANDY B. CROWDER) Q. "Just so it's clear what I'm trying to get at,
did you, yourself, recommend anybody for prosecution that was not prosecuted?"
Page 158, Lines 15-17 (By Mr. Klotz, Cross-Examination of RANDY B. CROWDER) Q. "Right. And so my question to you is: Did you
recommend that she be prosecuted as well?"
Page 163, Lines 11-12 (By Mr. Klotz, Cross-Examination of RANDY B. CROWDER) Q. "Have you recommended that Mr. Wilson be
charged?" ____________________________________________ Pamela Dee Elliott Florida Professional Reporter
6 1 Whereupon, the Witness, 2 RANDY B. CROWDER,
3 having been first duly sworn by the Court Reporter, 4 testified on his oath as follows: 5 6 THE WITNESS: I do. DIRECT EXAMINATION
7 BY MR. PETERSEN: 8 9 10 Q. A. Q. Would you state your name, please? Randy B. Crowder. Mr. Crowder, my name is Nick Petersen.
11 I'm the attorney for David Yacks. You know Mr. Klotz 12 and Mr. and Mrs. Murray, I'm sure -13 14 A. Q. Yes, I do. -- and Mr. Russ Edgar is here. I have an
15 opportunity to take your deposition now. And I assume 16 you have had your deposition taken before? 17 18 A. Q. Oh, yes. Okay. I'm not going to try and trick you
19 or deceive you or get you to say anything that's not
20 true. What I am going to try to do and what I have an 21 obligation to do is to ask you questions so that 22 should you testify at the trial of this case, what 23 your trial testimony would be. 24 If you don't understand my question, just
25 ask me to repeat it. If you don't know the answer,
7 1 just say you don't know. Any time you wish to speak 2 to Mr. Edgar in private, you can certainly do that. 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 A. Q. A. Q. A. Q. A. Q. A. Q. A. Okay. What is your title? Investigator. For the State Attorney's Office? Correct. And how long have you been so employed? In the State Attorney's Office? Yes. Eleven plus years. And what did you do prior to that? I was an investigator with the Florida
14 Department of Banking and Finance. 15 Q. Is that a law enforcement agency in
16 Florida? 17 A. It is not a sworn law enforcement agency,
18 but I have the authority and the -- the authority and 19 the responsibility to conduct criminal investigations.
20 21 22 23
Q. A. Q. A.
And how long did you do that? Five years. And what did you do prior to that? Before that, I was a -- I worked for a
24 private company in Tallahassee while I was going to 25 graduate school.
8 1 Q. Okay. Was that private company not
2 connected with the State of Florida Law Enforcement? 3 4 5 6 7 A. Q. A. Q. A. No, it was. Do you have a degree? Yes, I do. What's your degree in? I have a degree in sociology/psychology
8 undergraduate's degree. I have a master's degree in 9 criminology and I have a master's degree in 10 international strategic studies. 11 12 Q. A. When did you get those master's degrees? The first master's degree was in 1992 at
13 Florida State University. The second one was in 14 2000/2001 with the Army War College. 15 16 17 18 19 Q. A. Q. A. Q. Did you serve in the military? Yes, I did. Which military? Army. And how long?
20 21 22 23 24 25
A. Q. A. Q. A. Q.
Thirty years. Okay. And when did you retire from that? June 1st of last year. Honorable discharge? Yes. Okay. What are your duties as an
9 1 investigator with the State Attorney's Office? 2 A. To conduct investigations of crimes
3 occurring within the First Judicial Circuit. 4 Q. In this Charlie Morris/Teresa Adams case,
5 which my client is part of it, who was the lead 6 investigator in that case? 7 8 9 10 A. Q. A. Q. There were two of us. And who were they? Dennis Nordstrom and myself. Okay. As far as Mr. Yacks is concerned,
11 who would be the lead investigator? 12 A. The same. There was no -- we were
13 partners -14 15 16 17 18 19 Q. A. Q. A. Q. A. Okay. -- in those investigations. So maybe coleaders -Yes. -- you and Mr. Nordstrom? Yes, uh-huh.
20
Q.
And you were present when Mr. Yacks gave
21 some statements? 22 23 24 25 A. Q. A. Q. Yes. Were you present in Las Vegas -No. -- when Charlie Morris was arrested?
10 1 2 3 4 A. Q. A. Q. No. Was Mr. Nordstrom present? No. When did you first hear Mr. Yacks give
5 any statements concerning this case? 6 A. Well, we came in on the case after
7 Charlie Morris was arrested and the FBI conducted the 8 search warrants of the Sheriff's Office. And then we 9 came in sometime after that. 10 Q. Okay. Did you bring any notes with you
11 today? 12 13 14 15 A. Q. A. Q. No, I did not. Do you know -- well, do you have notes -Yes, I do. -- involving this case? And where are
16 those notes located? 17 18 A. Q. State Attorney's Office. If we gave you an opportunity, could you
19 go back and get those notes?
20 21 Q.
MR. EDGAR: Those aren't discoverable. (By Mr. Petersen) Maybe we can't get
22 copies of them, but you could use them to refresh your 23 memory. 24 25 A. MR. EDGAR: If he needs to. If I need to, if necessary.
11 1 Q. Okay. What was the date that you first
2 heard a statement from David Yacks? 3 4 A. Q. I don't have that. Would that -- would that be in your
5 notes? 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 A. Yes, it would be. MR. EDGAR: Let me object to the form of the question. I'm not sure what you're asking. MR. PETERSEN: I'm asking for the date that this gentleman first took a statement or heard a statement given by my client. A. You would have that information, that's
13 been provided to you in discovery. We did an audio 14 recording and that would be noted on the materials 15 provided. 16 Q. (By Mr. Petersen) Well, my problem is I
17 have a difficult time getting into those CD's I've 18 been provided in the past. 19 MR. EDGAR: Excuse me, but you were
20 21 22 23 24 25
there. You were present. You don't remember when you were present? I mean, doesn't your calendar have that? I mean, I don't understand this question. MR. PETERSEN: Mr. Edgar, my question is to this gentleman. When did he first have a
12 1 2 3 4 5 6 statement with Mr. Yacks? MR. EDGAR: He answered your question. MR. PETERSEN: The answer is he doesn't know. Now, maybe I was present during one statement and you were there, also. Q. (By Mr. Petersen) How many statements
7 did Mr. Yacks give while you were present? 8 9 A. Q. I believe only one. And that was at the State Attorney's
10 Office? 11 12 13 14 A. Q. A. Q. Yes. I was present at that one? Yes. Okay. So you were not present when
15 Mr. Yacks gave any other statements? 16 17 A. Q. Not to my memory. That statement was recorded, as I
18 remember; yes? 19 A. Uh-huh.
20
Q.
And was there ever a transcript that you
21 know of made of that -22 23 24 25 A. Q. A. Q. No. -- statement? Not that I know of. Okay. Did you have any other contact
13 1 with Mr. Yacks other than that statement? 2 3 A. Q. Not that I remember. Okay. Did you -- do you feel that
4 Mr. Yacks fully cooperated with law enforcement 5 involved in this case? 6 A. I believe he provided the answers to the
7 questions we presented him. 8 Q. Were you able to identify any
9 misleading -- any untruths or misleading answers that 10 he gave to the questions posed to him? 11 12 A. Q. Not that I can remember. Do you feel that he lied? Well, let me
13 ask you this question: Have you reviewed, read any 14 other statements that Mr. Yacks has given to other 15 people? 16 17 A. Q. I've read the FBI's 302's. Okay. Have you identified any statements
18 Mr. Yacks provided to those people that were either 19 lies or misleading?
20
A.
I believe he was misleading in the amount
21 of monies that he had or that he received in income 22 from his previous job and that he was, as a result, 23 losing when he came over to the Sheriff's Office. But 24 I can't remember anything else right now. 25 Q. Would those be in your notes, that type
14 1 of information? 2 A. I don't believe that would be in my
3 notes. 4 Q. Okay. And his previous job, that was
5 with Home Depot? 6 7 A. Q. Correct. Okay. And did you do any investigation
8 on him concerning how much he was making while working 9 for Home Depot? 10 A. No, I did not. I believe that was some
11 other person. 12 13 Q. A. Do you know whose job that was? I believe that was one of the federal
14 investigators that looked at that. 15 Q. Do you know who that federal investigator
16 was? 17 18 A. Q. No, I don't remember. Do you know what the result of that
19 investigation was as to that issue?
20
A.
No, there was no result. It was just
21 knowledge gained. 22 Q. Well, do you know what the knowledge
23 gained was? 24 A. That there was a -- that there was less
25 money he was -- he had claimed he was making more
15 1 money at Home Depot than -- than he was and that he 2 further claimed that he was losing money by coming to 3 the Sheriff's Office. 4 Q. In your investigation, did you determine
5 if Sheriff Charlie Morris had a legal authority to 6 issue bonuses? 7 A. No, sir. That was not part of my
8 investigation. 9 Q. Have you come to a conclusion in your own
10 mind whether any bonuses by a sheriff in this state 11 are legal? 12 A. Sir, that was outside of my purview, so I
13 did not -14 15 16 Q. A. Q. Okay. -- try to make any decision. Who in that investigative process was
17 charged with making that determination? 18 A. Neither of us investigators were looking
19 at that. That was left up to the prosecutors and the
20 attorneys. 21 Q. Have you investigated whether any other
22 constitutional officers have provided bonuses to their 23 employees, say, from 2006 on? 24 A. I had heard that the -- the thing with
25 the tax collector of Okaloosa County, but I did not
16 1 investigate that. 2 Q. Do you know if bonuses were given by the
3 State Attorney's Office? 4 A. I'm not sure. I believe there was -- I
5 know there were monies given out, but I'm not sure if 6 that's considered a bonus or what form. 7 Q. Monies given out in addition to the
8 normal salary? 9 10 11 12 13 A. Q. A. Q. A. Yes. Did you receive a bonus? Since when? Since 2006. I have received one allocation. I don't
14 know what -- again, I don't know what that was 15 considered, a bonus or what. 16 Q. Why was it explained to you why you were
17 getting the money? 18 19 A. Q. End of year funds. Was it resulting from why -- what
20 criteria did the State Attorney use when they gave you 21 that? 22 23 A. Q. I don't know what the criteria was. Do you know if any other employees
24 received that type of remuneration? 25 A. No, sir.
17 1 Q. Was that type of information confidential
2 as to you? 3 A. Are you talking about the other
4 employees? 5 Q. Yes. Did you discuss that information
6 with other employees? 7 A. No, I did not, not other than my
8 supervisor. 9 Q. And were you instructed not to discuss it
10 amongst other employees? 11 12 13 14 A. Q. A. Q. No, sir. You just didn't? I just didn't. Okay. Do you know if anyone else in the
15 State Attorney's Office received extra income at the 16 end of the year? 17 18 A. Q. No, sir. Specifically related to the Charlie
19 Morris/Teresa Adams case, do you know of anyone else
20 other than my client who received bonuses for 2006 on? 21 22 23 A. Q. A. Yes. Can you name those people? Again, all of that information was
24 provided in the discovery in the audit reports and 25 that's what I based my information on was the audit
18 1 reports. 2 3 Q. A. And who did that audit? I believe that audit that I'm referring
4 to now was Carl, Riggs and Ingram. 5 6 Q. A. Do you remember the auditor's name? I know there was one auditor, Glenn
7 Gilliard. I don't know if there are others. 8 Q. Okay. So do you -- can you recollect the
9 approximate number of people who received bonuses 10 other than my client? 11 12 ten. 13 14 Q. A. Okay. Now, are you asking -- you're asking for A. No, sir, I can't. Approximately five to
15 all bonuses? 16 17 18 Q. A. Q. Yes. There would be a lot more than that. Okay. Do you know out of the people who
19 received bonuses, did any of those people give cash
20 back to Charlie Morris? 21 22 A. Q. Yes. And do you know how many fit into that
23 group? 24 25 A. Q. I'd say ten to 15. Okay. And do you know if my client gave
19 1 cash back -2 3 A. Q. Yes. -- to Charlie Morris? Did you -- did you
4 take any statements involving Charlie Morris? Were 5 you involved in any statements when Charlie Morris 6 gave any statements? 7 8 9 10 11 12 A. Q. A. Q. A. Q. From Charlie Morris? Yes. Yes, sir. How many? Five. Okay. Do you know the dates of those
13 Morris statements? 14 A. No, I do not. The last three were during
15 the trial and the second one was the week prior to the 16 trial. 17 Q. Okay. During those statements, did
18 Charlie Morris ever implicate Mr. Yacks as far as 19 being a conspirator in any illegal activities?
20 21 22 23 24 25
MR. EDGAR: Can you clarify which statements? The ones in the trial or the ones before? You said which statements. MR. PETERSEN: Any of the five statements that he was involved in. MR. EDGAR: Okay, thank you.
20 1 A. I believe it was only in the first
2 statement he talked about Mr. Yacks. 3 4 Q. A. (By Mr. Petersen) What did he say? He talked about how he had received bonus
5 payments. 6 Q. Okay. Did -- was there any discussion or
7 statements by Mr. Morris that would lead you to 8 conclude that my client was conspiring with Charlie 9 Morris to give money back illegally? 10 11 A. Q. Can you say that again? Were there any statements by Mr. Morris
12 that would lead you to believe that my client and 13 Mr. Morris conspired with each other to give cash back 14 to Charlie Morris illegally? 15 A. I don't -- do not remember anything
16 specifically that I can recall. I'd have to go back 17 through my notes and review as well as also listen to 18 the recorded statements. 19 Q. But those -- the answer to that may be in
20 your notes? 21 22 A. Q. Or the recorded statement. And was the recorded statement that
23 you're referring to from Mr. Morris; right? 24 25 A. Q. Yes, sir, it was the first one. And that was before the -- right before
21 1 the Sabra Thornton trial? 2 A. No, sir. The one right before the trial
3 was number two. The first one was sometime on or 4 about when Mr. Morris was being sentenced, either 5 before or after. 6 Q. Okay. Did the State Attorney provide the
7 defense with a copy of the first statement -8 9 A. Q. Yes. -- of Mr. Morris? So that statement then
10 will speak for itself? 11 12 A. Q. Yes, sir. Is there anything that you remember from
13 that statement that's not in the written statement -14 15 16 17 A. Q. A. Q. No, sir. -- that Mr. Morris may have said? No, sir. It should all be included. Okay. So from your recollection of any
18 statement given by Mr. Morris, did Mr. Morris ever 19 say, "David Yacks and I got together and conspired to
20 steal money from --" 21 22 23 A. Q. A. Not in those words. In any other words? Again, he had said that he made -- had
24 talked about how Yacks had received bonuses and talked 25 about the travel arrangements.
22 1 Q. Okay. What did -- from your
2 recollection, what did Mr. Morris say about receiving 3 bonuses as far as being illegal activity? A lot of 4 people received bonuses. 5 A. Right, right. Well, those -- the
6 kickbacks was (sic) illegal. He acknowledged that the 7 kickbacks were illegal. 8 9 10 Q. A. Q. Okay. And Mr. Yacks did do kickbacks. Okay. Did Mr. Morris ever say that
11 Mr. Yacks knew those cash-backs -- you just called 12 them kickbacks -- were illegal? 13 A. I don't remember if he said that
14 specifically or not. 15 Q. Wouldn't that be an important thing in
16 this case? 17 A. Well, that's not for me to decide. That
18 will be the prosecutor to decide if that was 19 important.
20
Q.
But your duty is to investigate and get
21 information to provide to the prosecutor -22 23 24 25 MR. EDGAR: Objection. That's argumentative. Q. A. (By Mr. Petersen) -- is that not true? Yes, sir. I collect some information and
23 1 provide it to the prosecution and let them decide. 2 Q. If Charlie Morris would have told you or
3 said in your presence that Yacks and I were engaged in 4 some type of illegal activity and Yacks knew about it, 5 that would ring a bell with you; wouldn't it? 6 7 8 9 MR. EDGAR: Objection. That's argumentative. A. Q. A hypothetical situation, sir. (By Mr. Petersen) But that never
10 occurred? 11 12 A. Q. No, sir. Were there -- let's see, there's people
13 who received bonuses that never gave cash back; is 14 that true? 15 16 A. Q. Yes. There's people who received bonuses that
17 did give cash back? 18 19 A. Q. Yes. Okay. And there was (sic) people who
20 received bonuses that gave cash back and were charged 21 with crimes? 22 23 A. Q. Yes. Do you know what criteria was used and
24 why Mr. Yacks, Mr. Coup and Ms. Norris were charged 25 with the charges that they are facing today?
24 1 A. The information was provided to the
2 prosecutor and decisions were made of who would be 3 charged and then we followed from that. 4 5 Q. A. Did you have any input in that decision? We provided the information that we
6 gained through our investigation, recordings and so 7 forth and provided a PC Affidavit. 8 Q. Okay. What -- what information is
9 peculiar to Mr. Yacks that's different from other 10 people that received bonuses, gave cash back and were 11 not charged criminally? 12 A. Again, that was a decision by the
13 prosecutor, not... 14 Q. Well, are you aware of any information
15 that's peculiar to Mr. Yacks along those lines? 16 A. Mr. Yacks made trips to Las Vegas with
17 him, took monies from the bonuses to pay for those 18 trips. And there's probably other information that I 19 can't remember at this time.
20
Q.
Is there anything illegal about going to
21 Las Vegas? 22 23 A. Q. No, sir. Did you determine whether Mr. Yacks had
24 went (sic) to Las Vegas before he was hired on? 25 A. He made statements and I did see proof of
25 1 that in his bank records. 2 Q. Okay. Talk to me about getting bonuses
3 you say to pay -- to pay back for other things. Are 4 you talking about restaurant charges? 5 6 7 8 A. Q. A. Q. Yes, sir. And airline tickets? Yes, sir. Did he do anything else other than
9 airline tickets and restaurant charges? 10 11 A. Q. Not that I can remember at this time. Do you know if it is illegal for one
12 person to charge an airline ticket on their credit 13 card and get the Sky Miles to do that, then charging 14 the airline ticket for someone else? 15 16 A. Q. Not if that's all there is to it. Is there anything peculiar to Mr. Yacks'
17 case about him charging several airline tickets on 18 credit cards, getting the Sky Miles for doing that and 19 then having those people pay him back for the airline
20 tickets? 21 22 A. Q. Nothing wrong with that in itself. Is there anything -- did you find people
23 who Mr. Yacks purchased airline tickets for and that 24 those people paid Mr. Yacks for those tickets other 25 than Charlie Morris?
26 1 2 3 A. Q. A. Yes, there were some. Do you remember who they were? There was a lady, name of Jones, widow of
4 Mike Jones. I believe she did it at least on one 5 occasion. I believe that there may be several others. 6 I can't remember who, maybe Sandy Norris. But I can't 7 remember their names at this time without having to go 8 through all of the records. 9 Q. Would those be in your notes, those
10 names? 11 A. Not in my notes. Maybe in some analysis
12 I've done, but it would be in the bank records of 13 Mr. Yacks, again, provided to you in discovery. 14 15 Q. A. Would one name be Claudia Finn? I'm not sure about that. I'd have to go
16 back and look at that. 17 Q. Okay. And you indicated that buying
18 tickets, then getting reimbursed by the person using 19 the ticket, is not illegal as stated or as far as that
20 goes; is there anything else that would make it 21 illegal? 22 A. Well, if he's being paid by somebody
23 else? 24 25 Q. A. Yes, sir. Perhaps if that money was the money that
27 1 they were paying him and was illegally gotten. 2 Q. Okay. Explain to me how Mr. -- how your
3 theory of the case is Mr. Yacks got illegal money or 4 gave Charlie -5 6 7 8 9 10 11 MR. EDGAR: I'm going to object, counsel, to the form of the question in it's really asking for work product and his theories. He is a fact witness. His theories also involve my theories and that's work product and that's improper. Q. (By Mr. Petersen) What facts did you
12 elicit from any source to indicate that Mr. Yacks 13 committed any illegal acts? 14 15 A. Q. Any illegal acts? Yes, sir, as charged in the Third Amended
16 Information. 17 A. He received bonuses to pay for travel,
18 the kickbacks to the Sheriff, those two, two right 19 there.
20
Q.
Okay. And I'm going back to -- are there
21 people that have done the same thing that were not 22 charged? 23 A. Again, sir, as I said before, it was not
24 my decision. 25 Q. So you don't know what criteria was used
28 1 for the charge? 2 3 4 A. Q. A. No, I don't recall the criteria. Do you recall any of the criteria? I think I've already said that (sic) was
5 (sic) two things right there. 6 Q. Okay, okay. Count One of the Third
7 Amended Information, I'm sure you've read that. 8 9 A. Q. Let me look at it. Yes, sir. Okay. Count One is a Conspiracy Count.
10 And it says that my client conspired with Charlie 11 Morris and Teresa Adams and others -- and I 12 highlighted and others. Do you know any -- do you 13 know who that "and others" refers to? 14 A. No, sir. That's -- that pertains --
15 that's added to the information to cover anybody that 16 they found during this investigation. 17 Q. Well, as we sit here today, are you aware
18 of any person other than Teresa Adams and Charlie 19 Morris that my client is accused of conspiring with?
20
A.
I'm just -- I look at all of the
21 defendants in this case, the committing racketeering 22 and conspiring or conspiracy. In my opinion, looking 23 at that the way the prosecution has charged it, I 24 would consider that. 25 Q. Do you mean the co-defendants?
29 1 2 A. Q. Yes, sir. Okay. Do you have any information you
3 believe -- that leads you to believe that Mr. Yacks 4 conspired with Mr. Coup? 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 A. THE WITNESS: I need to talk to Mr. Edgar. MR. PETERSEN: Sure. (An off-the-record discussion was held at 10:34 a.m., after which the deposition continued at 10:36 a.m. ) MR. PETERSEN: We're back on the record. Would you restate the question? MR. PETERSEN: Restate the question, please. (Whereupon, the court reporter read back as follows: Q. "Okay. Do you have any information
you believe -- that leads you to believe that Mr. Yacks conspired with Mr. Coup?"
20
A.
Again, I mentioned this earlier, I
21 consider everybody charged in this case in conspiracy. 22 Q. (By Mr. Petersen) Okay. Tell me all of
23 the evidence you have or that you heard of that 24 Mr. Yacks conspired with Mr. Coup concerning the 25 charges in the Third Amended Information?
30 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 MR. EDGAR: I object to the form of the question. It's overly broad. MR. PETERSEN: I don't think it is. MR. EDGAR: Well, do you want him to read all of the 302's to you? Why don't you go get them all and we'll read every one of them into the record. We'll read all the bank statements. We'll read all the audit reports. We can read all of that, if you want. But I think it's an unfair question, "Tell me everything you know about this case." Q. (By Mr. Petersen) I'm asking
13 specifically information that you have that Mr. Yacks 14 conspired with Mr. Coup. 15 A. Again, Mr. Coup was charged and Mr. Yacks
16 was charged as crimes committed that are charged in 17 racketeering and I did not charge him with conspiracy. 18 That was charged by the prosecutor. So I had no 19 effect on that.
20
Q.
Do you have any information to show that
21 Mr. Coup and Mr. Yacks talked to each other about 22 bonuses and cash-backs and those type of things? 23 24 A. Q. Not that I can remember. Do you have any information concerning
25 that Mr. Yacks talked with Sandy Norris about bonuses
31 1 and cash-backs? 2 3 A. Q. Not that I can remember. Do you have any information concerning
4 that Mr. Yacks talked with Teresa Adams about bonuses 5 and cash-backs? 6 7 8 A. Q. A. Yes. Tell me what you have on that. Well, Ms. -- Ms. Adams did the kickback
9 for Mr. Yacks. They shared accounts. And he was not 10 present and she provided the money to the kickback 11 fund. 12 Q. Do you have any evidence to show that my
13 client talked with Teresa Adams about bonuses or 14 cash-backs? 15 A. I believe there was. I can't remember
16 exactly what it was, but I believe there was. In the 17 302's, they discussed that. 18 19 Q. A. What is a 302? FBI report. Either when I say 302's, I'm
20 also referring to the IRS reports. I don't know the 21 form number. We categorize them together, all of the 22 federal reports. 23 Q. And those have been provided to the
24 defense? 25 A. Yes, sir.
32 1 Q. Do you have any evidence to suggest that
2 Mr. Yacks talked with Sheriff Morris about bonuses and 3 cash-backs? 4 5 6 A. Q. A. I believe so. Okay. And what -- what evidence? I believe the testimony will show that
7 Mr. Morris provided the money, the bonuses to 8 Mr. Yacks -9 10 Q. A. Do you have any --- and talked about it. In the 302's
11 they talked about that. 12 Q. Where Sheriff Morris would give a bonus
13 and then ask for some cash back? 14 15 A. Q. Yes, sir. Okay. Do you have any evidence to show
16 that Mr. Yacks shared any of that knowledge of his 17 bonuses and the cash he gave back to Charlie Morris? 18 Did he share that with anyone else other than Charlie 19 Morris?
20
A.
I can't remember anything specifically,
21 but again, we relied on the 302's and our report -- or 22 not our report, but our statement taken by Mr. Yacks 23 and others. 24 25 Q. A. And that would be in your notes? Well, the notes -- the notes don't say
33 1 anything more than what the recorded statement says or 2 what the FBI 302's say. That's what we based this on. 3 4 5 6 Q. A. Q. A. Did you write a report? No, I did not. Would you -When you say, "report," I did a PC
7 Affidavit. 8 Q. Will you voluntarily provide me a copy of
9 your notes? 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 A. No, sir. MR. EDGAR: Objection to the notes being provided. As he said, the notes don't have anything that aren't already contained in the reports or the recorded interviews. MR. PETERSEN: Okay. Russ, do you have your copy of the Third Amended Information? MR. EDGAR: No. I didn't bring it, I'm sorry. MR. PETERSEN: Okay.
20 21 22 23 24 25
MR. EDGAR: I don't think I did. MR. PETERSEN: There's Count 14. MR. EDGAR: Okay. MR. PETERSEN: And you sent an amended page, because the date was wrong and I got confused. We can go off the record.
34 1 2 3 4 5 Q. (An off-the-record discussion was held at 10:42 a.m., after which the deposition continued at 10:43 a.m.) MR. PETERSEN: Back on the record. (By Mr. Petersen) Okay. As far as
6 Counts 2 through 21 of the Third Amended 7 Information -- and I'll put it in front of you -- they 8 all are alleging grand theft on or about a certain 9 date and then they give parameters of less than $5,000 10 more than $10,000. Is it your understanding that each 11 of those counts are concerning bonuses given by 12 Charlie Morris to Mr. Yacks? 13 A. Sir, I can't answer that because I have
14 no knowledge -- direct knowledge. I've not talked to 15 Mr. Edgar since he's done this information. 16 Q. Okay. Do you have any knowledge of any
17 grand theft allegedly committed by Mr. Yacks other 18 than receiving bonuses and giving cash back? 19 A. I can't think of anything right now.
20
Q.
I mean, again, if there was something out
21 there, that would be available? 22 23 A. Q. That would be what? That would be something that you would
24 pay attention to and would note? 25 A. Most likely.
35 1 Q. Yes, okay. Other than what you've
2 testified already about receiving bonuses and giving 3 cash back between Sheriff Morris and Mr. Yacks, is 4 there any other pattern of racketeering activity that 5 you're aware of that's going to be brought up to 6 support the Third Amended Information? 7 8 A. Q. I think that's it. As far as the allegations in the Third
9 Amended Information as to money laundering, is there 10 any other activities that you think support that 11 charge other than receiving bonuses and giving cash 12 back? 13 A. Well, basic money laundering is financial
14 transactions. And in this case, through financial 15 institutions. It is not just that there is not a 16 bonus. It's not just a bonus, but also financial 17 institutions involved. 18 19 Q. A. Banks? Banks, yes, sir.
20
Q.
And the bonuses were to put in the banks
21 and the cash then taken out of the bank and given to 22 Charles Morris? 23 24 A. Q. Yes. Is that the basis for the money
25 laundering charges?
36 1 2 A. Q. Yes, sir. Okay. And no other basis that you are
3 aware of at this time? 4 5 A. Q. I think that's, in general, what it is. Okay. Mr. Yacks put some meals on his
6 credit card. Do you know how many times he did that, 7 that is evidenced to support the State's claim that he 8 committed an illegal act? 9 10 11 12 A. Q. A. Q. I believe there are several. Two? Two or more; probably two. Two, okay. Do you know where they were;
13 where the meal was? I think one was in Orlando, 14 perhaps. 15 16 17 18 19 A. Q. A. Q. A. Sir? Was one in Orlando? I believe so. Do you know where the other one was? I believe, Las Vegas.
20
Q.
Las Vegas. Is there anything that I have
21 not asked you that you think is important in this 22 case? 23 A. Sir, that's -- that's very broad, but I
24 think we've answered -- I've answered all of the 25 questions pretty much.
37 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 MR. PETERSEN: Okay. Mr. Klotz? MR. KLOTZ: It matters not to me. MR. MURRAY: Mr. Crowder, do you need a break before we continue on? THE WITNESS: Yeah, I would like to go to the restroom. (Whereupon, a brief recess was taken at 10:46 a.m., after which the deposition continued at 10:50 a.m.) CROSS-EXAMINATION
11 BY MR. MURRAY: 12 Q. Mr. Crowder, my name is Jim Murray, I
13 represent Michael Coup. And over the years you and I 14 have known each other for some time. 15 16 A. Q. Yes, sir. If I ask you something you don't
17 understand, please stop me and I'll rephrase it -18 19 A. Q. All right. -- until we both get on the same page.
20 21
A. Q.
Yes, sir. What year did you start with the State
22 Attorney's Office? 23 24 A. Q. 1998. And what year -- what were your years
25 that were you at the Florida Banking and Finance?
38 1 2 A. Q. '93 to '98. And you indicated that you were in the
3 U.S. Army for 30 years? 4 5 6 7 A. Q. A. Q. Yes, sir. And had an honorable discharge? Yes. Was that a guard status or were you
8 active duty? 9 A. I was active duty for 11 years and then I
10 joined the active reserves in '94 and stayed in the 11 active reserves with some stints on active duty going 12 to Bosnia and Iraq. 13 14 15 16 17 Q. A. Q. A. Q. Your rank or rate? Colonel. And what was your MOS? Specialty was a civil affairs officer. When you say colonel; are you talking
18 about in '06 or in '05? 19 A. '06.
20
Q.
Now, what law enforcement training have
21 you had to qualify you for your position as an 22 investigator with the State Attorney's Office? 23 A. Well, I started on or about 1973 as a
24 police cadet. And then when I turned 18, I became a 25 reserve deputy. And off and on I became an active
39 1 deputy with the Garland County Sheriff's Office in 2 Arkansas. 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 Q. A. Q. A. Q. A. Q. A. Garland County. Garland County. Where in Arkansas? Hot Springs. Hot Springs, southwest? Southwest. Okay, go ahead. And then I worked there as a -- off and
11 on as a deputy while going to undergraduate school. 12 And then when I got out of the military -- when I went 13 in the military, I did something completely different. 14 And then when I got out of the military, I went to 15 graduate school. And I worked for a private 16 investigative company for, approximately, a year, 17 maybe two. 18 And then came to Pensacola, worked with
19 Banking and Finance and attended various training
20 courses for financial investigations. And then when I 21 came to the State Attorney's Office, I went to the Law 22 Enforcement Academy at George Stone and graduated in 23 '99. 24 25 Q. A. So -And since then, I've attended other
40 1 trainings conducted by FDLE and other organizations on 2 investigations. 3 Q. And has that training related to
4 financial crimes? 5 6 A. Q. Yes, sir. And what type of training have you
7 received in regards to financial crimes? 8 A. Well, I've attended the Federal Law
9 Enforcement Training Center. They've conducted 10 various courses there and outside on financial 11 investigations, advanced financial investigations, 12 forensic investigations of financial crimes, money 13 laundering. And there's probably been some others, 14 but I can't think of what they would be. 15 16 Q. A. Who is your supervisor? Well, I have two. Barry Brook is my
17 supervisor in investigations. 18 19 Q. A. Okay. Russ Edgar is my supervisor in special
20 prosecutions. 21 22 23 Q. A. Q. Are you assigned to special prosecutions? Yes, I am. And you didn't write a report in this
24 case? 25 A. No, I did not.
41 1 Q. Was there a reason why you didn't write a
2 report? 3 4 5 6 A. Q. A. Q. I do not write reports. Have you ever written reports? Very rarely. What about when you were with Florida
7 Banking and Finance? 8 9 A. Q. Yes, I did there. So you wrote reports when you were with
10 Florida Banking and Finance? 11 12 A. Q. Yes, sir. It was an agency requirement. And is there a policy manual governing
13 the conduct of investigations at the State Attorney's 14 Office by State Attorney investigators? 15 16 A. Q. Not in regards to reports. Okay. There's nothing in there about
17 reports? 18 19 A. Q. Not that I know of. Okay. Isn't one of the tenets of this
20 advanced training that you had was to document 21 carefully the facts that you're able to discern in 22 order to support criminal prosecution? 23 A. Yes, sir. In many ways, that's conducted
24 by writing a PC Affidavit. 25 Q. Okay. We'll get into that in just a
42 1 second. What did you do to prepare for this 2 deposition today? 3 4 5 6 A. Q. A. Q. Looked over some of my notes. Okay. Did you review any reports? PC Affidavit. Okay. Now, I think you told us that
7 there was actually two people in charge of the 8 investigation that you participated in. That was 9 yourself and Agent Nordstrom; is that correct? 10 A. We were the two investigators connected
11 with it. 12 Q. Now, Agent Nordstrom wrote reports; did
13 he not? 14 15 A. Q. Yes, sir. Did you have an opportunity to review
16 those reports before he submitted them for accuracy 17 and content? 18 19 A. Q. No, sir. So you didn't have any -- did you have
20 any responsibilities in regards to governing what 21 Agent Nordstrom placed in his reports? 22 23 A. Q. No, sir. During the course of this investigation,
24 who did you answer to; Mr. Edgar? 25 A. Mr. Edgar.
43 1 Q. And who gave you instructions on how the
2 investigation was going to be conducted? 3 4 A. Q. Mr. Edgar. Who made the decisions on what witnesses
5 were going to be interviewed? 6 A. That was pretty much a group thing
7 between Agent Nordstrom and myself and Mr. Edgar. 8 Q. Okay. Now, you indicated in response to
9 Mr. Petersen's questions, you made reference to 10 Federal 302's. And just for purposes of the records, 11 that's the Offense Reports that the FBI wrote? 12 13 14 A. Q. A. Yes, sir. Am I correct so far? And it's an FD302. And it's basically a
15 report stating about the search warrants, the arrests 16 and interviews. 17 Q. Okay. And then you clarified it a bit.
18 You said, "Well, when I refer to 302's, I'm also 19 talking about the IRS reports that were part of the
20 federal package"? 21 A. Right. And when we were provided that,
22 we were given those to us by the FBI and we provided 23 those to the defense in a complete package. 24 25 Q. A. My question -Inner-mixed --
44 1 2 Q. A. Go ahead. Inner-mixed by date as to when it
3 occurred. 4 Q. My question to you is: Did you interview
5 any of the federal agents who authored those reports 6 as to the content of those reports? 7 A. Yes, we did. Discussions, I wouldn't
8 necessarily call it interview, but discussions. 9 10 11 12 Q. A. Q. A. And who did you talk to? Agent VanPelt primarily. Any other agents? Well, we did talk to IRS Agent Margaret
13 Wise, FBI Agent Harker. I can't remember. I believe 14 IRS Scott Snyder. 15 16 17 18 19 Q. A. Q. A. Q. Scott Snyder? Yes, sir. S-C-H or S-N-Y? I think it's S-N-Y-D-E-R. Okay. Now, were there particular -- did
20 you have a reason -- let's start with VanPelt. Did 21 you have a reason for talking to VanPelt about 22 particular 302's? 23 A. Well, he was the primary investigator for
24 the FBI. 25 Q. So your understanding is that insofar as
45 1 the federal investigation was concerned, VanPelt was 2 identified to you as the lead investigator? 3 4 A. Q. Yes. Now, did you talk to him about any 302's
5 that he authored and the content of those 302's? 6 7 A. Q. Yes, I believe, we did. And which 302's did you talk to him
8 about? 9 A. I can't -- there's a whole lot of 302's
10 in there that we went through. And not only his but 11 other people's, since he was lead investigator. He 12 was our primary contact. 13 Q. Were there any issues that you inquired
14 directly of him that was reflecting of the 302's that 15 you had questions about? 16 17 18 MR. EDGAR: Object to the form of the question. It's overly broad and vague. Q. (By Mr. Murray) You can answer the
19 question.
20
A.
I can't remember anything specific.
21 There's a whole lot. There was -- you know, we 22 basically went through his whole investigation and he 23 would identify things and refer back to his 302's. 24 And I'm sure there were things that we had questions 25 about and went back, but I can't remember.
46 1 Q. Now, were there group meetings that
2 involved VanPelt and Wise, Harker and Snyder? 3 4 A. Q. Not that I was part of. Are you aware of any group meetings
5 between the State officials and the federal 6 investigative team? 7 A. We had one meeting. Our initial meeting,
8 we conducted at the U.S. Attorney's Office. 9 10 11 Q. A. Q. And who conducted that meeting? Randy Hensel. Okay. Now, was your contact with VanPelt
12 primarily one-on-one? 13 A. No, sir. A lot of times we'd have
14 Nordstrom and I would be meeting with him. 15 Q. Okay. Thank you for making that
16 clarification. When you and Agent Nordstrom would 17 meet with VanPelt, was it typically one-on-one? 18 19 us? A. Are you talking about just the three of
20 21
Q. A.
Yes. Yes. Or sometimes there would be phone
22 calls, you know, him and I just phone calls and that 23 kind of stuff. 24 25 Q. A. What about with Agent Wise of the IRS? She was involved in that first meeting
47 1 that we had with the U.S. Attorney's Office, but I -2 there were some phone calls. I don't remember any 3 other face-to-face meetings. 4 5 Q. A. And Agent Harker? We did meet with him. He also shares an
6 office with VanPelt. So one or two of the days we 7 were there to see VanPelt, he happened to be there and 8 we addressed some issues or he described what his 9 experience was. 10 Q. What then about Agent Snyder with the
11 IRS? 12 A. I don't remember talking to him until --
13 until -- I think, by phone. 14 Q. Okay. So you worked with Agent
15 Nordstrom, with FDLE, who was your partner for lack of 16 a better word on this case -17 18 A. Q. Yes, sir. -- along with the four federal agents
19 that you told me about?
20
A.
We really did not work with them. They,
21 basically, had their investigation completed by the 22 time we came on board. And so we were asking them as 23 to what they had done. 24 Q. And did their explanation to you about
25 what they had done, did they indicate to you that
48 1 their activity was completely contained within the 2 302's? 3 4 A. Q. Yes, sir. Was there any other activity that they
5 talked about that wasn't contained in the 302's that 6 you are aware of? 7 8 A. Q. Not that I'm aware of. Now, you applied for an arrest warrant in
9 this case; did you not? 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 A. We did. MR. MURRAY: Madam court reporter, mark this as Exhibit 1, please. And once you mark it, show it to the witness, please. (Defendants' Exhibit No. 1 was marked for identification.) Q. (By Mr. Murray) Now, I show you what's
17 been marked as Defendants' Exhibit 1 and ask you if 18 you recognize that. 19 MR. MURRAY: Russ, do you have a copy of
20 21 22 23 24 25
that? Do you want a copy? MR. EDGAR: Are you representing that that's the Probable Cause Affidavit? MR. MURRAY: Yes. A. Yes, I recognize it.
49 1 Q. (By Mr. Murray) And is that the Arrest
2 Warrant and Affidavit in Support of Arrest Warrant for 3 Michael James Coup? 4 5 A. Q. Yes, it is. And on the Affidavit of Probable Cause,
6 where there is a signature block for Randy Crowder; is 7 that your signature? 8 9 A. Q. It is. Okay. Now, if you would, turn to the
10 Affidavit of Probable Cause. What allegations of 11 employee misconduct did you investigate during the 12 course of your investigation relating to bonus 13 payments by Charlie Morris? 14 A. Are you referring to something specific
15 in the Affidavit? 16 Q. Yes, sir. Let me see if I can -- it is
17 in the first paragraph. You said you investigated 18 allegations that the former Sheriff, Morris, I'm 19 paraphrasing, and the employees of the Okaloosa County
20 Sheriff's Office misappropriated funds, property, 21 services of the Okaloosa County Sheriff's Office. 22 My question to you is: Other than Coup,
23 Yacks and Norris, Morris and Adams, the five that have 24 been arrested, were there any other employees that you 25 investigated?
50 1 A. We took a look at almost everybody that
2 received bonuses. 3 Q. Okay. And I think you previously said
4 that you did not participate in the decision about who 5 ultimately would be prosecuted? 6 7 A. Q. Correct. That there were some who had received
8 bonuses and kicked money back or returned money to the 9 Sheriff and they were not prosecuted; is that an 10 accurate statement, at least up to this time? 11 12 A. Q. Correct. But you didn't participate in that
13 decision? 14 15 16 A. Q. A. No. In any way, shape or form? We presented the facts to the prosecutor
17 and the prosecutor took it and identified who would be 18 charged. 19 Q. And that was his decision solely?
20
A.
Well, I don't know that, sir. I would
21 assume that he maybe talked to Mr. Eddins, but I don't 22 know. 23 24 that. 25 A. That's beyond me. That's above my pay Q. I don't want to get into any aspect of
51 1 grade. 2 Q. Fair comment. My question to you is:
3 Did you make recommendations about who should or 4 should not be charged? 5 6 7 A. Q. A. Yes, sir. And what were those recommendations? The people that were charged in this
8 Affidavit. 9 Q. Okay. Why was -- why was Mr. Coup
10 selected as part of that group? 11 12 13 14 15 A. Well, sir -MR. EDGAR: I object to the question. He has already answered that he didn't make the selection. Q. (By Mr. Murray) You can answer the
16 question. 17 A. Well, you can read here what we
18 identified in the Affidavit. 19 Q. Okay. Well, let's kind of go through
20 your Affidavit. Did you work with anybody at the 21 Okaloosa County Sheriff's Office that identified 22 employees to you that were suspected of criminal 23 conduct? Was there a pointman at the Okaloosa County 24 Sheriff's Office that you coordinated your 25 investigation with?
52 1 A. We talked to a lot of people at the
2 Sheriff's Office. Nobody, I would assume, would be 3 the pointman. 4 5 6 Q. A. Q. Well, in looking at the FDLE reports -Okay. -- that were supplied to us, it appears
7 that Major Ashley supplied you with a lot of 8 information. 9 10 A. Q. He supplied the FBI with the information. The attachments, if you know, you may not
11 know since it's not your report, but the attachments 12 to some of the FDLE reports, are those attachments 13 that came from the FBI or are those attachments that 14 were furnished to you and Dennis Nordstrom? 15 A. I don't know what attachments you're
16 referring to. 17 Q. Okay. I'm going to leave that for just a
18 second and try to get back to my original question to 19 you, which is: Did you work with some employees at
20 the Okaloosa County Sheriff's Office in the course of 21 conducting your investigation more than other 22 employees? 23 24 A. Q. Yes, sir. Who were the employees that you worked
25 with?
53 1 2 3 A. Q. A. Kelly Cashman. Okay. Leslie Frank, the Sheriff -- the New
4 Sheriff Spooner, Larry Ashley. Them probably more 5 than others, but like I said, we talked to a whole lot 6 of people there and worked with a lot of people. 7 Q. What about Major Schniepp; did you work
8 with him? 9 A. Yes, sir, we interviewed him several
10 times. 11 12 13 Q. A. Q. And Major Donaldson? We did interview him. Okay. Would he be in that group of
14 people that you worked with? 15 A. I wouldn't -- I wouldn't say -- other
16 than Cashman, who was the clerk handling, you know, 17 those financial transactions and Leslie Frank, there 18 wasn't -- I don't think we worked with a lot. You 19 know, it was more of us interviewing, asking
20 questions, receiving information. 21 Larry Ashley, in his position, we would
22 talk to him and say, "We need this." And he would 23 kind of coordinate it, if we couldn't get directly to 24 the person. For instance, if we couldn't get directly 25 with Cashman, we'd call him and say, "Hey, we need
54 1 help on getting this information." 2 3 4 Q. A. Q. Now, I'm still on the first paragraph. Okay. And in here, you say, "Employees in the
5 Okaloosa County Sheriff's Office misappropriated 6 funds." Are those funds that you make reference to in 7 your Affidavit the bonus payments made by Charlie 8 Morris to one or more of the employees? 9 10 11 12 13 MR. EDGAR: Let me see what paragraph he is talking about. THE WITNESS: It's right here (indicating). A. Yes, that's one. I'm looking and trying
14 to remember if there's anything else. 15 Q. (By Mr. Murray) And that's my question
16 to you really. Is there anything else other than the 17 bonus payments which you're apparent -- the bonus 18 payments? 19 A. That was the bonus payments we talked
20 about. We talked about, also, in here the payments 21 from the Sheriff's Office to Thornton for various 22 things. 23 24 25 Q. Okay. MR. EDGAR: But the first paragraph, number one, you're talking about?
55 1 2 3 4 5 MR. MURRAY: Yes, the first full paragraph. MR. EDGAR: Okay, not this paragraph (indicating). A. I thought you were talking about the very
6 first... 7 Q. I'm in the first paragraph, the next to
8 the last -9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 A. Q. MR. EDGAR: What does it start with, "Your affiants"? MR. MURRAY: Yes. MR. EDGAR: Okay, okay. THE WITNESS: Yes, he is talking about this. MR. EDGAR: Okay. Primarily the bonuses. (By Mr. Murray) Okay. And you qualify
18 that by saying that there was also monies paid to 19 Sabra Thornton?
20 21 22 23
A. Q. A. Q.
Yes. Were there -Using agency funds. Using agency funds. Now, was there
24 anything other than bonuses that Mr. Coup was alleged 25 to have been involved in, based upon your
56 1 investigation? 2 3 4 MR. EDGAR: I'm going to object to that question. I think it's vague. Q. (By Mr. Murray) You can answer the
5 question. 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 A. Okay, restate the question. MR. MURRAY: Would you read it back to him, madam court reporter? THE COURT REPORTER: Yes, sir. (Whereupon, the court reporter read back as follows: Q. "Using agency funds. Now, was
there anything other than bonuses that Mr. Coup was alleged to have been involved in, based upon your investigation?" A. Q. Kickbacks. (By Mr. Murray) Okay. But that related
18 to the bonuses; did it not? 19 A. That did relate to the bonuses.
20
Q.
Your belief is that Mr. Coup received
21 bonus payments and then on occasion would give money 22 back to the Sheriff? 23 A. That and also receive money from the
24 Sheriff as a result of the kickbacks received from 25 other people.
57 1 Q. Okay, okay. Now, the next word is
2 "property." Does that property -- does the property 3 allegation contained in your PC Affidavit relate just 4 to Sabra Thornton or does it relate to any -- does it 5 relate to Mr. Coup? Is Mr. Coup alleged to have 6 stolen any property? 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 MR. EDGAR: Let me object here. I think this is misleading. MR. MURRAY: That's fine. MR. EDGAR: It's very misleading. And I can explain to counsel why. MR. MURRAY: I can take your deposition, Mr. Edgar. MR. EDGAR: Let me finish, please. I can explain it, if you would like. It will facilitate the deposition. But if you don't, you will not get correct answers, you're just going to take longer. You can choose. If you want to just proceed, go ahead.
20 21 22 23 24 25
MR. MURRAY: On the record, make your statement. MR. EDGAR: The problem is, is that the property and funds and services go to inmates, they go to equipment, they go to all of the whole global theft of things involving multiple
58 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 people that don't pertain to Mr. Coup. To ask him about the preamble that applies to everybody and all types of things that Mr. Coup isn't even charged with, I think, prolongs the deposition. And I just want to clarify that. I know you are not trying to be tricky, but it's resulting in confusion. MR. MURRAY: Okay. MR. EDGAR: Thank you for letting me say that. Q. (By Mr. Murray) Mr. Crowder, you heard
12 what Mr. Edgar just put on the record? 13 14 A. Q. Yes, sir. So my question to you is not related to
15 all of the other people. Do you have any facts or 16 information that indicates that Mr. Coup took any 17 property? 18 19 A. Q. No. Okay. And what about services, the same
20 question as related to Mr. Coup? 21 22 23 Q. A. No. MR. EDGAR: Thank you. (By Mr. Murray) Okay. Now, second full
24 paragraph, are you with me? 25 A. Yes.
59 1 Q. During the course of this investigation,
2 we have interviewed witnesses, including employees of 3 the Okaloosa County Sheriff's Office. Did you 4 interview anybody other than those people reflected in 5 the FDLE reports? 6 7 8 9 10 A. A. Yes. THE WITNESS: Hold on, let me ask Russ. MR. MURRAY: Sure. (Off-the-record comments were made.) Okay. There were people that we've
11 interviewed since or during this investigation but 12 that is involving pending investigation. 13 Q. (By Mr. Murray) Does any of that relate
14 to conduct by Mr. Coup? 15 16 17 18 Q. A. I can't say at this time. MR. EDGAR: Potentially. THE WITNESS: True. (By Mr. Murray) Okay. You're refusing
19 to answer my question and the basis for the refusal is
20 that there is an ongoing investigation? 21 22 A. Q. Yes, sir; yes, sir. And is Mr. Coup a target of that ongoing
23 investigation? 24 25 A. Q. We don't know yet, sir. Did you interview any inmates that gave
60 1 you any information that related to Mr. Coup? 2 3 A. Q. No. And the auditors that you talked to, were
4 those auditors the same people that generated the two 5 audit reports that have been supplied to us? 6 A. I believe -- I believe it was only maybe
7 Mr. Gilliard. 8 9 Q. A. So should that be -It could be others. I can't remember at
10 this time. 11 Q. Okay. What I'm trying to get to is: Did
12 you interview any auditors for which we do not have a 13 report on? 14 15 A. Q. No, sir; no, sir. There were two audit reports and I think
16 they're both titled "Forensic Audit" interestingly 17 enough. 18 19 A. Q. Yes, sir. Are you aware of any other audit activity
20 other than that reflected in those two reports? 21 22 A. Q. No, sir. And then you say other law enforcement
23 officers besides those that we've talked about, the 24 federal investigators that you've discussed and your 25 partner, Agent Nordstrom, and the people at the
61 1 Sheriff's Office, did you interview any other law 2 enforcement officers as it relates to Mr. Coup? 3 4 A. Q. I don't -- I don't believe so. Okay. You indicate in your Affidavit you
5 examined corporate records. What corporate records 6 did you examine in the course of your investigation? 7 A. There were records pertaining to the
8 business of Mrs. Morris. 9 Q. Okay. My question to you, once again:
10 Were there any facts gleaned from that avenue of 11 investigation that involved or reflected upon Mr. 12 Coup? 13 14 15 16 A. Q. A. Q. Not that I remember. Are you pretty sure about that? Pretty sure. Okay. Payroll, by that, are you talking
17 about the payroll records at the Okaloosa County 18 Sheriff's Office? 19 A. We looked at payroll records for other
20 organizations. 21 Q. Okay. As it relates to Mr. Coup, as it
22 applies to him factually -23 24 A. Q. Yes. -- what payroll records did you identify
25 as having relevance to the charges pending against
62 1 him? 2 A. The college records where he was
3 teaching. 4 Q. And that's at Northwest Florida State
5 College? 6 7 8 9 A. Q. A. Q. Yes. Okay. Anything else? Not that I can remember. Okay. Was there anything from the
10 examination of those records at the college that 11 indicated criminal conduct, in your mind, on Mr. Coup? 12 13 A. Q. No, sir. Employment records, are those the
14 Okaloosa County Sheriff's Office and Northwest Florida 15 State College as it relates -16 17 A. Q. Yes, sir. -- to Mr. Coup? The property records,
18 are those OCSO property records? 19 A. Yes, sir.
20
Q.
Was there anything that you identified in
21 those property records and you've broken it out and 22 said vehicle, equipment and fuel usage, that indicated 23 any alleged misconduct on the part of Mr. Coup? 24 25 A. Q. No, sir. On bank records, are there any other bank
63 1 records, other than Mr. Coup's personal accounts, that 2 you examined that reflect any misconduct on his part, 3 alleged misconduct? 4 5 A. Q. Also would be the agency's bank accounts. Anything else other than the agency's
6 bank accounts and Mr. Coup's personal accounts? 7 8 9 A. Q. A. And the accounts of his wife. Okay. And there were other accounts that he or
10 his wife are cosigners on with children or whatever. 11 And we looked at those and I can't remember if those 12 showed any evidence. 13 Q. Jail records, I assume that relates to
14 the inmates? 15 16 A. Q. Yes, sir. Were those jail records the jail records
17 of the Okaloosa County Detention Center? 18 19 A. Q. Yes, sir. Was there any information gleaned from
20 those records that reflected any alleged misconduct on 21 the part of Mr. Coup? 22 23 A. Q. Not at this time. And then when you say, "Reviewed
24 investigative reports from other law enforcement 25 agencies," would that be the FBI and Internal Revenue
64 1 Service? 2 3 A. Q. Yes, sir. Are there any other law enforcement
4 agencies' reports that you reviewed? 5 6 A. Q. Not pertaining to Mr. Coup. Now, I think you were asked this earlier,
7 and if so, I'll get to this as quickly as I can. You 8 identified OCSO employees as having returned money to 9 Morris from bonuses that they received? 10 11 12 13 A. Q. A. Q. Yes. Is that an accurate statement? That was based on the audit reports. And was the method of operation -- and if
14 you're not comfortable with that, you can assert your 15 own terms -- but the mechanism by which this occurred, 16 would be that the money would be deposited into the 17 employees' account electronically? 18 A. In the beginning, there were checks. I
19 can't remember if the kickbacks were related to those,
20 but I know there were bonuses that were issued out in 21 the beginning years in the form of checks as well as 22 electronic deposit, depending on what method the 23 employee had set up with the Sheriff's Office. 24 Q. Now, at some point in time, that money
25 that was transferred to the employees was, in fact,
65 1 the employees' money; am I correct? 2 3 4 A. Q. MR. EDGAR: Object as argumentative. Yeah. (By Mr. Murray) You can answer the
5 question. 6 A. Are you talking about all bonuses or
7 bonuses related to kickbacks? 8 Q. No. I'm talking about as a trained
9 financial investigator that when money is transferred 10 into your account, assuming it's not a trust account, 11 it's your money; is that not an accurate statement? 12 13 14 A. Q. A. No, sir. Okay. Why is it not accurate? Are you talking in general and not a
15 legal transaction? I would agree. An illegal 16 transaction, which there was money stolen, it is not 17 property of the receiver, it is the property of the 18 victim. 19 Q. Okay. Now, in regards to, let's talk
20 about Kelly Cashman. You identified her as an 21 employee who had returned money to Charlie Morris? 22 23 A. Q. Yes. Did you discern or uncover facts which
24 reflect that Kelly Cashman knew at the time she 25 returned money that it was for an illegal purpose?
66 1 2 3 4 did. 5 Q. (By Mr. Murray) Well, Jesse Jackson, who MR. EDGAR: Object to the form of the question. A. I -- I can't say. I don't know if we
6 was -- was there some money that she used? 7 8 A. Q. Agreed or same, same answer. Okay. What about Larry Donaldson? He
9 returned 5,000 to the Sheriff. Did he know at the 10 time he returned that money that that was illegally 11 obtained money? Do you have any facts that indicated 12 that he knew that? 13 14 15 A. Q. A. I believe his testimony will state so. That he did? I believe you will see in the 302 and in
16 our recorded statement that you will see. 17 Q. Do you have a recorded statement of Larry
18 Donaldson? 19 A. I believe so.
20 21 22 23 24
MR. MURRAY: Off the record for a second. (Off-the-record comments were made.) MR. MURRAY: Let's get back on the record. Q. (By Mr. Murray) Do you know whether or
25 not there's an audio tape of Larry Donaldson's
67 1 interview? 2 A. Right now, I can't swear to it. I
3 thought we had one, but I'll have to go back and look 4 for it. 5 Q. Do you have any objections to checking,
6 and if you do, would you supply that to Mr. Edgar? 7 8 A. Q. Certainly. And would you be good enough, through
9 Donna at the State Attorney's Office, to have her 10 notify us -11 12 A. Q. Yes. -- as to whether or not such a tape
13 exists? 14 15 16 17 A. Q. A. Q. Uh-huh. Is that a yes? Yes. Would your answer be the same -- would
18 your answer be the same for Mark Schniepp; he returned 19 $5,000?
20 21 22
A. Q. A.
Same answer. Do you -Same answer as Schniepp being as
23 Donaldson. 24 Q. And do you know whether an audio tape of
25 Mark Schniepp, not the intercepts that the federal
68 1 agents did, but do you have an audio tape of Mark 2 Schniepp? 3 4 A. Q. I believe we do. Okay. And I would make the same request
5 of you. 6 A. Are you saying that you have not received
7 an interview tape from Schniepp? 8 9 Q. MS. MURRAY: I don't. I'll have to look. (By Mr. Murray) That's correct. George
10 Wilson returned money on four occasions, I believe, as 11 reflected in the 302's; did you interview him? 12 13 14 15 A. Q. A. Q. Yes. And was that recorded? Yes. Okay. I impose on you and make the same
16 request to Mr. Wilson. 17 Sarah Irish returned money, based upon
18 our analysis of the discovery, of one occasion; did 19 you interview her?
20
A.
She has been interviewed. I do not
21 remember if I participated in that and I do not 22 remember if there was an interview tape. 23 Q. Okay. Would that have been something
24 that Agent Nordstrom would have perhaps done on his 25 own?
69 1 2 A. Q. It's possible. Debbie Barrineau returned $3,000; is that
3 an accurate statement? 4 A. I don't remember how much she returned,
5 but she did participate. 6 7 8 9 10 Q. A. Q. A. Q. She returned money on one occasion? Yes, sir. Okay. Did you interview her? Yes, we did. And is there an audio tape of that
11 interview? 12 A. I'd say yes, based on the fact that we
13 did interview tapes on almost all of these people. 14 15 16 17 18 Q. A. Q. A. Q. Angel -DeJesus. -- DeJesus, you interviewed him? Yes. Do you believe there's an audio tape on
19 him?
20 21 22 23 24 25
A. Q. A. Q. A. Q.
Yes. Mike Hull? Yes. Same question, audio tape? Audio tape. Would it be fair to say that on the
70 1 majority of the interviews that you conducted that 2 your practice would be to record the interview? 3 4 5 6 A. Q. A. Q. Yes. Is that a fair statement? Yes, sir. Okay. Michelle Nicholson, did you
7 interview her? 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 A. Q. A. Q. A. Q. A. Q. A. Q. A. Q. Yes, we did. Sandy Norris? Yes, we did. Robert (sic) Phifer? Roberta. I'm sorry, Roberta? Yes. You interviewed her? Yes. Nicole Wagner? Yes. Did you interview Terry Adams?
20 21
A. Q.
Yes. How many times did you interview Terry
22 Adams? 23 24 A. Q. One, maybe. I think only one. Okay. And was that -- and who
25 participated in that interview; yourself and who else?
71 1 A. Agent Norris -- or Nordstrom and, I
2 believe, Mr. Edgar was there -3 4 5 6 Q. A. Q. A. Okay. -- along with her attorney. She had an attorney? I believe so and she also had a friend
7 there. I can't remember her name. 8 Q. Okay. Did you make a note of that in
9 your notes? 10 11 12 13 14 A. Q. A. Q. A. Of what? Of who the friend was. I believe it is in my notes. Now, did you record that interview? I say yes, but we have not been able to
15 find that recording. We have looked and since I think 16 the defense raised the issue, we went back and we 17 cannot find it. 18 Q. Would the recordings that you made, are
19 they entered into an evidence locker --
20 21 22
A. Q. A.
No. -- or to an evidence custodian? No. We take it and we put it on our
23 network hard drive. And in some cases, we make a copy 24 and put it on a CD. Most of the time, it's just put 25 onto our network.
72 1 Q. Explain to me the mechanism that you
2 record an interview. I mean, is there a digital 3 recorder that you use? 4 A. Yes, sir. In this case, we used digital
5 recorders, we copied -- take the recording and then we 6 would download it onto, like I said, our network. 7 That's if I did it. If Mr. Nordstrom did it, then I 8 don't know what procedure he did, other than he would 9 provide us a copy of what he did. 10 Q. Okay. Randall Holcombe, did you
11 interview him? 12 13 14 15 A. Q. A. Q. Yes. And did you record that interview? I believe so. Okay. We've not received -- just to kind
16 of go over the list of folks, we don't have an audio 17 recording for Cashman, Jackson, Donaldson, Schniepp, 18 Wilson, Irish, Barrineau, DeJesus, Hull, Nicholson. 19 A. That should have been part of the initial
20 discovery. 21 Q. And if you've provided that, if you can
22 identify the disk that it's located on. 23 24 25 MR. EDGAR: We'll tell you if we provided it. If we can do that, we will. MR. MURRAY: Okay.
73 1 Q. (By Mr. Murray) And we don't have the
2 Adams' interview and we don't have the Hull -3 4 that. 5 6 Q. A. You believe for some reason -We recorded it and somehow it got lost in A. I've looked for that and I cannot find
7 the... 8 Q. Okay. How many bonuses did you identify
9 that Michael Coup returned money to the Sheriff? 10 11 A. Q. At least once. Okay. Now, in your Affidavit, you
12 indicate that there were two. 13 A. I can talk to the one that's in my
14 memory. I can't remember the second one, when that 15 occurred. 16 Q. And I draw your attention to page one of
17 the Affidavit, the last paragraph. And in there, it 18 says on at least -- on at least two occasions Coup 19 returned part of the payments in cash to Morris. Are
20 you aware -- we know about one. 21 22 23 A. Q. A. Right. Is that a mistake? No, sir, that's not a mistake. I just
24 can't remember. 25 Q. Do you not know where the second amount
74 1 of money is that he has alleged to have returned or 2 what bonus it is associated with? 3 A. Like I say, sir, I can't remember that
4 specific bonus. I would have to go back and look at 5 the reports, the audit reports. 6 Q. And would it be the audit reports that
7 you would rely upon to discern whether or not there 8 was one or two bonuses that money was returned by -9 10 11 A. Q. A. I would look at --- Mr. Coup? I would look at the audit report as well
12 as bank records and any analysis that was conducted. 13 Q. Okay. Well, who conducted the analysis
14 of the bank records that may reflect whether or not 15 there was a second return of money by Mr. Coup? 16 17 A. Q. I did. And as you sit here today, you don't know
18 the answer to that question? 19 A. I can't talk specifically to that. This
20 case is a very big case and it's just -- there's a lot 21 of bonuses. 22 Q. Admitted and I acknowledge that. What
23 I'm trying to get at, because this is an important 24 point, is what do you need to review in order to 25 answer my question?
75 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 MR. EDGAR: Why does he need to review it? He doesn't have to do what you ask him to do, Mr. Murray. MR. MURRAY: I'm not going to engage in that. I'm just asking him. I have got a question posed. MR. EDGAR: Answer the question. Hypothetically, if you were required for some reason to do this, what would you look at? THE WITNESS: I would look at the audit reports, the Sheriff's Office reports of monies going out, the bank records of Mr. Coup, his wife, his children and look at any analysis. Q. (By Mr. Murray) And you are the person
15 that did the analysis; are you not? 16 17 18 MR. EDGAR: That's already been asked. Object to the form. Q. (By Mr. Murray) You can answer the
19 question.
20 21
A. Q.
Yes. And would the answer to my question as to
22 the identity of the second amount of money, would that 23 be contained within your notes? 24 25 A. Q. Not in my notes, but in my work product. And if you would, tell me what you're
76 1 defining as work product. 2 A. This analysis of different accounts
3 provided to the prosecutor. 4 5 6 Q. A. Q. Is it a written summary that you -No, sir. Okay. Now, you've got bank records; are
7 you saying that's your work product? 8 9 A. Q. No, sir. What did you generate that you're saying
10 is your work product generated from your analysis? 11 12 A. Q. I did a spreadsheet. Okay. And does Mr. Edgar have that
13 spreadsheet? 14 15 A. Q. It's been provided, yes. Do you know if that was provided to the
16 defense? 17 18 Q. MR. EDGAR: It was not. (By Mr. Murray) Is this a spreadsheet
19 that you prepared based upon your analysis of
20 financial transactions involving Mr. Coup? 21 22 A. Q. Not only Mr. Coup, but others. Okay. Well, I'm limiting myself just to
23 Mr. Coup. 24 25 A. Q. Yeah. Is this spreadsheet an Excel spreadsheet?
77 1 2 A. Q. Yes. And you've not provided that because the
3 prosecutor told you not to provide it? 4 A. That's our process in which we're doing
5 an analysis. At least, you can say it's part of my 6 notes. 7 Q. Okay. What information do you have that
8 Michael Coup knew of kickbacks being given to Morris 9 or money being returned to him? 10 A. He received the first -- one of the first
11 ones. 12 Q. Okay. Anything else other than that?
13 And I'm looking for facts here. 14 A. As provided in the discovery, you have
15 the UC of Mark Schniepp talking to -- talking to him. 16 Q. The intercept, anything else other than
17 that? You've told me that he returned money on one 18 occasion, you said the first time. And then you 19 have -- and you made reference to the undercover
20 intercept that Mark Schniepp did; anything else? 21 22 A. Q. It would be the second kickback. And that's reflected in your Excel
23 spreadsheet? 24 25 A. Q. It is reflected in the documents. That you examined?
78 1 2 3 4 A. Q. A. Q. The bank account records -That you examined? -- all the things -- yes. Now, did any witness -- did you interview
5 any witness that told you that Michael knew that the 6 Sheriff was returning money or money was being 7 returned to the Sheriff? Did any witness tell you 8 that Michael Coup knew? 9 10 A. Q. The interview of Mark Schniepp. Okay. And would that interview which we
11 don't have yet, but I assume -- would I be correct in 12 assuming that it revolves around the intercept? 13 14 A. Q. Yes. Other than Mark Schniepp, any other
15 witness? 16 17 A. Q. Not that I can think of right now. Is that something that you would
18 remember? 19 A. It should be, yes.
20
Q.
Okay, thank you for your candor. The
21 records that you talked about, we've talked about, 22 those are the financial records that you previously 23 identified in your answers to other questions? 24 25 A. Q. Yes. No other records?
79 1 2 A. Q. Not that I can think of. Do you have any physical evidence, any
3 writings or documents that indicate that Mr. Coup knew 4 that employees of the Sheriff's Office were returning 5 money to the Sheriff? 6 7 A. Q. No. Okay. The same series of questions as it
8 relates to kickbacks to fund gambling trips, what 9 information do you have that Michael Coup knew that 10 the money being returned to the Sheriff was being used 11 to fund gambling trips? 12 13 14 15 Q. MR. EDGAR: I'm going to object to the question as overly broad. MR. MURRAY: Okay. (By Mr. Murray) You can answer the
16 question. 17 18 19 A. Okay. MR. EDGAR: And it calls for an opinion or a conclusion on the part of the witness.
20 21 Q.
MR. MURRAY: Okay. (By Mr. Murray) Do I need to read the
22 question back to you? 23 24 25 A. Sure. MR. MURRAY: Madam court reporter? (Whereupon, the court reporter read back
80 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 as follows: Q. "Okay. The same series of
questions as it relates to kickbacks to fund gambling trips, what information do you have that Michael Coup knew that the money being returned to the Sheriff was being used to fund gambling trips?") A. Q. His -- him receiving the bonuses. (By Mr. Murray) Anything else, other
10 than him receiving one or more bonuses? 11 A. At this moment, I can't think of anything
12 else. 13 Q. Well, that's an important point,
14 Investigator Crowder; is that something you would 15 probably remember? 16 17 Q. MR. EDGAR: Objection; argumentative. (By Mr. Murray) It's a question, you can
18 answer it. 19 A. Yeah.
20 21 22 23 24
MR. EDGAR: What is the question; is it important or not? What is the question? Objection; it's argumentative. A. Q. At this time, that's all I've got. (By Mr. Murray) At this time, you don't
25 have any other information --
81 1 2 A. Q. Right. -- that you can recall? Okay. What
3 information do you have that Michael Coup knew that 4 money was being returned to the Sheriff and was being 5 used to fund gifts for one or more employees? 6 A. I'm not -- I would think that was brought
7 out in what he was told by the Sheriff and maybe also 8 in Schniepp's interview. 9 Q. Okay. Well, let's start with the
10 Sheriff. What are you making reference to when he was 11 told by the Sheriff; told what by the Sheriff? 12 A. Well, let me take that back. I don't
13 know. I can't remember what he was told. That was an 14 assumption. I would have to go back and review that 15 interview that we conducted -16 17 18 Q. A. Q. Interview --- as well as the report. Which interview are you making reference
19 to, sir?
20 21
A. Q.
Of Coup, Mr. Coup. Okay. Would you have any other
22 information, other than the interviews that are 23 documented in 302's, that you would have reviewed? 24 25 A. Q. Our interview tapes -Okay.
82 1 2 3 4 A. Q. A. Q. -- of Mr. Coup. Do you have an interview of Mr. Coup? Should, yes. Okay. And is that -- did you follow the
5 same procedure that you did on the other witnesses, 6 that is to say you digitally recorded -7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 Q. A. Q. A. Yes. -- and then downloaded? Yes. MR. MURRAY: Russ, we need that. MR. EDGAR: I don't think it exists. THE WITNESS: On Coup? MR. EDGAR: Yeah. I thought that he had a lawyer and he wouldn't give us an interview. Are you talking about the FBI or the IRS interview? THE WITNESS: Yeah. (By Mr. Murray) Are you making
19 reference, by chance, to any of the internal affairs
20 interviews that were being conducted? 21 22 23 24 25 A. Q. A. Q. A. No, not at all. Did you have access to any of those? No, we did not. Did you review any of those? No, we did not.
83 1 2 3 Q. A. Q. Did anybody provide those to you? No, they did not. As you sit here today, have you ever seen
4 them? 5 6 A. Q. No. Have you ever seen any reports from the
7 internal affairs investigation? 8 9 10 11 A. Q. A. Q. No. Are you sure about that? I am sure. Okay. Do you have any information that
12 Coup received gifts as a result of money being 13 returned to the Sheriff other than bonuses? 14 15 16 17 18 19 MR. EDGAR: Object to the form of the question as vague, ambiguous. A. Q. A. Q. Other than the cash that he received? (By Mr. Murray) Correct. None other than... You told me about the cash; anything
20 else? 21 22 A. Q. No. Do you have any information that Coup
23 knew that money being returned to the Sheriff was 24 being used to fund credit card bills? 25 A. Please say that again.
84 1 Q. Do you have any information that Coup
2 knew that money being returned to the Sheriff was 3 being used to fund credit card bills? And I'm drawing 4 from your Affidavit. 5 6 A. Q. Are you talking about for Sabra Thornton? Anybody. We'll start with Sabra
7 Thornton. 8 A. No, I don't have any knowledge of that
9 for Sabra or for anybody else. 10 Q. Okay. Now, other than what you've told
11 me about one or more bonuses, do you have any other 12 information that Coup benefited from this -- and it's 13 characterized as a kickback scheme -- other than the 14 two bonuses? 15 A. Well, he actually received cash from the
16 Sheriff. 17 Q. Okay. And was that -- are you
18 characterizing that as a bonus or a gift or -19 A. It's not a gift and it wasn't a bonus, it
20 was a cash handout. 21 Q. Okay. Now, in your examination of the SO
22 records -- OCSO records, did you discover a document 23 in which withhelding (sic) -- where that money was 24 documented withholding had been taken out? 25 A. Withholding, are you talking about
85 1 federal? 2 3 4 Q. A. Q. I'm talking about federal taxes. Okay, say that again, now. In your process of reviewing OCSO
5 financial records -6 7 A. Q. Uh-huh. -- and I believe you told me that you
8 had -9 10 11 12 A. Q. A. Q. Uh-huh. -- or have -Yes. -- were you able to document that that
13 7,000-dollar cash money that Mr. Coup is alleged to 14 have received, whether or not federal withholding 15 taxes and retirement were taken out of it? 16 17 A. Q. No. Are you saying that there is no such
18 record or you don't know? 19 A. No, no proof that it was done.
20
Q.
Okay. Now, you make reference in your
21 Affidavit about -- and I'm right above sub paragraph 22 (a), Michael J. Coup, the kickbacks increased each 23 year involving more and more OCSO employees to cover 24 increased expenses of the Sheriff and his accomplices. 25 Who are you making reference to when you're talking
86 1 about accomplices? 2 3 A. Q. It would be the people that were charged. So are you -- are you describing the five
4 who are charged in the State case -5 6 7 8 9 A. Q. A. Q. A. Yes. -- as accomplices? Yes. Anybody else? There would be others that were
10 unwilling. 11 Q. Who are those people, Investigator
12 Crowder? 13 14 15 A. Q. A. I would say Cashman. Cashman, in your mind, is an accomplice? Well, she was an unwilling. She was a
16 clerk that was told by Norris to do it and by the 17 Sheriff to do it. 18 19 Q. Okay, anybody else? MR. KLOTZ: I'm sorry, did you say Norris
20 21 22 23 24 25
or Morris to do it? THE WITNESS: Norris -- well, Norris and Morris. MR. KLOTZ: Okay. I'm sorry, go ahead. Q. A. (By Mr. Murray) Anybody else? That's it that I can think of right now.
87 1 Q. Who drafted this Affidavit of Probable
2 Cause? 3 A. It was a combination effort of Nordstrom,
4 myself with overview/oversight by Mr. Edgar. 5 Q. Who actually typed it out; was that Donna
6 at the State Attorney's Office? 7 8 A. Q. No, myself; myself and Nordstrom. Okay. So this was a joint effort on the
9 part of you, Agent Nordstrom and Mr. Edgar? 10 11 12 13 A. Q. A. Q. Yes. Fair statement? Fair statement. Okay, okay. I'm still on this last
14 paragraph above sub (a); are you with me? 15 16 A. Q. (Witness nods head). You said in your Affidavit to cover
17 increased expenses. To cover increased expenses, what 18 are you talking about when you talk about increased 19 expenses?
20 21 22
A. Q. A.
Talking about the Thornton expenses -Okay. -- as well as Vegas expenses and other
23 trips. 24 Q. Okay. Which Vegas trips, all of them or
25 some of them?
88 1 A. Now, there were some people that took
2 Vegas trips that paid for their own, so I can't 3 account for those. But the ones that primarily the 4 Sheriff participated in, primarily. There were 5 others, but I can't speak to those today. 6 Q. Now, your investigation revealed that
7 Mr. Coup traveled to Las Vegas; am I correct? 8 9 A. Q. Yes, sir. Did you determine whether or not he paid
10 for those himself? 11 A. I believe he did receive some -- some
12 funding for that, some funding bonus for that. 13 Q. If I understand your answer correctly,
14 and you correct me if I'm wrong, the response is he 15 paid for it, but you believe that the money that he 16 paid for it with came from the bonuses given to him by 17 the Sheriff? 18 A. I believe there was on at least one
19 occasion.
20 21 22 23
Q. A. Q. A.
Anything else other -Also -Go ahead. -- I believe Mr. Yacks was paid for the
24 travel airline tickets for Coup. 25 Q. That Mr. Coup paid Mr. Yacks?
89 1 A. No, I don't believe Mr. Coup paid on at
2 least one occasion. 3 Q. So is it your testimony here today that
4 Mr. Coup got a free trip to Las Vegas and never paid 5 for it, because it was funded by some other source to 6 Mr. Yacks? 7 8 9 10 A. Q. A. Q. I believe so. And which trip are you talking about? I don't know which ones. Would that be reflected on the
11 spreadsheet that you've previously described? 12 A. I would have to go back and look. It may
13 be and maybe not. I would have to go back and look at 14 that. 15 Q. But as you sit here today, you are not
16 able to answer my question? 17 18 A. Q. I'm not able to answer it, no, sir. Okay. I'm still on your Affidavit and
19 Michael J. Coup sub paragraph (a). Michael J. Coup,
20 Chief Deputy, sworn law enforcement officer, 21 facilitated the scheme by participating in it on 22 several occasions. Now, you talk about facilitation 23 was accomplished by participation. What participation 24 are you making reference to there? Is it the receipt 25 of the bonuses or is it something else?
90 1 2 3 4 A. Q. A. Q. Receiving the bonuses. Anything else? And knowing it was going on. Okay. Now, what information do you have;
5 what witnesses told you or what fact do you have that 6 indicates that he knew what was going on? 7 A. I already told you that, sir. I told you
8 that he received it. He was one of the first ones 9 that received it. Schniepp talked to him about it. 10 Q. Now, the date that Schniepp talked to him
11 about it, the federal investigation was already well 12 underway; is that a fair statement? 13 A. It was underway, I don't know about well.
14 That's -- that's... 15 Q. Do you know how many days it was between
16 the date of the Schniepp intercept and the date of 17 Sheriff Morris' arrest? 18 19 A. Q. No, sir, I don't. Do you know what, if anything, Mr. Coup
20 was doing during that time period? 21 22 A. Q. When the Sheriff was arrested? Between the intercept date by Mark
23 Schniepp and the date of the arrest; do you know what 24 his calendar looked like? 25 A. No, sir.
91 1 Q. Did you ever look into that as an
2 investigator? 3 A. I believe we asked Barrineau for his
4 calendar and she did not have -- could not provide 5 very much, if anything. 6 Q. Now, you make reference on the second
7 paragraph under sub (a) that Coup had received 98,000 8 in gross and 61 net bonus payments. Are you -- do you 9 know whether or not all of those bonuses were in 10 violation of the law or that some were okay and some 11 weren't? 12 13 14 15 MR. EDGAR: Object to the question. You're asking an unfair conclusion of the witness about the law. Q. (By Mr. Murray) You can answer the
16 question. 17 A. Again, I do not know if all of these
18 bonuses are legal. That's not -- I don't see that as 19 my -- in my area of expertise to determine the law on
20 bonuses that the Sheriff has given out. But at least 21 on two occasions, we felt that they were illegal. 22 Q. And just of the bonuses received, you
23 believe misconduct occurred on two of them? 24 25 A. Q. At least. But as you sit here today, do you know of
92 1 any others? 2 3 4 MR. EDGAR: Objection. That's been asked and answered at least twice, I think. Q. (By Mr. Murray) Answer the question,
5 please. 6 A. At least two of these bonuses we feel are
7 illegal. The others may be. But at this time, I 8 don't have an opinion on that -- or should I say not 9 an opinion, but proof. 10 Q. Okay. Now, I've turned the page to
11 paragraph two of your Affidavit. And you cite in your 12 Affidavit, "According to OCSO employees, Coup 13 obstructed, delayed or prevented communication of 14 information relating to the schemes that was reported 15 by OCSO employees to him." What employees told you 16 that Mr. Coup obstructed, delayed or prevented 17 communication? 18 19 A. Q. Schniepp. Okay.
20
A.
I can't remember who the other employees
21 are, but... 22 Q. What did Mr. Schniepp tell you that Mr.
23 Coup did? 24 A. Again, sir, that is in the -- the 302.
25 We based our information on the 302 on that. But he
93 1 reported it to Coup and Coup told him he knew about 2 it, he had actually received one and just to continue 3 marching on. 4 Q. Okay. Do you have any information other
5 than the 302's and the intercept on Mark Schniepp that 6 Mr. Coup obstructed, delayed or prevented 7 communication? 8 A. I believe the interview by Nordstrom and
9 myself of Schniepp. 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 Q. A. Q. A. Q. A. Q. Of Schniepp? Yes, sir. And that's audio recorded; am I correct? Yes, sir. And that would speak for itself? It should, yes, sir. What actions did Mr. Coup take to
17 obstruct, delay or prevent communication? 18 A. He told Schniepp to continue marching on,
19 not to...
20 21 22
Q. A. Q.
Now, is that a quote or a paraphrase? That's a paraphrase. Is it your position as the lead
23 investigator on the State case that it was Mr. Coup's 24 failure to do something? 25 MR. EDGAR: Object to the form of the
94 1 2 3 4 question in asking the witness his position. This is a fact witness. Object to the form of the question. Q. (By Mr. Murray) You can answer the
5 question. 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 A. Restate the question, please. MR. MURRAY: Madam court reporter? (Whereupon, the court reporter read back as follows: Q. "Is it your position as the lead
investigator on the State case that it was Mr. Coup's failure to do something?" A. Q. Are you asking my opinion? Yes, sir. (By Mr. Murray) Do you have any other
15 information that other than his failure to act that he 16 did anything else to obstruct, delay or prevent 17 communication? 18 19 A. Q. Failed to report. Failed to report to whom?
20 21 22
A. Q. A.
To -- or to take action. Okay. He is the number two officer in the
23 agency and he received one of the first bonuses. He 24 did not take action or report it to anyone. 25 Q. What information do you have that would
95 1 put -- that you believe put Mr. Coup on notice that 2 the return of money to the Sheriff was an illegal act? 3 4 5 6 7 Q. MR. EDGAR: Again, I'm going to object to the form of the question as speculation and opinions of the witness. He is a fact witness. MR. MURRAY: Okay. (By Mr. Murray) You can answer the
8 question. 9 10 11 12 13 MR. EDGAR: You may answer the question. You should answer the question, but you not necessarily can answer the question. That's up to you whether you can or not. A. Sir, you're asking me to think what Mr.
14 Coup was thinking. I don't know what he was thinking, 15 but what he should have. 16 Q. (By Mr. Murray) That's not what I'm
17 asking you. I'm saying what facts do you have that 18 placed him on notice that when he returned money to 19 the Sheriff at the Sheriff's request in 2006, the
20 first bonus, what facts do you have that indicated 21 that he knew that that was an illegal act? 22 A. Based on his training and experience as a
23 law enforcement officer, he should have known. 24 Q. And did you -- do you know what his
25 training and law enforcement experience is?
96 1 2 A. Q. We did look at it at one time. Is there any statutory authority that
3 requires him to report that you're relying upon? 4 A. I don't know of any that I can quote
5 right now. 6 Q. And I'm not talking about whether or not
7 a professional law enforcement officer may have a 8 moral obligation. I'm saying do you know of any 9 statutory requirement -10 11 12 13 14 15 16 MR. EDGAR: I object. This is argumentative. MR. MURRAY: Let me complete my question, please. MR. EDGAR: I object. This is arguing with the witness. Q. (By Mr. Murray) Do you have any
17 statutory authority that requires Mr. Coup to take 18 action on this set of circumstances? 19 A. I can't answer that at this time.
20 21 22 23 24 25
MR. EDGAR: Are you about finished, Jim? Because it's lunch time. MR. MURRAY: It's going to go while. MR. EDGAR: It's not going to go through lunch, we've got to get lunch. MR. MURRAY: Off the record.
97 1 2 3 4 5 6 (Off-the-record comments were made.) MR. MURRAY: We're back on the record. MR. EDGAR: If it's a good breaking point. I mean, a few minutes either way, I don't care, but we've got to break. Q. (By Mr. Murray) Now, my first question
7 to you, Mr. Crowder, when we get back is going to be 8 whether or not you and Mr. Edgar discussed this case 9 over lunch. Just putting you on notice about that. 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 A. Okay. MR. EDGAR: So you think we can't? Do you think we can't talk about this case? MR. MURRAY: I'm just saying that's going to be my first question. MR. PETERSEN: Are we through? MR. MURRAY: We're just breaking for lunch. MR. PETERSEN: Okay. (Whereupon, a lunch recess was taken at
20 21 22 23 24 25
12:00 p.m., after which the deposition continued at 1:48 p.m.) MR. MURRAY: We're back from lunch. If you want to, you can just make a copy of that as an exhibit. A. Okay. What I've provided to the defense
98 1 attorneys is a CD of all of the recordings that we 2 did, provided in the first discovery, dated on or 3 about 10/22/09. And that's a CD of those recordings. 4 And then there are three other recordings
5 that were provided in the second discovery and those 6 were Jesse Jackson, Larry James Timmons and Mike 7 Carol, not provided, but just those were provided in 8 the second discovery. 9 Q. (By Mr. Murray) Your belief being that
10 they are on the second discovery disk and we can just 11 look? 12 A. The three, I went online and looked on
13 our records, and it shows that they were given in the 14 second discovery. 15 16 17 18 MR. MURRAY: Okay, State's Exhibit 1. (State's Exhibit No. 1 was marked for identification.) Q. (By Mr. Murray) I think where we left
19 off, Investigator Crowder, is I was asking you the
20 facts or information that you had that Michael Coup 21 had obstructed or delayed or prevented communications. 22 23 A. Q. I'm sorry, I didn't hear you. I think where we left off was talking to
24 you about your PC Affidavit. 25 A. Yes, sir.
99 1 Q. We were discussing what facts or
2 information you had concerning Mr. Coup obstructing, 3 delaying or preventing communications. And I want to 4 just be sure that we covered that. Beyond Mark 5 Schniepp, do you know of anybody else fact-wise that 6 you believe that Mr. Coup obstructed, delayed or 7 prevented communications? 8 9 A. Q. That's it. Now, do you have any facts or
10 information, based upon your investigation, that Mr. 11 Coup ever talked to the Sheriff about the 12 conversations that he and Mr. Schniepp had? And I'll 13 start first with the intercept. 14 15 A. Q. No, I don't have any. Do you have any information that Michael
16 Coup -- and I'm talking about facts now, facts or 17 witnesses -- that reflect that Michael Coup reported 18 that certain employees within the Sheriff's Office 19 were either talking about or knew about the return of
20 money to him for bonuses? 21 22 23 24 25 A. I'm sorry, one more time. MR. MURRAY: Madam court reporter? (Whereupon, the court reporter read back as follows: Q. "Do you have any information that
100 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Michael Coup -- and I'm talking about facts now, facts or witnesses -- that reflect that Michael Coup reported that certain employees within the Sheriff's Office were either talking about or knew about the return of money to him for bonuses?" A. You're asking if he ever reported that
8 information? 9 10 11 12 13 Q. A. Q. A. Q. (By Mr. Murray) To Morris. No, I don't. You don't; you don't have any? That he reported it, no. Or that he had a discussion with
14 Mr. Morris, facts or witnesses? 15 16 A. Q. Not at this time. You make reference to the fact in your
17 Affidavit that Charlie Morris pressured employees to 18 keep quiet. Who are the employees that you're making 19 reference to?
20
A.
That's all in the 302's that we got that
21 information from. 22 Q. Well, I'm actually looking at your
23 Affidavit when I ask you that question. 24 A. We based it on the 302's and our recorded
25 interviews. They would have been provided in that
101 1 form. 2 Q. Of your own knowledge today, do you -- do
3 you know who those employees are? 4 5 A. Q. I can't state who they are today. Whoever those witnesses are, if they
6 exist, are reflected in either the 302's or the 7 witness statements that you provided? 8 9 10 11 A. Q. A. Q. Yes, sir. There are no others? Not that I can think of. Do you have any information or facts or
12 witnesses that Michael Coup pressured any OCSO 13 employee to keep quiet about the Sheriff returning 14 money from bonuses? 15 16 A. Q. The wire intercept that Schniepp had. Anything else other than the contents of
17 that intercept? 18 A. I believe you'll find that in the report,
19 FDLE -- or not FDLE, but FBI report on Gay.
20 21
Q. A.
And did you interview Ron Gay? We did talk to him. I'm not sure we
22 did -- I know I did talk to him. I'm not sure if it 23 was a formal interview. 24 25 Q. A. What did Ron Gay tell you? He inquired about -- I have to take it
102 1 back. It was in reference to someone else. It was 2 not in reference to this. It was in reference to 3 something else. 4 5 Q. A. Okay. Sabra Thornton, that he felt pressured by
6 the Sheriff. 7 Q. Did he ever indicate -- did Ron Gay ever
8 tell you that he had been pressured by Michael Coup? 9 10 A. Q. No. Were there any other witnesses that you
11 identified that told you that they were pressured by 12 Michael Coup? 13 14 A. Q. Not that I can think of right now. Based on your investigation, did the
15 Sheriff have a particular method of obtaining money 16 from employees and telling them what the money was for 17 once he would award bonuses? If you don't understand 18 that question, I can rephrase it. 19 A. Please do.
20
Q.
Did the Sheriff tell the employees that
21 he asked the money from after he had awarded bonuses, 22 did he tell them what he was going to use it for? 23 A. He said there were other employees that
24 were in need. 25 Q. He indicated that these were OCSO
103 1 employees? 2 3 A. Q. Yes, sir. Now, your subsequent investigation has
4 shown that that was not a truthful statement; correct? 5 6 A. Q. As far as I can tell. Okay. Now, did your investigation
7 demonstrate that the Sheriff had on previous occasions 8 provided money to employees who were, in fact, in 9 need? 10 11 12 13 14 15 A. Q. Previous employees being? Well, on previous occasions to employees. MR. EDGAR: Object to the form of the question. It's vague. Q. A. (By Mr. Murray) You can answer. He did provide monies to -- to some
16 employees, yes. 17 Q. And who; who were those employees, based
18 on your investigation? 19 A. DeJesus was one and...
20
Q.
Okay. And I don't want to derail your
21 train of thought here, but do you know what the reason 22 that DeJesus was? 23 A. DeJesus had a family member that was ill
24 or dying or had died out of country and was flying to. 25 Q. Okay. Who else?
104 1 A. There was another employee that I believe
2 had a fire in the house. I don't know who that was. 3 And that's all I can remember at this time. 4 Q. What about hurricane-sustained damage,
5 the employees that had suffered hurricane damage? 6 A. Instead of the fire, there might have
7 been hurricane damage, there could have been hurricane 8 damage to a home. 9 Q. Do you know how many employees were given
10 money for that? 11 12 A. Q. No, sir. Did your investigation reflect that it
13 was well-known within the Okaloosa County Sheriff's 14 Office, the Sheriff would aid employees' needs? 15 16 17 18 A. Q. A. Q. No, sir, I don't know that. Did you ever inquire of that? I don't believe I asked that question. Okay. Did any of the employees who
19 returned money tell you that they were pressured by
20 the Sheriff to return the money? 21 22 A. Q. No. Did the employees indicate to you that
23 they returned the money simply because the Sheriff had 24 asked for it and they didn't have any concerns? 25 MR. EDGAR: Object to the form of the
105 1 2 3 question. It's misleading the way it's phrased, "the employees." Q. (By Mr. Murray) The employees you
4 interviewed, go ahead. 5 6 7 8 Q. MR. EDGAR: All of them? What are you -object to the question. MR. MURRAY: That's fine. (By Mr. Murray) Answer the question, if
9 you can. 10 A. Some of the employees gave that as a
11 reason that the Sheriff came to them. He was the 12 Sheriff and they felt like they were obligated to. 13 Q. Did those employees that told you they
14 felt they were obligated, did they ever indicate to 15 you that by words or actions the Sheriff had engaged 16 in any type of intimidation other than the request for 17 money? 18 19 A. Q. No, sir. Other than Donaldson and Schniepp, do you
20 have any witnesses or information or facts that 21 indicate that Coup knew of anybody else that had 22 returned money? 23 24 A. Q. No. In the course of conducting your
25 investigation, do you have any information that
106 1 Michael Coup knew of the use of inmates allegedly for 2 improper purposes? 3 A. I tend to remember there was something
4 that came up, but I can't remember specifically what 5 it was. 6 Q. Was it a witness interview or a fact that
7 you uncovered? 8 A. It would most likely have been a witness
9 interview. 10 11 12 Q. A. Q. And do you recall who that witness is? No, sir. Was Dennis Nordstrom with you when you
13 interviewed that witness? 14 A. Again, I don't remember who the witness
15 was, so I don't -- I would assume so, since he was on 16 most interviews with me. 17 Q. But as you sit here today, you don't --
18 you think maybe such a witness exists but you don't -19 are not able to identify?
20 21
A. Q.
Yes, sir. Did you have an occasion to interview
22 inmates? 23 24 25 A. Q. A. Yes, we did. And did you record those interviews? Some interviews. I won't be able to say
107 1 all. 2 Q. And are those interviews reflected on the
3 list that you gave us today? 4 A. One is and I'm not sure about others. I
5 don't recognize the names, but we did talk to a lot of 6 inmates. 7 Q. Did you record those interviews that you
8 believed -- did you record those interviews of inmates 9 that you believed had information that was relevant to 10 your criminal investigation? 11 12 13 14 A. Q. A. Q. Uh-huh. Is that a yes? Did we record? The interviews of those inmates that had
15 information -16 17 18 A. Q. A. Yeah. -- that you believed -I believe so, but there are occasions
19 that we don't do a recording thinking we're going to
20 do it later and just not get to it, but I think we 21 probably did. 22 Q. Did any inmate that you interviewed tell
23 you that they knew Michael Coup, knew of what use they 24 were being put to? 25 A. No, sir.
108 1 Q. Specifically, what information do you
2 have that Michael Coup had knowledge concerning the 3 improper use of funds by Sabra Thornton? I'm breaking 4 this up. We're talking about funds to start with. 5 A. I believe he knew about the $8,000 to pay
6 for the lease. 7 8 9 Q. A. Q. For the lease? Yes, sir, lease pay-off. And what witness or facts do you have
10 that lead you to that belief? 11 A. I can't remember what witness or fact
12 gave that to me, but I feel like that -- we had that 13 information. 14 Q. If it was a witness, would it be
15 reflected on audio tape, the interview? 16 A. Most likely, yes, if we had interviewed
17 them. 18 Q. Okay. Now, the same question as to the
19 improper use of equipment by Sabra Thornton. What
20 facts or witnesses or information do you have that 21 leads you to believe that Michael Coup had knowledge 22 of the improper use of equipment by Sabra Thornton? 23 A. He was the Chief Deputy, he should know
24 what all is going on in the agency. 25 (Whereupon, Mr. Edgar left the conference
109 1 2 3 room at 2:03 p.m. and the deposition continued as follows:) Q. (By Mr. Murray) Beyond being Chief
4 Deputy, do you have any witnesses or facts that 5 indicate that he specifically knew of the improper use 6 of equipment by Sabra Thornton? 7 8 A. Q. I don't know at this time. In the course of your investigation, were
9 you able to establish who at the Sheriff's Office was 10 responsible for setting salaries? 11 12 A. Q. The Sheriff. Did anybody else, other than the Sheriff,
13 have the authority to set salaries? 14 15 A. Q. I don't know. If I told you that the Sheriff was the
16 only person who could set salaries at the Sheriff's 17 Office, do you have any facts or information to 18 dispute that assertion? 19 A. No.
20
Q.
Do you have any facts or witnesses or
21 information that Michael Coup knew about the improper 22 restoration of leave time for certain employees? 23 24 A. Q. No. Now, what information do you have that
25 Michael Coup reached an agreement in the course of
110 1 this conspiracy with Sandy Norris? What fact or 2 witness do you have that can say there was an 3 agreement? 4 5 6 7 A. Q. A. Q. I don't have anything. What about with David Yacks? I don't have anything. Do you have any witnesses or facts that
8 indicate that they were present when Charlie Morris 9 and Michael Coup reached any kind of an agreement? 10 11 12 13 14 (Whereupon, Mr. Edgar entered the conference room at 2:05 p.m. and the deposition continued as follows:) A. Q. No. (By Mr. Murray) And the same question
15 concerning Terry Adams? 16 17 A. Q. No. Based on your investigation concerning
18 the racketeering charge that was alleged in your 19 Probable Cause Affidavit, who was the primary person
20 or leader in that racketeering enterprise? 21 22 A. Q. Sheriff Morris. Okay. Now, do you have any information
23 that Michael Coup conducted that enterprise? And I'm 24 going to ask you the question about participation in a 25 minute, but you've told me that Sheriff Morris was the
111 1 lead guy. Do you have any facts or witnesses or 2 information that indicates that Michael Coup conducted 3 that enterprise? 4 5 A. Q. No. And you've told me about your -- your
6 belief that by -- on other questions I've asked you 7 about the acceptance of bonuses and, I think, the 8 failure to take action, is it your position that he 9 participated? 10 11 A. Q. Yes, he did participate. And have you told me the basis for your
12 belief -13 14 15 16 A. Q. A. Q. Yes. -- up to this point? Yes. Are there any other facts or witnesses
17 that you have that leads you to believe that he 18 participated beyond what you've already told me? 19 A. Not that I can think of.
20
Q.
Now, he's charged in the Third Amended
21 Information with money laundering. And just so I'm 22 clear, I don't want to spend a lot of time on this, 23 but in terms of the money laundering count, is that 24 the use of the Sheriff's Office accounts and his 25 personal accounts?
112 1 A. The use of the Sheriff's Office account,
2 I don't understand what you're meaning. 3 Q. Are you saying that the money laundering
4 occurred through the use of the Sheriff's Office 5 accounts and his personal accounts that he and his 6 wife had? 7 8 9 10 A. Q. A. Q. Yes. Any other accounts? No. Have you seen the Third Amended
11 Information? 12 13 14 A. Q. A. No. I'm not sure we need to mark it. Not unless it was shown to me this
15 morning. 16 17 Q. MR. PETERSEN: It was. (By Mr. Murray) This is as it relates to
18 Michael Coup. If you could, turn to page two. 19 A. Yes, sir.
20
Q.
And in there, that's a grand theft count
21 that says, "On or about October 5th of 2006, that 22 Michael Coup committed a theft valued at $5,000 but 23 less than $10,000." That October 5th incident; is 24 that a bonus? 25 A. Yes.
113 1 Q. Count three says, "On or about May 8th."
2 And this case, it is 300 or more, but less than 5,000 3 that he is alleged to have taken unlawfully; is that a 4 bonus? 5 6 7 8 9 MR. EDGAR: Let me object to the form of the question. What do you mean is that a bonus? What are you asking him? Maybe he understands, but I sure don't. Q. (By Mr. Murray) If you can, answer the
10 question, please do. 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 MR. EDGAR: Is that piece of paper, is that paragraph bonus? I mean, what does that mean? MR. MURRAY: Mr. Edgar, you're going to have your opportunity. MR. EDGAR: You can't coach the witness. MR. MURRAY: Now, if he can answer the question -MR. EDGAR: I'm not coaching the witness.
20 21 22 23
MR. MURRAY: If he can answer the question, let him. If he can't, I'll rephrase the question. A. Well, again, the problem this morning and
24 this afternoon is I'd have to go back and look at my 25 records, because I told you I only remember the first
114 1 one and I didn't remember the details. And since I'm 2 not familiar with this document and I did not prepare 3 this document, I need to go back and look at my 4 paperwork. 5 Q. (By Mr. Murray) And is that the Excel
6 spreadsheet you previously told us about? 7 A. It's the bank reports. It's the
8 Sheriff's Office accounting records. It's a 9 combination of things. Mostly those documents versus 10 anything else. 11 Q. Okay. Count four says, "Between
12 September 30th of 2008 and February 27th, 2009." Once 13 again, a theft more than five but less than 10,000. 14 February 27th, I recognize as being the arrest date of 15 the Sheriff. Do you know what that -- what amount of 16 money that account applies to? 17 18 A. Q. No, sir, I don't know. Based on your investigation, did you
19 reflect a bonus payment during that period of time?
20
A.
Again, I only remember the first one, the
21 dates of the first one. I don't remember the dates of 22 the others. But reading this, it says, "Payroll 23 money -- funds." 24 Q. What I'm trying to ascertain without
25 being argumentative with you is if you're talking
115 1 about a bonus, then you've answered my question. If 2 you're talking about him writing checks to himself on 3 an SO account, then that's a different thing. 4 A. Yes, sir. Well, I can't answer the
5 question since I don't understand this count. I did 6 not write it, so I would have to go back. 7 Q. Does that date or time frame mean
8 anything at all in terms of the unlawful obtaining of 9 funds, payroll funds, by Michael Coup during that time 10 period? 11 12 13 14 to... 15 Q. Now, you previously told us that you had A. Q. A. No, sir, I don't understand it. You don't understand the count? I don't understand the count. I'd have
16 made recommendations as to prosecution of certain 17 individuals at the Sheriff's Office. And I believe 18 you told me that it was pretty much a joint decision, 19 that you and Agent Nordstrom and Mr. Edgar as a
20 committee, for lack of a better word, or as an 21 investigative group decided who was going to be 22 prosecuted? 23 24 25 A. No, we didn't. MR. EDGAR: I object. That misstates the witness' previous answer.
116 1 2 Q. A. (By Mr. Murray) Okay, then tell me -I did not. I gave recommendations.
3 Investigator Nordstrom made recommendations to the 4 prosecutor and the prosecutor made the ultimate 5 decision. 6 Q. Did you recommend anybody that he did not
7 file on? 8 9 10 11 MR. EDGAR: I'm going to object to that. It's work product of the attorney assigned to the case. Q. (By Mr. Murray) You can answer the
12 question. 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 MR. EDGAR: He can't answer the question. MR. MURRAY: Unless you direct him not to answer. MR. EDGAR: Then certify it. It's work product. You are asking him what decisions -prosecutorial decisions that I made in his presence.
20 21 Q.
MR. MURRAY: No. (By Mr. Murray) Did you recommend anyone
22 for prosecution that was not subsequently charged? 23 24 25 MR. EDGAR: Same objection. If his discussions with me about who is to be prosecuted and who's not --
117 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 MR. MURRAY: That's not what I'm asking. MR. EDGAR: Why don't you certify the question? Just certify the question for the Court. MR. MURRAY: Are you directing him not to answer? MR. EDGAR: No, I'm asking you to certify the question. MR. MURRAY: He's got to answer the question, unless you tell him not to. MR. EDGAR: Then we're over. Let's go. We're finished. We'll suspend the deposition until we get an answer from the Court. MR. MURRAY: I'm going to move on. MR. EDGAR: I'll suspend it. MR. MURRAY: I'll certify the question. (Whereupon, the following question by Mr. Murray was certified: Q. (By Mr. Murray) "Did you recommend
20 21 22 23 24 25
anyone for prosecution that was not subsequently charged?") MR. EDGAR: If you'll certify it, we'll move on. If you don't want to certify it, we're finished for the day. MR. MURRAY: Okay.
118 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 MR. EDGAR: But you can't force a witness to answer about work product without a determination being made, Mr. Murray. I mean, there's no coercion involved here today. MR. MURRAY: Let the record reflect that based on Mr. Edgar's conduct, that the witness is not going to answer. MR. EDGAR: Let the record reflect that I object to that remark. It is based upon a lawful objection as to the attorney trying to elicit work product who refuses to either call the judge or get it certified. MR. MURRAY: We're certifying the question. MR. EDGAR: That's right. You are asking him about discussions with the prosecutor about what charges and who to charge and that's work product. Go ahead. Q. (By Mr. Murray) What facts -- I'm sorry.
20 21 Q.
(Off-the-record comments were made.) (By Mr. Murray) Just so it's clear what
22 I'm trying to get at, did you, yourself, recommend 23 anybody for prosecution that was not prosecuted? 24 25 A. MR. EDGAR: Objection. Same objection. Yeah, I don't feel like I can answer that
119 1 question. 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 MR. MURRAY: Okay. Certify that question, please. (Whereupon, the following question by Mr. Murray was certified: Q. (By Mr. Murray) "Just so it's
clear what I'm trying to get at, did you, yourself, recommend anybody for prosecution that was not prosecuted?") MR. MURRAY: Okay, I'm going to tender, I think, to Mr. Klotz at this time. CROSS-EXAMINATION
13 BY MR. KLOTZ: 14 Q. Okay, I'm Chris Klotz. I represent Sandy
15 Norris. Mr. Crowder, you've reviewed all of the 16 documents that you've tendered to the defense in the 17 discovery yourself? 18 19 A. Q. All of the documents? Yes, sir.
20 21
A. Q.
No. Okay. Can you estimate what percentage
22 of the documents that have been tendered in discovery 23 that you haven't had an opportunity to review? 24 25 less. A. Cursory look, 75 percent; detailed look,
120 1 Q. Have you had an opportunity to review all
2 of the FBI 302's that have been provided to the 3 defense in the case? 4 5 A. Q. Yes. Have you had an opportunity to review all
6 of the FDLE and, if you don't mind me combining, the 7 IRS reports, as well, that have been provided to the 8 defense? 9 10 A. Q. IRS, yes; FDLE, no. I know I can't ask you what you haven't
11 reviewed. Do you remember generally what you have 12 reviewed of the FDLE reports? 13 A. I don't know that I've reviewed any. I
14 don't remember reviewing any. 15 Q. Okay. We talked earlier in the day about
16 your training, especially with regards to financial 17 crimes. Was part of the training that you underwent 18 to be able to recognize when a crime, in fact, hasn't 19 occurred with respect to financial crimes?
20
A.
Somewhat. Be it known that there's a lot
21 of financial crimes that the training didn't touch 22 upon that I had no experience or training on. 23 Q. But part of your training was to be able
24 to recognize red flags that might be indicative of a 25 crime having occurred; correct, with regard to
121 1 finances? 2 3 yes. 4 Q. Thank you. That's what I was asking. A. In regard to fraud and some finances,
5 When were you first made -- when were you first made 6 aware of the investigation of the Okaloosa County 7 Sheriff's Office? 8 9 A. Q. When Sheriff Morris was arrested. You had no prior knowledge that the FBI
10 or IRS was conducting any type of investigation prior 11 to Sheriff Morris being arrested? 12 13 A. Q. No. And subsequent to Sheriff Morris' arrest,
14 how long was it between that date and the time that 15 you had any type of official communication with FBI, 16 IRS or FDLE? 17 18 A. Q. I think it was two to three weeks. So what you heard first, basically, was
19 on the news?
20 21
A. Q.
Yeah. And then two to three weeks later, you
22 became a part of an ongoing investigation? 23 24 A. Q. Yes. At any time did you participate alongside
25 or with the FBI or the IRS in their investigation?
122 1 A. No, but the FBI did go with us to
2 interview somebody as an ongoing investigation and 3 return documents that they had. 4 5 6 Q. A. Q. And how long ago was that? Approximately 90 days. So on the front side of the
7 investigation, towards the beginning of the 8 investigation, when you were involved officially two 9 to three weeks after Sheriff Morris' arrest, you were 10 conducting an independent investigation, independent 11 of the FBI? 12 13 14 15 A. Q. A. Q. Yes. And the IRS? Yes. How many conversations, if you're able to
16 estimate, would you say you've had with -- since your 17 involvement officially two to three weeks after 18 Sheriff Morris' arrest, if you can give me an estimate 19 of how many times you've had conversations with agents
20 in the FBI that were investigating this particular 21 course of conduct? 22 23 24 25 A. Q. A. Q. Twenty or more. Same question for the IRS. Well, that was inclusive of the IRS. Would it be fair to say that most every
123 1 time that you talked with the FBI, there was usually 2 an IRS -3 4 5 6 A. Q. A. Q. No. -- agent there? No. So about 20 times with the FBI and about
7 20 times with the IRS? 8 9 A. Q. No. Maybe five times with the IRS. Okay. What, if anything, did the
10 government investigators -- and when I say that, I'm 11 including FBI or IRS or anybody else with the United 12 States Government -- what did they say to you, if 13 anything, with regards to why they decided not to 14 prosecute Norris, Coup and Yacks in the federal 15 system? 16 A. That was a decision made by the U.S.
17 Attorney. 18 Q. And you talked to the investigators about
19 that? I mean --
20 21
A. Q.
Yes. -- did you get information from the
22 investigators? 23 A. Right, it was the U.S. Attorney's
24 decision. 25 Q. Okay. And did the investigators with the
124 1 FBI, IRS or any other governmental agency express to 2 you that they had recommended that Norris, Coup and 3 Yacks be prosecuted in the federal system? 4 A. I believe they did one or more of those
5 people. I don't know. I know we talked about it, but 6 I don't know if they ever did. 7 Q. Do you remember with whom you discussed
8 that? 9 10 11 12 A. Q. A. Q. Probably the lead investigator. VanPelt? Yes. And not to put words in your mouth, is
13 what you're essentially saying is that Mr. VanPelt 14 maybe thought that either and/or Norris and/or Coup 15 and/or Yacks should have been prosecuted in the 16 federal system? 17 A. Let me go back. He felt like it could be
18 expanded, but he did not give those -- those names. 19 Q. Is there anything -- so at this point, as
20 of today, do you feel as if you have seen most of the 21 documents that have been created by the FBI and the 22 IRS and their investigation of Charlie Morris and 23 Terry Adams? 24 A. I've seen the 302's and the IRS reports.
25 If they did any analysis, I have not seen that. I
125 1 only know what they've shown me. I don't know of 2 anything else. 3 Q. Have you shared all of your information
4 with them that you've gained through your 5 investigation? 6 7 A. Q. No. Do you believe that you might have
8 information then that the FBI and the IRS is not 9 privileged to? When I say, "not privileged," I mean 10 simply didn't find out on their own. 11 12 A. Q. I don't know. Are you aware of whether or not you have
13 been able to give the State Attorney's Office any 14 information that the United States Government did not 15 have to consider in making its decision whether to 16 prosecute Morris and/or Coup and/or Yacks? 17 A. No, I don't know if we did or not. Our
18 reports, again, was (sic) based on the 302's and the 19 IRS reports and the Sheriff's Office reports and they
20 had all of that. 21 Q. So it's fair to say that you haven't
22 necessarily uncovered something that, in your 23 investigation for the State Attorney's Office, that 24 the U.S. Government hasn't uncovered in their 25 investigation of Adams and Morris?
126 1 2 A. Q. Offhand, I can't think of anything. Have you met with a forensic accountant
3 regarding either your investigation or any 4 involvement, if any, that you had with the United 5 States Government's investigation? 6 7 A. Q. No. And I believe you said at the beginning
8 of the questioning that Mr. -- that Sheriff Morris had 9 been interviewed five times; is that what you said? 10 11 A. Q. From what I can remember. Do you remember how many of the five
12 times you were present? 13 14 A. Q. Each time. And in the first instance, do you recall
15 who else was present for the first instance and where 16 you were when that happened? 17 A. I believe it was in the State Attorney's
18 Office and let me say in Shalimar. I'm not sure if it 19 was at the State Attorney's Office, but it was
20 Nordstrom, myself and Mr. Edgar and his attorney. 21 22 23 Q. A. Q. No federal agents? I can't remember if there was or not. Was it before or after his case had
24 resolved in federal court; do you recall? 25 A. It was on or about that time.
127 1 Q. And do you recall where the second time
2 was? 3 A. And the second time was in jail, Escambia
4 County jail. 5 6 Q. A. And do you recall who was present? Myself and Mr. Edgar and also his
7 attorney. 8 Q. And I believe you said the third, fourth
9 and fifth time or immediately prior or during trial of 10 Ms. Thornton? 11 12 13 14 A. Q. A. Q. It was during trial. All three were during the trial? It was myself and his attorney. Same question for Terry Adams; how many
15 times have you interviewed her? 16 17 18 19 A. Q. A. Q. I believe only one time. And where were you? Shalimar State Attorney's Office. And who was present with you?
20
A.
That would have been Nordstrom, Edgar,
21 Crowder and her attorney and her friend. 22 23 24 25 Q. A. Q. A. And you don't remember the friend's name? No. But that friend's name is in your notes? Either that or her attorney will have it.
128 1 Q. Okay. As far as Ms. Norris is concerned,
2 is your investigation complete into her involvement? 3 4 A. Q. I can't say that. Is your pending investigation involving
5 any other conduct of Ms. Norris of what you are aware? 6 7 A. Q. There are pending investigations. In your opinion, in your discussions,
8 either your personal discussions with Ms. Adams or 9 what you have read of other interviews that she may 10 have given, are you aware of whether or not any time 11 she has lied during any of her statements about any 12 material act that you are aware of? 13 14 A. Q. I can't remember anything at this time. The same question for Sheriff Morris,
15 either the interviews that you conducted of him or the 16 interviews that you have seen conducted by other 17 people, either by recording or transcript, have you 18 found any instance that sticks out as being a lie 19 about a material fact by Mr. Morris?
20 21
A. Q.
Concerning Ms. Norris? I'm sorry, with respect to Ms. Norris
22 first and then I'll ask you -23 24 A. Q. Not pertaining to Ms. Norris. With regard to any fact, have you found
25 anything that Sheriff Morris has -- has been
129 1 untruthful about in your personal experience in 2 interviewing him or looking at other interviews that 3 may have been conducted with him? 4 A. The fact that he had had sex with Sabra
5 Thornton. 6 7 Q. A. And you believe he was lying about that? He went back both ways; said yes and
8 no -9 10 11 12 13 Q. A. Q. A. Q. Is there --- three times. I'm sorry, I didn't mean to cut you off. No. Is there anything, any other material
14 issue -15 16 A. Q. No. -- that you can recall that he might have
17 lied about, to your knowledge? 18 19 A. Q. Not to my knowledge or that I can prove. Okay. To your knowledge, are there any
20 302's that have not been provided to the defense that 21 you have reviewed? 22 A. I believe we've received one a week ago
23 and that, I think, pertained to return of documents by 24 the FBI. 25 Q. Do you intend to provide that to us?
130 1 2 A. Q. Yes. Okay. To your knowledge and through
3 whatever means you've learned through investigation or 4 person or from reading through any of the reports, how 5 many instances are you aware of that Sandy Norris gave 6 money or cash back to anybody in administration? 7 8 A. Q. I believe four times. And can you tell me from -- from where
9 that information came, if you are able? 10 11 A. Q. The audit report. Okay. Do you recall any dates or
12 amounts? 13 14 A. Q. No. If I was to show you the audit report,
15 would it help you remember? I've got the whole thing, 16 if you want to look at it. And I will just show you 17 this one page. If you want to look at the whole 18 thing, I've got it and you can look at it. Can you 19 tell me if you've ever seen that page before?
20 21
A. Q.
Yes, I have. And is that the audit report that was
22 done by, it looks like, Carr, Riggs and Ingram? 23 A. I'm not sure which one it came from. I
24 do recognize it and I do see that there's only one. 25 Q. Let me give you the whole document.
131 1 2 A. Q. Uh-huh, okay. Does this appear to be the audit report
3 from Carr, Riggs and Ingram? 4 5 6 7 A. Q. A. Q. Yes. And are you familiar with this report? Yes. Were you able to find anything with
8 regard to these distributions on page 26 of the report 9 that was inaccurate or not representative as regards 10 to Ms. Norris? 11 12 13 14 A. Q. A. Q. Regarding Ms. Norris, nothing. Okay. No inaccuracies. So you had previously said that there
15 were four? 16 17 A. Q. Right. But what does the report actually
18 indicate? 19 A. One.
20
Q.
And what date was that and what was the
21 amount? 22 23 24 25 A. Q. A. Q. January 16, 2009. And for what amount? $4,000. And so that is the amount of cash that
132 1 was reported that she had given back -2 3 A. Q. Yes. -- to administration either through
4 Charlie Morris or through Terry Adams? 5 6 A. Q. Yes. Do you have any other evidence to show
7 there was any other incidence she gave cash back to 8 Adams or Morris or anybody else in the administration? 9 A. I don't believe so, but I would have to
10 go back and look at my information, but I believe 11 that's accurate. 12 Q. Okay. And as far as if I could just ask
13 you real quick, may I go back to this real quick, what 14 was the last date that any cash-backs are reflected on 15 page 26 of the Carr, Riggs, Ingram report? When was 16 the last date that the cash appeared to be paid back 17 to Charlie Morris? 18 19 A. Q. January 16, 2009. And he was, in fact -- wasn't he arrested
20 in February of 2009? 21 22 A. Q. Yes. Okay. Can I see that stuff back, unless
23 you need to look at it? You're always welcome to look 24 at it, if you want to. Do you have any evidence which 25 might suggest when Sandy Norris first had any
133 1 knowledge of the cash-back scheme? 2 A. I don't have that information. I can't
3 remember it. 4 Q. Have you interviewed Sandy Norris
5 yourself? 6 7 8 9 10 11 A. Q. A. Q. A. Q. Yes. And who was present? Nordstrom. Anybody else? I don't remember if anyone else was. Do you recall when it was that you
12 interviewed her? Was it before or after the Sheriff 13 got arrested? 14 A. It would be after. We did not conduct
15 the investigation until after. 16 Q. And if you need to look at that sheet,
17 that's fine. 18 19 A. Q. No. Do you see the date?
20
A.
We have one date -- one interview
21 recorded here of April 23rd of 2009. 22 Q. Was she cooperative during that
23 interview, to the best of your recollection? 24 A. We had several other interviews. I don't
25 remember if she was cooperative in this one or not.
134 1 Q. Do you remember her sticking out as being
2 uncooperative at any time that you spoke with her? 3 4 A. Q. No. And do you recall maybe from reading
5 302's that she also gave statements to the FBI and the 6 IRS? 7 8 A. Q. Yes, she did. And she also gave statements to Carr,
9 Riggs, Ingram's representatives and the other 10 auditor's representatives? 11 A. I don't know that to be the case other
12 than the fact that there is a list of kickbacks. I 13 don't know of any other information she provided. 14 Q. In the course of your investigation or
15 anybody else's investigation that you've had an 16 opportunity to take a look at, have you found anything 17 about which Sandy Norris has been untruthful? 18 A. I can't say one way or another on that.
19 I would have to review -- review the records.
20
Q.
Do you have -- do you have any evidence
21 that Sandy Norris -- let me just say this: It appears 22 in the allegations that Sandy conspired with Morris 23 and Adams as the allegation; correct? 24 A. I believe that is the -- it's in the
25 Amended Information. I had no control or that's not
135 1 my document or charging. 2 Q. That's not what I'm getting at. What I
3 wanted to see is if you had any information that 4 Norris may have also in some way cooperated or 5 conspired with Yacks. 6 7 8 9 A. Q. A. Q. Oh, with Yacks? Uh-huh. No, I don't have any knowledge of that. How about with Coup, same question with
10 regard to Coup and Sandy Norris; any evidence that you 11 have that indicated that Coup -12 13 14 15 A. Q. A. Q. No. -- and Sandy Norris conspired in any way? No. Is it my understanding -- is my
16 understanding correct that the new -- or the players, 17 for lack of a better word, in Sandy Norris' conspiracy 18 would be Norris, Morris and Adams that actually had 19 the interaction among each other; is that your
20 understanding of the charge? 21 A. Are you talking about the charge in the
22 Information or the charges in my Probable Cause 23 Affidavit? 24 Q. Well, let's talk about in the
25 Information.
136 1 A. Well, again the Information is not my
2 product. The Information is a result of the 3 information that we've collected and given to the 4 prosecutor. And then he goes forward from there, so I 5 don't have any control over that. 6 Q. I can ask it in a different way. Do you
7 have any evidence that Sandy Norris conspired with 8 anybody else in this course of conduct except for 9 Charlie Morris and Teresa Adams? 10 A. Well, she participated in this scheme and
11 everyone that participated in it. 12 Q. Did she have communications about the
13 scheme with anybody else besides Morris and Adams? 14 15 A. Q. I don't have any knowledge of that. Do you have any evidence that Sandy
16 Norris ever had discussions with Charlie Morris about 17 the cash-back scheme? 18 19 A. Q. At this time, I don't believe so. The same question for Adams, do you have
20 any evidence that Sandy Norris communicated directly 21 with Adams about the cash-back scheme? 22 A. Let me backtrack. When you say,
23 "cash-back scheme," let me include the bonus program 24 which she was fully involved in that. 25 Q. So let me back up and say the bonus
137 1 program with regards to Charlie Morris, do you have 2 any evidence that Sandy Norris actually had 3 discussions with Charlie Morris about either the 4 cash-back or the bonus scheme? 5 6 A. Q. I believe the bonus program she did. Okay. Do you remember what those
7 communications were? 8 9 A. Q. Not at this time. And do you remember in what document or
10 recording that is contained? 11 A. I believe it might have came from her
12 interview. 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 THE WITNESS: Can we take a break and get a drink? MR. KLOTZ: Absolutely. (Whereupon, a brief recess was taken at 2:39 p.m., after which the deposition continued at 2:42 p.m.) MR. KLOTZ: Back on the record.
20
Q.
(By Mr. Klotz) I'm sorry, I think my
21 last question was the evidence that Sandy Norris 22 actually had conversations with Charlie Morris 23 regarding either the cash-back or the bonus scheme, 24 you believe that was in her interviews? 25 A. I believe it was.
138 1 Q. And the same question with regard to
2 Adams, what evidence do you have that Sandy Norris 3 actually communicated or spoke with Adams regarding 4 the cash-back or bonus scheme? 5 6 A. Q. Again, Norris and, I believe, Adams. Has Adams indicated in her discussions
7 with anybody that you're aware of that Norris had 8 knowledge of the cash-back scheme? I'll get to the 9 bonus scheme, but the cash-back scheme? 10 A. Well, she did in that she talked about
11 Norris gave back money herself. 12 Q. Correct. And that would be -- is that
13 the instance on page 26 of the -14 15 16 17 A. Q. A. Q. Yes, sir. -- Carr, Riggs, Ingram report? Yes. Any other instances that Teresa Adams has
18 indicated -19 A. I don't know.
20
Q.
-- that Sandy Norris gave money back to
21 anybody in the administration? 22 23 A. Q. I don't remember, if she did. Okay. Adams has admitted that she's had
24 conversations with Charlie Morris regarding the 25 cash-back and the bonus scheme; correct?
139 1 2 A. Q. Say that again. Adams has admitted that she actually had
3 conversations about the cash-back and the bonus 4 schemes; correct? 5 6 A. Q. With? Adams and Morris. I'm sorry, Charlie
7 Morris? 8 9 A. Q. Yes. I will try to use first names, since I
10 know the names are close. Has Charlie Morris 11 maintained that he and -- let me back up. In the 12 interviews that you've participated in or are aware 13 of, of Charlie Morris, has he ever said that somebody 14 besides Adams was involved in the conspiracy? 15 16 A. Q. No. Has Adams ever said in any interviews
17 that you've had with her or are aware of that anybody 18 besides Adams and Charlie Morris were involved in the 19 conspiracy?
20 21
A. Q.
I'm sorry, say that again. Basically, the same question as before
22 with regards to Adams. Has Adams ever said to you or 23 in any statement that you're aware of that she and 24 Charlie Morris weren't the only two people that were 25 privy to the cash-back or bonus scheme?
140 1 2 not. 3 Q. Is the evidence that you've collected A. I don't -- I can't remember if she did or
4 through the course of your investigation as regards to 5 Sandra Norris' criminal activities limited to her 6 participation in the bonus scheme, the cash-back 7 scheme and then an allegation involving 135 hours of 8 overtime? 9 10 A. Q. At this time. I know that Sabra Thornton -- and Jim
11 asked you this question earlier -- was accused -- I 12 think you were asked if -- let me ask it this way: 13 Did Sandy have any knowledge of the $8,000 leave (sic) 14 pay-off for Sabra Thornton? 15 16 17 A. Q. A. Lease pay-off are you talking about? Lease pay-off, thank you. I'm sure she did. In the position that
18 she was in, she had to authorize those transactions. 19 Q. Do you have any evidence of that besides
20 just that you're sure that she did? 21 A. I would have to go back and look, but I
22 would think that it would be on the financial reports. 23 Q. Do you have any evidence that would
24 indicate that she knew that that particular payment 25 might be a violation of law?
141 1 2 A. Q. I don't know what she was thinking. I'm not asking that, though. I'm wanting
3 to know if you have any evidence that would show that 4 she had any knowledge that that lease pay-off might 5 have been contrary to law? 6 7 8 A. Q. A. No. Do you -Other than the fact that she was --
9 approached Norris for a pay increase. 10 Q. Was that related in any way that you are
11 aware of to the 8,000-dollar lease pay-off for Sabra 12 Thornton? 13 A. I'm not sure if it was part of that. I
14 would have to go look at the dates and when things 15 occurred. 16 Q. Is Sandy -- did you find during the
17 course of your investigation that Sandy Norris had 18 ever improperly used any Okaloosa County Sheriff's 19 Office equipment?
20 21
A. Q.
No. Did you ever find then through the course
22 of your investigation that Sandy Norris had 23 participated in the improper restoration of leave time 24 for anybody? 25 A. I don't know if she was involved. There
142 1 was at least one incident to that and I'm not sure she 2 was involved. 3 Q. Okay. Have you gone back and looked --
4 are you aware of whether or not there are any time 5 sheets where Sandy Norris might have kept track of the 6 time that she worked, specifically hours that she 7 worked, per week or per month? 8 A. There were time records. I can't
9 remember if it was a time sheet or what. 10 Q. Has Charlie Morris or Adams ever told you
11 that Sandy Norris' bonuses were not based on merit? 12 13 A. Q. I can't remember. What evidence do you have, if any, that
14 Sandy Norris' bonuses weren't based on merit? 15 A. Receiving bonuses on or about the time of
16 her travels to Las Vegas. 17 Q. Besides receiving the bonuses
18 contemporaneously with travel plans, is there any 19 other evidence that you can think of that her bonuses
20 were not based on merit? 21 22 A. Q. Kickbacks, related to the kickback. And when you say, "related to the
23 kickback," that would be the one kickback that was 24 reported in the Carr, Riggs, Ingram report -25 A. Yes.
143 1 2 3 Q. A. Q. -- on January 16th? Yes. And there is no evidence that she ever
4 gave any other kickback, was there, besides the 5 January 16th report? 6 7 A. Q. Not that I can remember. You would agree with me that there's no
8 evidence listed in either of the forensic accounting 9 reports that there was a kickback besides 10 January 16th, 2009 -11 12 13 A. Q. A. Well --- by Sandy Norris? -- I can't -- I can't say that there's
14 not evidence in those reports. I don't know of any at 15 this time. 16 17 Q. A. Have you read the reports? I've read the reports, but the reports
18 give bonuses and right now I can only identify one. 19 Q. For Sandy Norris?
20 21
A. Q.
Yes. How many trips are you aware of where
22 Sandy Norris went to Las Vegas? 23 24 A. Q. I don't remember the number. Can you tell if it was more or less than
25 five?
144 1 2 A. Q. I don't remember. Did you do any research on how Sandy
3 Norris paid for her travel and then paid for her 4 expenses once she was in Las Vegas? 5 A. Travel, I did. Paying for expenses, I
6 don't believe so. 7 Q. And how did she pay for her travel to Las
8 Vegas; was that with a personal credit card? 9 A. I do not remember that. Talking to a lot
10 of people going to Las Vegas, I just don't remember. 11 Q. Are you aware of any evidence that she
12 didn't use her personal credit card or funds that she 13 possessed personally to pay for her trips to Las 14 Vegas? 15 A. I believe there was at least one occasion
16 where she -- her tickets were paid for by Yacks. 17 Q. And do you recall if he used his personal
18 funds or whether he used the Sheriff's credit card or 19 the Sheriff's check?
20 21
A. Q.
A personal credit card. Yacks used a personal credit card to pay
22 for Sandy -23 24 25 A. Q. A. Yes. -- to go to one occasion? At least one.
145 1 Q. Were you able to locate, during the
2 course of your investigation, any repayment by Sandy 3 Norris back to Yacks for those travel arrangements? 4 5 A. Q. I can't remember if there was one or not. In any instances with regards to either
6 Yacks, Coup, Norris, Morris or Adams, was a Sheriff's 7 credit card ever used to pay for travel arrangements 8 to Las Vegas? 9 A. On everybody but the Sheriff, I don't
10 think so, but the Sheriff may have. 11 Q. You mentioned a spreadsheet earlier. I
12 think it was an Excel spreadsheet that you had worked 13 on that you had provided to Mr. Edgar. Did that 14 contain information that related to Sandy Norris as 15 well as the other co-defendants? 16 A. That's really work product. I really
17 shouldn't explain to you what's in my work product. 18 Q. Did that spreadsheet have any information
19 that pertained to Sandy Norris? I'm not asking you
20 what the information was. I'm asking if it had 21 information that pertained to her or not? 22 23 A. Q. Yes. Is there any evidence that you're aware
24 of that Sandy Norris authorized any of her own bonuses 25 without the approval or direction of Charlie Morris or
146 1 Teresa Adams? 2 3 A. Q. No. So it's your impression that any time she
4 got a bonus, those were bonuses directed by Morris 5 and/or Adams? 6 7 A. Q. Yes. With regard to the discussion that was
8 had earlier about improper use of inmates for Charlie 9 Morris, was there any indication that Sandy Norris had 10 any knowledge or participation in that particular 11 activity? 12 13 14 be? 15 A. I believe that was in her report, in her A. Q. I believe so. And what do you believe that knowledge to
16 interview. 17 Q. Did she have prior knowledge of it or did
18 she find out after the fact? 19 A. I believe she had prior knowledge or
20 during -- during the time. 21 Q. Did she -- to your knowledge and through
22 your investigation, did she derive any personal 23 benefit from the use of those inmates in that fashion? 24 25 A. Q. No. All of that -- all of the benefit derived
147 1 from the improper use of inmates has been throughout 2 the course of this overall misconduct was by the 3 Sheriff? 4 5 6 7 A. Q. A. Q. Are you saying the Sheriff received -Who was the beneficiary of the work? Person's other than Sandy Norris. Okay, that's all I'm getting at. I think
8 that Sandy Norris had an assigned vehicle at some 9 point during her tenure with the Sheriff. Have you 10 found anything in your course -- in the course of your 11 investigation that indicates that she improperly used 12 that vehicle at any time? 13 14 A. Q. No. The same question with any gas card that
15 she may have had associated with that vehicle? 16 17 A. Q. No. Besides the allegation that she
18 improperly took or logged 135.9 overtime hours, is 19 there anything that you have discovered through the
20 course of your investigation that indicates that she 21 stole any other property of the Okaloosa County 22 Sheriff's Department? 23 24 25 A. Not at this time. MR. EDGAR: I would object to the form of the last question. I'm not sure I heard it
148 1 2 3 correctly, but I thought it was -- never mind. I just object to the form. It's misleading. Q. (By Mr. Klotz) The instance in the Carr,
4 Riggs, Ingram report on page 26, which indicates the 5 4,000-dollar cash-back on January 16th of 2009 by 6 Sandy Norris, what is your -- who do you understand 7 that money went to? 8 9 A. Q. Either to Sheriff Morris or Teresa Adams. And were you able to chase down a paper
10 trail as to whether or not Adams or Charlie Morris 11 received $4,000 on or near January 16th of 2009? 12 13 A. Q. Yes. And what format did that information
14 take? Was it a bank statement or an admission? 15 16 A. Q. A spreadsheet done by the FBI. Can you tell me -- I think I know which
17 one you're talking about, but can you describe to me, 18 to your recollection, what was on the spreadsheet? 19 A. It showed the bonuses and then it showed
20 the monies going -- being split out to Sheriff Morris, 21 Adams, Coup. 22 Q. So that document actually provides some
23 support for the assertion that she gave $4,000 back to 24 Adams or Charlie Morris on the 16th of January of 25 2009?
149 1 2 A. Q. On or about that day, I believe so, yes. And through the course of your
3 investigation, what evidence do you have that 4 illustrates what the -- what knowledge Sandy Norris 5 had of what the $4,000 was being given back for? That 6 wasn't a great question. If you don't understand it, 7 I'll ask it again. 8 A. I don't have any information whether she
9 knew where the 4,000 was going for. 10 Q. You're aware that Sandy Norris worked
11 from her home; correct? 12 13 A. Q. When? At any time during the -- from her
14 employment until her time of termination, you're aware 15 that she actually did some work from her home; are you 16 not? 17 A. I believe she was somewhat on call and
18 she had a computer line access. I don't know to what 19 extent she worked at home.
20 21 22
Q. A. Q.
Okay. I -It's been -- go ahead, I didn't mean to
23 cut you off. 24 25 A. Q. Go ahead. It's been reported that she worked from
150 1 home; is that correct? 2 3 A. Q. She reported that. And it's also been reported that Kelly
4 Cashman worked from home as well; correct? 5 6 A. Q. She also reported -- told us that. If I remember correctly, the forensic
7 accounting documents evidenced that both Ms. Cashman 8 and Ms. Norris were provided a computer line through 9 Cox Cable at their home -10 11 12 13 A. Q. A. Q. Yes. -- by the Sheriff's Department? Yes. That was an expense paid by the Sheriff's
14 Department? 15 16 A. Q. Uh-huh. Is there anything during the course of
17 your investigation that indicates that there was any 18 criminal conduct with respect to the providing of a 19 internet line or cable line through Cox Communications
20 either to Ms. Cashman or to Ms. Norris? 21 22 A. Q. Not at this time. And do you have any evidence that either
23 Ms. Sandy Norris or Kelly Cashman used that resource 24 of the Cox Communication Cable line for anything other 25 than business purposes?
151 1 2 A. Q. No. You sat through Sandy -- or you sat
3 through Sabra Thornton's trial; correct, through most 4 of it? 5 6 A. Q. No. You did not? I'll ask a general question
7 and if it's too general, just let me know. But are 8 there any of the allegations that were made against 9 Sabra Thornton in her case in which Sandy Norris was a 10 participant? 11 A. Are you talking about receiving the
12 bonus? 13 14 15 Q. A. Q. Well, I know that covers a lot of ground. Yeah. I talked about the vehicle use and the
16 lease pay-off. I'm trying to think of some of the 17 other things. Was there anything that Sandy Norris 18 had any knowledge that Sheriff Morris was going to be 19 gathering money to be able to pay off Sandy Norris'
20 credit card? 21 22 A. Q. I don't know about that one. So you're not able to recall whether or
23 not there's any evidence that might link Sandy Norris 24 to Sabra Thornton with regard to that particular 25 issue?
152 1 2 A. Q. Right. With regards to any other impropriety
3 that was alleged against Ms. Thornton outside of the 4 bonus scheme, is there any connection between Sabra 5 Thornton's cases and Sandy Norris? 6 7 A. Q. Nothing direct. Did Sandy Norris have signatory authority
8 on any of the Sheriff's accounts? 9 A. I don't know. All of that was done
10 electronically, so I don't know if that has anything 11 to do with distribution of funds. 12 Q. Is there any -- do you have any evidence
13 that Sandy Norris actually initiated the actual 14 transfers from her computer or desktop? 15 16 A. Q. No. Isn't it, in fact, true that the person
17 with the authority to initiate those types of 18 transfers actually was Teresa Adams? 19 A. I believe it was Cashman.
20
Q.
Is there any other evidence -- let me
21 back up. Besides the bonus scheme and the overtime, 22 is there any other evidence to suggest that Sandy 23 Norris participated in grand theft of any other item 24 that was the property of the Okaloosa County Sheriff's 25 Department?
153 1 2 A. Q. No. Were there any undercover recordings of
3 Sandy Norris that you're aware of making any 4 statements to anybody? 5 6 7 8 A. Q. A. Q. None that I did. Were there some that somebody else did? Not that I know of. What evidence is there that Sandy Norris
9 talked with Coup and/or Yacks about the cash-back 10 scheme or the bonus scheme? 11 A. What is the evidence that she talked to
12 Coup or Yacks? 13 Q. And/or Yacks, uh-huh. I'm just wrapping
14 them up into the same question, if that's okay. 15 16 A. Q. I can't think of any right now. Were there any recordings of any of the
17 co-defendants or anybody that's been charged: Morris, 18 Adams, Sandy Norris, Coup, Yacks or any other 19 recordings of anybody else that was an employee of the
20 Okaloosa County Sheriff's Department that were done 21 while they were in Las Vegas? 22 23 A. Q. Not by this agency. Do you have knowledge of another agency
24 that has made those types of recordings? 25 A. I don't believe there was any, but that's
154 1 in the FBI reports -- FBI/IRS reports. 2 Q. Do you recall seeing in the FBI reports
3 that you've read -4 5 A. Q. I don't remember. Do you have any evidence that you are
6 aware of through the course of your investigation or 7 anybody else's that the furtherance of the overall 8 conspiracy or cash-back scheme or bonus scheme was 9 discussed among the co-conspirators while they were in 10 Las Vegas? 11 A. Again, that's FBI reports and IRS. I'm
12 getting out of my area what I have control over. 13 14 Q. A. So you don't recall any? No. What I'm saying is that's in the FBI
15 reports. You need to look at the FBI reports instead 16 of me reporting what they did. 17 18 19 Q. A. Q. I'm just asking what you remember. Okay. So you don't remember?
20
A.
I don't remember, but you need to check
21 the FBI reports. 22 Q. I will. What is your understanding of
23 the distinction between Cashman's duties and Sandra 24 Norris' duties? 25 A. Sandra Norris was the supervisor of
155 1 Cashman. Cashman did pay allowances and Sandra Norris 2 directed and supervised those in some respects on the 3 forms that she had supervisory or approval authority. 4 They had other duties, but I'm not familiar with 5 those. 6 Q. In looking at page 26 of the forensic
7 accountant's report, the Carr, Riggs, Ingram report 8 from March of 2009, I see that it's indicated on 9 January the 16th of 2009 that Kelly Cashman also 10 reported giving cash back to someone in the amount of 11 $4,000; is that consistent with your investigation? 12 13 14 15 16 to? 17 A. Yes, but I don't remember who she did. A. Q. A. Q. Yes. Did she tell you that she did that? Yes. Did she tell you who she gave the money
18 It should be in the interview tape. 19 Q. Was it either Adams or Morris?
20 21 22
A. Q. A.
Yes. It wasn't to Sandy Norris; was it? I don't think Sandy collected. I think
23 Sandy told her about it, but did not collect it. 24 Q. To your knowledge, did Sandy Norris
25 collect any of the cash coming back to Adams or
156 1 Charlie Morris? 2 3 A. Q. No. As a matter of fact, the evidence would
4 show that Adams and/or Morris were the only two people 5 who actually received the actual cash back; correct? 6 7 A. Q. Evidence that I have by testimony. In your training that you've had with
8 regard to the financial crimes, what distinguished 9 Kelly Cashman's conduct from Sandy Norris' conduct on 10 January 16th of 2009, and giving cash back to either 11 Adams or Charlie Morris? 12 13 A. Q. That was not covered in the training. Did you recommend that Kelly Cashman be
14 prosecuted? 15 A. Again, that was a discussion with the
16 prosecutor and that would be considered privileged 17 information. 18 Q. Did you recommend that Kelly Cashman be
19 prosecuted?
20
A.
Again, as I said, that's communications
21 that I had with the prosecutor. I'm not going to -22 23 24 25 MR. EDGAR: I don't have any problem if you want to ask him if he applied for a warrant. Q. (By Mr. Klotz) And the only reason that
157 1 I asked is just because you had volunteered earlier 2 that you had made recommendations -3 4 A. Q. Uh-huh. -- with persons to be prosecuted. And I
5 didn't ask you about that. I'm not asking you what 6 the prosecutor decided to do or not to do. 7 A. Well, you know what the prosecutor
8 decided to do. 9 Q. Right. And so my question to you is:
10 Did you recommend that she be prosecuted as well? 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 MR. EDGAR: You can certify the question. MR. KLOTZ: Okay. (Whereupon, the following question asked by Mr. Klotz was certified: Q. "Right. And so my question to you
is: Did you recommend that she be prosecuted as well?") Q. (By Mr. Klotz) Based on your law
19 enforcement training, is there any distinction between
20 the actions of Kelly Cashman on January 16th of 2009 21 and giving cash back of $4,000 and Sandy Norris on 22 January 16th of 2009 giving back $4,000? 23 24 25 A. Q. A. Based on the training? Yes, sir. Somewhat.
158 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Q. A. Q. A. Q. A. Q. And what is that? Norris was a supervisor, approval. Are you familiar with Michelle Nicholson? Yes. What was her position with the OCSO? Public affairs officer. And besides the $1,000 that's listed on
8 January 16th of 2009, are you aware of any other 9 cash-back instances that she participated in? 10 11 A. Q. No. Is there any distinction between the
12 actions and based on your experience and training, is 13 there any distinction in the conduct of Kelly Cashman 14 giving back $4,000 on January 16th and Michelle 15 Nicholson giving back the $1,000 on January 16th? 16 17 A. Q. Please restate that question. Sure. Based upon your law enforcement
18 training and experience, is there any distinction 19 between the actions of Kelly Cashman giving $4,000
20 back on January 16th of 2009 and Michelle Nicholson 21 giving $1,000 back on January 16th of 2009? 22 A. I'd have to think about that. I'm not
23 prepared to -- I need to think about that for quite a 24 while. 25 Q. You can't -- are you unable presently to
159 1 provide any distinction between those two individuals' 2 conduct on that date? 3 A. What I said is I would have to think
4 about it and I have to look at -- look at all of the 5 aspects and look at the interviews and determine that 6 from what the information that I have. 7 Q. Yeah, during the break you had given us a
8 list of people that there were recorded conversations 9 with and I don't see Michelle Nicholson on that list. 10 Do you recall did you speak with Michelle Nicholson 11 personally? 12 13 14 15 A. Q. A. Q. Yes, we did. Did you record that conversation? Evidently not. Do you recall who was present during that
16 investigation? 17 18 A. Q. Nordstrom. Nordstrom. You were talking with
19 Mr. Murray earlier about the culture of silence among
20 everybody regarding bonuses at the Okaloosa County 21 Sheriff's Office. 22 A. No, I did not. I don't believe I talked
23 about the culture of silence. 24 Q. You didn't use the word culture of
25 silence. I'm not trying to be tricky.
160 1 2 A. Q. No, I didn't. But just for lack of a better word trying
3 to paraphrase, the fact that people did not discuss 4 their bonuses is what I'm referring to. 5 6 A. Q. Okay. And I'm not trying to be tricky about
7 your words, I'm trying to paraphrase. The fact that 8 that was something that you were able -- the fact that 9 people did not discuss their bonuses with one another 10 was something that you had been able to document 11 during the course of your investigation; isn't that 12 accurate? 13 14 15 16 A. Q. A. Q. Uh-huh. Yes? Yes. I'm sorry. And, in fact, isn't it true that some of
17 the first instances of anybody actually talking about 18 this, about the bonus scheme, was when Schniepp and 19 Donaldson and Larry Ashley talked about it together;
20 is that consistent with your investigation? 21 A. It began with George Wilson talking to
22 Larry Ashley about it. 23 Q. Okay. And do you recall what it -- what
24 that discussion involved between Mr. Wilson and 25 Mr. Ashley?
161 1 A. Basically, Mr. Wilson approached Major
2 Ashley and said he had been involved in this and he 3 was concerned. 4 5 6 Q. A. Q. And is that George Wilson? Yes, sir. And I don't think Mr. -- what position
7 was George Wilson in? 8 9 10 A. Q. A. Fleet Manager. Do you know what his rank was? He had no rank. I don't think he has a
11 rank. He's a civilian. 12 Q. Right. And do you know what position
13 Nicole Wagner held? 14 A. I don't remember. She has since changed
15 positions and I cannot remember the position she was 16 in. 17 Q. It's true that, according to the forensic
18 accounting report on March 23rd from Carr, Riggs and 19 Ingram, that George Wilson was reported to have given
20 kickbacks four times between August of 2008 and 21 January of 2009 in the amounts of 3,000, 7,000, 4,000 22 and 12,000 dollars; correct? 23 24 A. Q. That's what the audit says. Is that information consistent with what
25 you found in your investigation?
162 1 2 A. Q. Yes. Have you recommended that Mr. Wilson be
3 charged? 4 A. Again, I'm not giving that information.
5 That's privileged information. 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 MR. KLOTZ: Russ, are you going to certify the question? MR. EDGAR: Yes. (Whereupon, the following question by Mr. Klotz was certified: Q. "Have you recommended that Mr.
Wilson be charged?") Q. (By Mr. Edgar) Was Mr. Wilson
14 investigated for any other misconduct unrelated to the 15 bonus scheme or the cash-back scheme? 16 17 18 19 A. Q. A. Q. Not at this time. Did you personally talk with Mr. Wilson? Yes. Was Nordstrom present?
20 21 22
A. Q. A.
Yes. Was anybody else present? I don't remember on that one. Perhaps
23 Mr. Edgar, I don't know. There were multiple 24 discussions, sometimes one-minute phone calls. It was 25 a whole series of -- because he's also in position
163 1 working there, so I had to call him and ask him about 2 certain things. 3 4 5 Q. A. Q. With regards to Mr. Wilson? Thornton, other employees. How many times did you estimate that you
6 talked to George Wilson? 7 8 9 10 A. Q. A. Q. Ten to 20. And were any of those -I take that back. Probably ten to 15. And were any of those conversations
11 recorded? 12 13 A. Q. I don't believe so. What would distinguish his conduct in
14 giving four kickbacks over a five-month period from 15 Kelly Cashman, who gave one kickback over 4,000 -16 over just a one-time period being that neither one of 17 them appeared to be in a supervisory capacity; is that 18 the distinguishing factor that kept Mr. Wilson from 19 being charged?
20
A.
Again, I had no decision in who was
21 charged. 22 Q. To your knowledge from your
23 investigation, was Mr. Wilson, George Wilson, in any 24 type of supervisory capacity? 25 A. Was he a supervisor?
164 1 2 3 Q. A. Q. Yes, sir. Yes. If I can just ask you to take a look at
4 this, again, page 26 of the Carr, Riggs, Ingram report 5 from March of 2009. And of this list of people that 6 are on here, could you just read out the ones that 7 your investigation revealed to you were in a 8 supervisory position? 9 A. Coup, Donaldson, Hull, Norris, Schniepp,
10 Wilson, Adams, Holcombe, Thornton. The ones I have a 11 question about is Michelle Nicholson and David Yacks. 12 I believe they maybe had some. I can't remember. 13 Q. Fair enough. And I'm sorry if you told
14 me this already, how many interviews with Sandy Norris 15 did you have, if you recall? 16 17 18 A. Q. A. I think we did two or three. Were they only -Again, sometimes, you know, it was like
19 initially we did a couple of interviews and I think we
20 would pop in, ask her a couple of questions, if she 21 could find some records or whatever. 22 Q. When you found out that she had -- when
23 you found out that it had been reported that she had 24 given cash back on the 16th (sic) of 2009, did that 25 make her, to you as an investigator, a suspect?
165 1 2 A. Q. I believe she was a suspect before then. With respect to your investigation, at
3 what point did she, if you're able to recall the 4 month, that she became a suspect? 5 6 A. Q. I cannot. Through the course of your investigation,
7 who have you found was responsible for setting Sandy 8 Norris' salary? 9 10 A. Q. Ultimately the Sheriff. And the times that she calculated gross
11 and net bonuses, did she do that at the direction of 12 the Sheriff? 13 14 A. Q. I don't believe so. Did she do that at the direction of
15 Teresa Adams? 16 17 A. Q. I believe so. And are you able to say, and if you're
18 not that's fine, are you able to say that every single 19 bonus that she ever calculated was for an illegal
20 purpose? 21 22 A. Q. I don't believe so. What evidence do you have that Sandy
23 Norris' salary was out of line with her particular job 24 duties? 25 A. I don't have any knowledge of that.
166 1 Q. Are you familiar with how often the
2 Okaloosa County Sheriff's Department, with what 3 frequency they were audited? 4 5 A. Q. No. Are you aware of whether or not at any
6 time before the Sheriff was arrested in February of 7 2009, if the Okaloosa County Sheriff's Department was 8 subject to external audits? 9 A. Yeah, I believe so. I can't -- I can't
10 swear to it. 11 Q. Do you remember who the accounting firm
12 was? 13 14 A. Q. I don't know. Did you ever ask anybody, whether it was
15 the forensic auditors that were retained after this 16 came to light or any accountants who may have 17 participated in any type of audit prior to this, how 18 they missed the bonuses that were being paid to people 19 throughout --
20 21
A. Q.
No. -- this scheme? It would be fair to say,
22 though, from your investigation, that all of the 23 schemes that have been charged as criminal conduct 24 were reported to the authorities by third parties who 25 were not auditing accountants? And I know that's not
167 1 a great question. I can ask it in a better way. 2 3 A. Q. Please simplify it. Yeah. The bottom line is that all of the
4 criminal conduct that's been alleged throughout the 5 accusations against Yacks, Coup, Norris, Morris, 6 Adams, none of that was unearthed by any accounting 7 firm; was it? 8 9 A. Q. Not that I know of. It was actually brought to light by
10 employees of the Okaloosa County Sheriff's Department? 11 12 A. Q. Yes. And you're not aware of who the
13 independent auditors were? 14 A. Are you talking about prior to this
15 occurring? 16 17 18 Q. A. Q. Yes, sir. No. Have you ever heard of Nicholson, Reeder
19 and Reynolds, the accounting firm?
20 21
A. Q.
I've heard of it. Have you ever talked to anybody from
22 Nicholson, Reeder and Reynolds through the course of 23 your investigation? 24 25 A. Not that I can remember. THE WITNESS: Excuse me, I have to take
168 1 2 3 4 5 6 this. MR. KLOTZ: We can take a break anyway. (Whereupon, a brief recess was taken at 3:30 p.m., after which the deposition continued at 3:41 p.m.) Q. (By Mr. Klotz) I want to show you page
7 19 of the Carr, Riggs, Ingram report again. And I'm 8 going to refer you to just one of these bonuses that 9 kind of jumped out at me was Paula Nicole Wagner. 10 I've underlined it for you. Through your 11 investigation, are you aware of what the justification 12 was for her 24,000-dollar bonus? 13 A. I can't remember at this time. I would
14 have to go back and look at the recordings. 15 Q. Okay. You would agree with me that
16 that's one of the higher bonuses on that page; 17 wouldn't you? 18 19 A. Q. Yes. And I'm going to show you what's marked
20 as SN000312. I can't tell you where this document 21 came from. It is from out of the discovery somewhere. 22 But I was wondering if you can tell me whose initial 23 that is, if you're aware of, through the course of 24 your investigation? It looks like an "E" circled. Do 25 you have any idea whose initial that is?
169 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 A. Q. A. Q. A. Q. A. Q. A. No, I don't. Have you seen this document before? I don't recognize it. Okay. Whose number is this? That's my personal number. That's your personal number? Yeah. I don't recognize it. Is it not part of
10 the audit? 11 12 13 Q. A. Q. No, I don't think it's part of the audit. Okay. I'm going to also show you a page marked
14 SN000325 and just ask you if you've seen that document 15 before. Do you have any idea who drafted that 16 document? 17 18 19 A. No, but I'd like a copy of it. MR. EDGAR: If we can have a copy attached to the record.
20 21 22
MR. KLOTZ: Yeah, happy to give you a copy. Q. (By Mr. Klotz) And if you can find out
23 who drafted it, would you let me know? 24 A. Uh-huh. We did not give you any copies
25 of the stuff that you were looking at from the FBI
170 1 search warrant; did we? We haven't given those copies 2 to you yet; right? 3 Q. I have to answer like you. I really
4 don't remember. 5 6 A. Q. Okay. Seriously, just from the volume, I can't
7 tell you. 8 9 A. Q. Okay. Let me see if there are any other
10 documents that I need to give you that you don't have. 11 12 13 Q. MR. EDGAR: By all means. MR. KLOTZ: Really. (By Mr. Edgar) Are you aware of -- okay,
14 let's talk about for a second -- let's talk about your 15 application for a warrant, okay. This I think has 16 been showed to you before. 17 18 19 MR. KLOTZ: Have we marked it? Maybe we'll mark it next. (Whereupon, document was not marked as an
20 21
exhibit.) Q. (By Mr. Klotz) And I'll just refer you
22 to page two, paragraph (c) regarding Sandra G. Norris. 23 In the first paragraph, the allegation is that she 24 facilitated -- and I'm just going to skip into it a 25 little bit -- facilitated the kickback scheme by
171 1 calculating gross and net bonuses. Now, that was 2 something that was part of her job description; 3 correct, was to calculate gross and net bonuses that 4 were awarded by the Sheriff; right? 5 6 A. Q. Yes. Okay. Was it also not part of her job
7 description to oversee the transfer of funds and 8 payments of bonuses to employees as directed by the 9 Sheriff? 10 11 A. Q. Yes. Okay. In the last sentence in that
12 paragraph is that she participated in the scheme and 13 benefited personally. I understand what you're saying 14 there, but as far as the calculation of the gross and 15 net bonuses for the other people who received bonuses 16 in this particular scheme, what evidence have you 17 collected or seen that shows that she knew -- Sandy 18 Norris had knowledge that the bonuses were unlawful to 19 the other individuals besides herself?
20 21
A. Q.
I can't think of anything right now. I've already asked you about the second
22 paragraph earlier indirectly. Let's see, the third 23 paragraph of Section (c), page two of your Warrant 24 Application, Norris concealed or falsified or caused 25 others to conceal or falsify employee payroll records
172 1 by listing the payments as bonuses when, in fact, she 2 knew that they were merely as a pretext to obtain cash 3 for the personal use of Morris and his accomplices. 4 Now, besides her own transfer of $4,000 on 5 January 19th -- or January 16th of 2009 of $4,000, 6 what evidence do you have or have you found through 7 the course of your investigation that she knew that 8 other individuals besides herself were giving cash 9 back to the sheriff? 10 A. I'm sorry to say, I can't remember what
11 that was to cause me to write this and sign off on it. 12 I would have to go back and look at the case and try 13 to figure out where our evidence was for that. 14 Q. Okay. In fact, isn't it true in the
15 course of your investigation that you found that when 16 the audits were done that the amounts of money were 17 actually listed as bonuses in the Sheriff's ledger; 18 weren't they? 19 A. I don't know what you're talking about.
20
Q.
Well, this paragraph, the third
21 paragraph -22 23 A. Q. First off, what is the Sheriff's ledger? Well, the books or the accounting
24 mechanism that the Sheriff used. Those payments were 25 actually listed in the Sheriff's records as bonuses;
173 1 weren't they? 2 A. I don't have direct knowledge of what
3 you're referring to in the ledger. I have the audit 4 records which shows the bonuses. I don't think I 5 personally saw a ledger in the Sheriff's Office. 6 Q. Okay. And let's talk about the last
7 paragraph of (c) on page two of your application. 8 Norris used her knowledge of the scheme to her 9 advantage. In 2007, she falsified her payroll records 10 by entering 135.9 overtime hours. Through the course 11 of your investigation, have you discovered any 12 evidence that suggests that she was instructed to do 13 that by her superior? 14 15 16 17 18 19 A. Q. A. Q. A. Q. No. Have you asked Teresa Adams about that? Yes. And did she deny it? Yes. Was this the only instance of any type of
20 overtime irregularity that you found through the 21 course of your investigation with regards to Sandy 22 Norris? 23 24 A. Q. Yes. Is this the only instance of overtime
25 irregularity that you found with regards to any other
174 1 employee of the Okaloosa County Sheriff's Department 2 through the course of your investigation? 3 4 5 A. THE WITNESS: Let me talk to Mr. Edgar. (Off-the-record comments were made.) Yes, we did. And we've charged -- the
6 Sheriff was charged with that, but there are others 7 that we are still looking at and I cannot reveal their 8 information. 9 Q. (By Mr. Klotz) Was Sheriff Morris
10 charged with this instance of overtime or with his own 11 instance of overtime payment when you say that? 12 A. Not his. I'm talking others in the
13 agency, not this one. 14 15 Q. MR. EDGAR: Not this. (By Mr. Klotz) And what's the allegation
16 with respect to those cases that Charlie Morris had 17 directed somebody to pad their time? 18 19 MR. EDGAR: Restore leave. MR. KLOTZ: That's the restoration of
20 21 22 23
leave? MR. EDGAR: Yes. I think that's what he's talking about. Q. (By Mr. Klotz) Is that what you're
24 talking about? 25 A. Yes.
175 1 Q. As far as you know and as far as you have
2 discovered through the course of your investigation, 3 this particular overtime incident was an isolated 4 event and not part of the overall conspiracy; is that 5 fair to say? 6 7 8 9 A. Q. A. Q. Pertaining to Norris' transaction? Yes. Yes, sir. With respect to your training and
10 experience, especially in the area of financial 11 crimes, if there had been no kickbacks that were 12 provided by Norris, setting aside the isolated 13 incident of the overtime, would that have been 14 sufficient to charge her with a crime, if there had 15 been no kickback with regard to her bonuses? 16 A. I can't answer that. That's a
17 hypothetical. There's so many things to look at that 18 I really can't -- I don't feel comfortable giving an 19 answer to that.
20
Q.
Getting close, bear with me. What
21 evidence do you have, if any, that Sandy Norris knew 22 that money was being given to people to fund gambling 23 trips outside of her own allegations that she has? 24 25 A. Q. Outside of the money that she received? Yes, sir.
176 1 2 A. Q. I don't believe she knows any. What evidence have you discovered through
3 the course of your investigation that indicates Sandy 4 Norris knew that any of the money that was being 5 returned to the Sheriff was being used for gifts for 6 Sabra Thornton? 7 8 A. Q. I'm sorry, redo that. Yeah. What evidence have you discovered
9 through the course of your investigation that Sandy 10 Norris knew that the money being returned to Sheriff 11 Morris was being used for gifts for Sabra Thornton? 12 13 A. Q. I can't remember if there was anything. Have you ever seen any of the internal
14 affairs investigation reports or statements with 15 regards to Sandy Norris? 16 17 A. Q. No. Are you aware -- are you aware of whether
18 or not the State Attorney's Office has a copy of any 19 of the internal affairs reports with regard to Sandy
20 Norris? 21 22 A. Q. To the best of my knowledge, no. Did Sandy Norris, to your knowledge,
23 through the course of your investigation, receive any 24 gifts from Sheriff Morris as a result of her returning 25 money to him? Let me ask that a better way. Did she
177 1 receive any gifts from Sheriff Morris that you have 2 discovered through the course of your investigation? 3 4 A. Q. Bonuses, nothing else. And that's really what I'm getting at.
5 Besides the bonuses -6 7 A. Q. That's all. -- there were no other gifts? For
8 instance, Ms. Thornton was alleged to have been given 9 golf clubs -10 11 12 13 A. Q. A. Q. Right. -- a shotgun, jewelry? Bonuses is all that I know of. What evidence, if any, have you
14 discovered through the course of your investigation 15 that Sandy Norris knew of Charlie Morris collecting 16 money to pay off a credit card for Sabra Thornton? 17 18 A. Q. I don't believe she had any knowledge. What evidence, if any, have you
19 discovered through the course of your investigation
20 that Sandy Norris had knowledge of the cash exchange 21 that has been alleged to have occurred between Mr. 22 Coup and Sheriff Morris? And when I say, "cash 23 exchange," do you know what I'm talking about? 24 25 A. Q. Yes. Okay.
178 1 A. Well, she was involved in doing the
2 bonuses, which that money went towards, but direct 3 knowledge, I don't know of anything at this time. 4 Q. So there's -- beyond the fact that she
5 was involved in the processing of the bonuses and the 6 payroll, you are not aware of any evidence that she 7 had had actual knowledge of the exchange of cash 8 between Mr. Coup and Sheriff Morris; is that correct? 9 10 A. Q. That's correct. To your knowledge, did Sandy Norris ever
11 claim any travel reimbursement from Okaloosa County 12 Sheriff's Office for her trips to Las Vegas? 13 14 A. Q. No. Were any of the bonuses that you have --
15 well, let me ask you, do you recall approximately -16 I'm not asking for a concrete number, but 17 approximately how many bonuses Ms. Norris received 18 throughout the course of her employment? 19 A. I don't feel comfortable answering that,
20 except to the first one. 21 22 Q. A. Sure. I would have to go back and look at the
23 audit reports and the Sheriff's Office reports. 24 Q. Okay, okay. If I showed you page 20 of
25 the Carr, Riggs, Ingram report of March of '09, would
179 1 that help refresh your memory? Page 20, she's about 2 halfway down the page. 3 4 A. Q. Uh-huh. Through the course of your investigation,
5 were you able to confirm the accuracy of the number of 6 bonuses as reflected there on page 20 of the Carr, 7 Riggs, Ingram report? 8 A. I can't -- I don't remember if I did
9 confirm this. 10 Q. Okay. And again, I'm not asking you to
11 be specific, but this document indicates that there 12 were a grand total of gross bonuses of approximately 13 $97,000 given in one, two, three, four -- about five 14 bonuses? 15 16 17 18 A. Q. A. Q. Yes. Is that approximately correct? Yes. Okay. Were you able to make a
19 determination as to which of those five bonuses were
20 legal and which of those five bonuses were in 21 violation of law or statute? Or is it your position 22 that each and every one of those five bonuses was an 23 illegal bonus? 24 A. One or more of those were illegal.
25 Without going back and looking at all of them, I would
180 1 not venture to say that they are all illegal. 2 Q. On this page 20, we have several
3 individuals that are listed. Did you -- and let me 4 ask you about the whole -- everybody that's listed in 5 the Carr, Riggs, Ingram report that has received 6 bonuses over this period of time is approximately from 7 between page 20 and between page 25, so there's 8 approximately five pages of bonuses, were you able to 9 determine that any of these bonuses were appropriate 10 and legal? 11 A. Well, I believe some bonuses were legal,
12 but I can't specify which ones right now. 13 Q. Okay. And do you have any evidence that
14 you're aware of -15 16 17 A. Q. A. Let me -- let me go back. Okay. And that when I say, "legal," I'm not
18 saying legal for the Sheriff to give bonuses, but that 19 it was not part of a kickback and it was not part of
20 any kind of pay-back or anything like that. 21 22 Q. A. Okay. Some might have been for uniforms or
23 something like that. 24 Q. And correct me if I'm mischaracterizing,
25 but one instance, which was the instance in 2009 where
181 1 you have evidence that Ms. Norris kick-backed cash to 2 the Sheriff; isn't that correct? 3 4 A. Q. Yes. Okay. Were there any actions that
5 Ms. Norris took during the course of your 6 investigation or that you learned during the course of 7 your investigation that you perceive as being intended 8 to obstruct justice in any way or obstruct the 9 investigation in any way? 10 A. I don't believe she was truthful in the
11 accounting about her payroll overtime. 12 Q. And that's with reference to the stand
13 alone event of the 135.9 hours? 14 15 A. Q. Yes. Okay. Is there any other instance that
16 comes to mind besides the instance of the overtime 17 that she attempted to obstruct the investigation, was 18 untruthful? 19 A. That's what I was talking about, the
20 overtime. 21 Q. My question to follow-up on that is:
22 Were there any instances besides the overtime issue 23 that you found her to be -24 25 A. Q. Oh, besides that one? Yes, sir.
182 1 2 A. Q. I can't think of anything right now. And what was the misrepresentation that
3 she made to you or another investigator with respect 4 to the 135 hours? 5 6 A. Q. That it was authorized by her superiors. The same questions that Mr. Murray asked
7 you a minute ago with regards to Mr. Coup with regard 8 to the RICO charges, with respect to Ms. Norris, in 9 that particular ongoing enterprise through the course 10 of your investigation, who did you discover to be the 11 leader of that enterprise? 12 13 A. Q. Charlie Morris. Do you have any evidence that Sandy
14 Norris participated in that criminal enterprise as a 15 leader? 16 17 A. Q. No. And the same question that Mr. Murray had
18 asked you with respect to Mr. Coup about the money 19 laundering. Are the money laundering allegations
20 against Ms. Norris based on the transfer of the bonus 21 money between the Sheriff's accounts and her accounts? 22 23 A. Q. Yes. Are there any other activities of
24 Ms. Norris that would give rise to an accusation of 25 money laundering besides those? That's all I'm
183 1 getting to. Is there anything else besides the 2 transfers of monies between the Sheriff's accounts -3 the bonus monies between the Sheriff's accounts and 4 her personal accounts that would give rise to the 5 allegations of money laundering? 6 A. Also, the money going to Yacks for her
7 benefit. 8 Q. Can you be more specific about which
9 money? 10 A. Monies going to pay for her plane
11 tickets. 12 Q. Besides the instance of reimbursement for
13 plane tickets, would there be any other instances that 14 would give rise to the money laundering that you have 15 discovered through the course of your investigation? 16 17 18 A. Not at this time. MR. KLOTZ: Okay, tender the witness. CROSS-EXAMINATION
19 BY MR. EDGAR:
20 21 22 23 24 25
Q.
You mentioned that you -MR. PETERSEN: Russ, I just have a few
more questions. Do you want me to go after you or before you? MR. EDGAR: Yes, yes, yes, let me have my turn and then you can go after me.
184 1 2 Q. MR. PETERSEN: Okay, that's fine. (By Mr. Edgar) You mentioned that you
3 made notes including making a spreadsheet? 4 5 6 7 A. Q. A. Q. Yes. That spreadsheet is part of your notes? Yes. Was it done at the direction of the
8 prosecutor in the case? 9 10 11 12 A. Q. A. Q. Yes. To share with the prosecutor? Yes. Does the information contained in your
13 notes have anything in it or does the spreadsheet have 14 anything in it that is not contained in the source 15 documents provided in discovery to the defense other 16 than Ms. Adams? 17 18 19 A. No. MR. EDGAR: Okay, I don't have any more questions.
20 21 22 23
MR. PETERSEN: Okay, just a few, Mr. Crowder. I know you're tired and we are, too. REDIRECT EXAMINATION
24 BY MR. PETERSEN: 25 Q. Is there an ongoing investigation of
185 1 Yacks? 2 3 A. Q. I don't believe so. Okay. Charlie Morris has told some of
4 the Okaloosa County Sheriff's Office employees that he 5 needed the cash back for employees in need; that was 6 the information that you investigated? 7 8 A. Q. Yes, sir. And you have identified one of the
9 employees in need was DeJesus? 10 11 A. Q. Yes, sir. And I think you said you couldn't
12 identify any other employees in need? 13 A. Well, I believe I -- there was one
14 employee who is now since deceased. I think the money 15 was also for him. 16 17 18 19 Q. A. Q. A. Okay. I can't remember what his name is. Jones, maybe? Yes, Mike Jones.
20
Q.
Okay. Did you fully investigate that
21 avenue to see if there was other needy employees that 22 received money from Charlie Morris? 23 A. That was one of the things that we looked
24 at. I was subjective as to how thorough we looked at 25 it, but we looked at it and we asked around.
186 1 Q. And the only two that you found were
2 Mr. Jones and Mr. DeJesus? 3 A. Those are all that I can remember at this
4 time. 5 Q. And somebody that suffered from either a
6 hurricane or a fire? 7 A. Yes, sir. And that might have been Mike
8 Jones. 9 Q. Okay. Were there any witnesses or
10 physical evidence that show that Yacks knew of any 11 cash-backs given by any other Sheriff's Office 12 employee? 13 A. I think -- I cannot think of any right
14 now. 15 Q. Okay. Any information that Charlie
16 Morris or Mr. Coup pressured Yacks about keeping quiet 17 about any alleged kickback scheme? 18 19 A. Q. No, sir. Any facts or witnesses that showed Yacks
20 knew of any bonuses to Coup or to Sandy Norris? 21 22 A. Q. No. How about improper providing items such
23 as money or anything else to Sabra Thornton, any 24 evidence to show that Yacks knew about that? 25 A. No, sir.
187 1 Q. Was there any evidence or witnesses that
2 there was an agreement between Coup and Mr. Yacks 3 concerning these cash bonuses, cash-back activities? 4 5 6 7 8 9 A. Q. A. Q. A. Q. No. Yacks and Norris? No. Yacks and Thornton? No. Any witness or evidence to show that
10 Yacks conducted activities that was a pattern of 11 racketeering, conducted a pattern of racketeering as 12 alleged in Count One? 13 14 A. Q. Was there any evidence? Yes. Any witnesses or evidence that he
15 conducted a pattern of -- activity with a pattern of 16 racketeering? 17 18 19 A. Q. A. The records show that. What? Bank records, Sheriff's Office records.
20
Q.
That was -- that's the participation and
21 the conduct? 22 23 24 25 A. Yes, sir. MR. PETERSEN: And, Russ, this is one you might want to object to. I don't want you to throw that useless BlackBerry at me.
188 1 2 Q. MR. EDGAR: I'm still awake. (By Mr. Petersen) Was anyone criminally
3 charged that you did not recommend for prosecution? 4 5 Q. MR. EDGAR: Objection. (By Mr. Petersen) And a copy of your
6 Excel spreadsheet, will you voluntarily provide that 7 to the defense? 8 9 10 A. Q. MR. EDGAR: Objection. No, sir. (By Mr. Petersen) The Carr, Riggs,
11 Ingram report, I think it is, I think it's March of 12 2009, was that an accurate report as to Yacks' bonuses 13 and cash-backs? 14 15 A. Q. I believe so. Okay. Right now, are you aware of any
16 witness or evidence that Ms. Adams discussed the bonus 17 cash-back pattern with anyone other than Charlie 18 Morris? 19 A. I'd have to look back and review her
20 statements. I can't say right now. 21 Q. Did Mr. Yacks ever receive any benefits
22 of inmate work? 23 24 A. Q. No. Any evidence that Yacks was involved in
25 any criminal activity involving Sabra Thornton?
189 1 2 A. Q. No. Any phone taps or other undercover
3 recordings involving Mr. Yacks? 4 5 6 7 A. Q. A. Q. Not by me. Are you aware of any? No, sir. To your knowledge, did Yacks ever receive
8 any cash-back money from any of the other Sheriff's 9 Office employees? 10 11 A. Q. I'm sorry. Say that again. To your knowledge, did Yacks ever receive
12 any cash-back money from the other Sheriff's Office 13 employees? 14 15 A. Q. I don't think so. What evidence do you have that Yacks'
16 salary plus bonuses was not commiserate with his job 17 performance and duties? 18 A. Did not do any analysis of his job
19 performance and duties.
20
Q.
Okay. As to the money laundering to
21 Mr. Yacks, is that based solely upon the transfer of 22 bonuses and paying for airline tickets? 23 24 25 A. Q. A. And meals -Meals? -- or entertainment expenses.
190 1 2 3 Q. A. Q. Okay, anything else. That's all I can think of. Okay. And as to Yacks and Morris, who
4 was the leader? 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 A. Q. A. Morris. Charlie Morris? Yes. MR. PETERSEN: That's it. MR. EDGAR: Nothing more. MR. PETERSEN: Thank you. And I appreciate your time and patience. MR. KLOTZ: I don't have any more questions. Thank you. (The deposition was concluded at 4:15 p.m.)
20 21 22 23 24 25
191 1 2 3 (STATE OF FLORIDA) 4 (COUNTY OF ESCAMBIA) 5 6 I, Pamela Dee Elliott, Florida Professional CERTIFICATE OF OATH
7 Reporter, Notary Public, State of Florida, certify 8 that RANDY B. CROWDER personally appeared before me on 9 the 18th day of March, 2010 and was duly sworn. 10 11 WITNESS my hand and official seal this 7th
12 day of April, 2010. 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 ______________________________________________ PAMELA DEE ELLIOTT FLORIDA PROFESSIONAL REPORTER NOTARY PUBLIC, STATE OF FLORIDA
20 21 22 23 24 25
192 1 2 3 I, PAMELA DEE ELLIOTT, Court Reporter, do CERTIFICATE OF REPORTER
4 hereby certify that I was authorized to and did 5 stenographically report the foregoing deposition of 6 RANDY B. CROWDER; that a review of the transcript was 7 requested; and that the foregoing transcript, pages 1 8 through 194, is a true and complete record of my 9 stenographic notes. 10 11 I further certify that I am not a relative,
12 employee, attorney, or counsel of any of the parties, 13 nor am I a relative or employee of any of the parties' 14 attorney or counsel connected with the action, nor am 15 I financially interested in the action. 16 17 18 19 Dated this 7th day of April, 2010.
20 21 22 23 24 25
______________________________________ PAMELA DEE ELLIOTT FLORIDA PROFESSIONAL REPORTER
193 IN THE CIRCUIT COURT IN AND FOR OKALOOSA COUNTY, FLORIDA _______________________________________________ STATE OF FLORIDA, Plaintiff, vs. CASE NO.: 2009-CF-1481
JAMES DAVID YACKS, Defendant. _______________________________________________/ RE: DEPOSITION OF RANDY B. CROWDER TAKEN 03/18/10 DATE SENT: ________ or DATE WITNESS CONTACTED: ________ TO: RUSSELL G. EDGAR Assistant State Attorney M.C. Blanchard Judicial Building Pensacola, Florida 32502
The referenced transcript has been completed and awaits reading and signing within 30 days of the date you were contacted, which is _________________. The transcript is 194 pages long. Please have your client read his deposition and make any corrections on the enclosed Errata Sheet only. Do not write on the transcript. Please forward the original signed Errata Sheet to Anchor Court Reporting, 229 South Baylen Street, Pensacola, Florida 32502. The original of this deposition has been forwarded to the ordering party, and your Errata Sheet, once received, will be forwarded to all ordering parties as listed below.
Thank you. ____________________________________________ PAMELA DEE ELLIOTT, FPR CC: JAMES MURRAY, ESQUIRE JULIA MURRAY, ESQUIRE NICKOLAS G. PETERSEN, ESQUIRE CHRISTOPHER JOHN KLOTZ, ESQUIRE
194 ERRATA SHEET WITNESS: RANDY B. CROWDER RE: STATE OF FLORIDA vs. JAMES DAVID YACKS CASE NO.: 2009-CF-1481 ____________________________________________________ Page Line Correction/Change Reason
Under penalties of perjury, I declare that I have read the foregoing document, pages 01 through 194, and that the facts stated in it are true. ______________ DATE _____________________________ RANDY B. CROWDER

William E. Eddins-Deposition of Investigator Randy Crowder From State Attorney Bill Eddins Office--Illegal Bonus Scheme of Bill Eddins EXPOSED by candidate for Okaloosa County Sheriff, Austin Sheridan Lowrey II

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file:///C|/Documents%20and%20Settings/dels/Desktop/Depos/Crowder%20Depo.

DEPOSITION OF RANDY B. CROWDER 03/18/10

JAMES DAVID YACKS, Defendant. _______________________________________________/

DEPOSITION OF RANDY B. CROWDER

Taken on Behalf of the Defendants

Examination of the Witness reported by:

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DEPOSITION OF RANDY B. CROWDER 03/18/10

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DEPOSITION OF RANDY B. CROWDER 03/18/10

Recordings Provided in Discovery CD

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DEPOSITION OF RANDY B. CROWDER 03/18/10

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DEPOSITION OF RANDY B. CROWDER 03/18/10

5 CERTIFIED QUESTIONS FROM THE DEPOSITION OF RANDY B. CROWDER

was not subsequently charged?"

recommend that she be prosecuted as well?"

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charged?" ____________________________________________ Pamela Dee Elliott Florida Professional Reporter

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DEPOSITION OF RANDY B. CROWDER 03/18/10

6 1 Whereupon, the Witness, 2 RANDY B. CROWDER,

19 or deceive you or get you to say anything that's not

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25 ask me to repeat it. If you don't know the answer,

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DEPOSITION OF RANDY B. CROWDER 03/18/10

14 Department of Banking and Finance. 15 Q. Is that a law enforcement agency in

16 Florida? 17 A. It is not a sworn law enforcement agency,

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24 private company in Tallahassee while I was going to 25 graduate school.

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DEPOSITION OF RANDY B. CROWDER 03/18/10

8 1 Q. Okay. Was that private company not

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DEPOSITION OF RANDY B. CROWDER 03/18/10

9 1 investigator with the State Attorney's Office? 2 A. To conduct investigations of crimes

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And you were present when Mr. Yacks gave

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DEPOSITION OF RANDY B. CROWDER 03/18/10

19 go back and get those notes?

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DEPOSITION OF RANDY B. CROWDER 03/18/10

11 1 Q. Okay. What was the date that you first

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DEPOSITION OF RANDY B. CROWDER 03/18/10

18 remember; yes? 19 A. Uh-huh.

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And was there ever a transcript that you

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DEPOSITION OF RANDY B. CROWDER 03/18/10

7 questions we presented him. 8 Q. Were you able to identify any

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