Mike Hubbard ethics trial begins with dueling statements

OPELIKA — The trial of one of Alabama’s most powerful officials began Tuesday with two different portraits of House Speaker Mike Hubbard, both depicting a skilled salesman.

Prosecutors said that salesman was beset by financial troubles stemming from a job loss and an investment going sour, and said the Auburn Republican took illegal advantage of his public office to address his money woes.

“He sees an opportunity and he takes it,” Matt Hart, the director of the Alabama Attorney General’s Office of Special Prosecutions, told a jury in Lee County Circuit Judge Jacob Walker’s courtroom Tuesday morning. “That’s what a businessman does ... and the defendant is pretty darn good at that as the evidence will show.”

Hubbard’s attorneys said the speaker strived to stay within the law, turning to long-time friends for help finding business in his specialty — sports marketing — and not in public business.

“They’re not going to prove anything,” said Bill Baxley, Hubbard’s lead defense attorney, at the start of his opening argument Tuesday. “We’re going to prove something to clear the air, that these things they’re saying are crimes, we’re going to show what they were.”

The speaker faces 23 counts of using public offices — both his legislative position and previously his time as chairman of the Alabama Republican Party — to get contracts and investments in businesses in which he held an interest. Hubbard maintains his innocence and his attorneys say the transactions were proper.

Prosecutors accuse Hubbard of:

• Steering Republican Party advertising and printing business to his businesses, including Craftmaster Printers, an Auburn-based firm in which Hubbard holds a partial interest, while chairman of the party from 2007 to 2011.
• Using his office as speaker to secure consulting contracts — some worth as much as $12,000 a month — and of soliciting lobbyists, including former Gov. Bob Riley, for jobs or investments.
• Inserting language in a General Fund budget that would have benefitted the American Pharmacy Cooperative Inc. (APCI), a consulting client, and later voting for that budget.
• Lobbying Gov. Robert Bentley and Alabama Secretary of Commerce Greg Canfield on behalf of clients.

Hart, who introduced Hubbard to the Lee County jury as a University of Georgia graduate, spent about 40 minutes going over the mechanics of state government and the ethics laws, saying they aimed to ensure the state’s legislators — part-time representatives who maintain private employment — are free of influence when weighing decisions about state budgets and services.

The prosecutor said Hubbard — facing a large tax debt at Craftmaster Printers and having lost a longtime executive job after becoming speaker — used his relationships with lobbyists and his positions as speaker to make up the lost income, in violation of those laws.

“The evidence is going to show Hubbard sent money to his businesses,” Hart said during a 1-hour, 43-minute opening statement. “Whether he’s a salesman or not, the law simply says if you’re in these (official) positions you cannot direct money to your businesses.”

Baxley assaulted the indictment on various fronts, calling it “unintelligible,” “mumbo-jumbo” and “gobbledy-gook” in his 1-hour, 15-minute opening statement. The attorney said that Hubbard focused on working within the ethics law and that he neither profited from party transactions nor relied on his role as speaker to secure the consulting contracts, some of which, Baxley said, came to Hubbard due to his experience with sports marketing.

Baxley characterized Hubbard’s business with lobbyists, such as former Gov. Bob Riley and Minda Riley Campbell, the governor’s daughter, as based on a relationship that predated both Riley and Hubbard’s time in state office.

“They’ve charged and indicted Mike with being friends with the Rileys,” he said. “And he is indeed that. They are trying to infer that it is a crime.”

Hart said the friends all wanted something from Hubbard due to his official position.

“He got them because he was speaker,” Hart said. And what was valuable to them was that he was the Speaker of the House of Alabama.”

The trial started 583 days after Hubbard surrendered to authorities on Oct. 20, 2014. The speaker’s defense team spent the greater part of that time trying to get the case dismissed over claims that Attorney General Luther Strange targeted Hubbard for political reasons and Hart pursued a vendetta against Hubbard and Riley and misused or leaked information from the grand jury.

Walker rejected the last of those motions in March, though he left the door open for the defense to raise the issue at trial. Hart, alluding to the allegations, said near the close of his statement that Hubbard “singled out for any political purpose or any need to hurt him personally.” Baxley in his opening statement indicated the defense would pursue that argument, telling jurors that at the end of presentations “it is really going to make you wonder why this case is here.”

The potential witness list includes Bentley, Riley and many legislators, lobbyists and officials.

Conviction on any one of the charges could leave Hubbard facing up to 20 years in prison and a $30,000 fine. A guilty verdict would also lead to his removal from office.

The case proper began with testimony on the connections between the Alabama Republican Party and businesses in which Hubbard had an interest, including Craftmaster Printers. Prosecutors allege that Hubbard as party chairman steered almost $800,000 in printing business to Craftmaster, which has struggled financially, during the 2010 campaign.

“He used his authority and his position as chairman of the party to direct that money to his business,” Hart said in opening statements.

John Ross, a lobbyist who served as executive director of the Alabama Republican Party during Hubbard’s time as chairman, testified Tuesday that Hubbard had asked the party to use Craftmaster, saying Hubbard told him “we would get better services and we could do it for cheaper if we were able to use them.”

Ross, answering questions from Deputy Attorney General John Gibbs, said he knew of Hubbard’s stake in Craftmaster. Ross said his major concern about the relationship was that “some of the political enemies within the party might use it against the chairman throughout the cycle.” The use of Craftmaster led to a financial review by the party which Ross said “Hubbard wasn’t happy about.”

Baxley argued in opening statements that Craftmaster saved the party money and that all the GOP’s spending went to advertising, including half to postage, and that Hubbard “never accepted a cent” in commission. On cross-examination, Ross said the party used Craftmaster before Hubbard’s assumption of the chairmanship and that they had done good work.

Tim Howe, Ross’s partner and a former Alabama Republican Party executive director, testified that one of his businesses received party money he used to send to companies controlled by Hubbard, taking a 5 percent commission. Prosecutors allege Hubbard used Howe’s firm to try to hide the source of the money. Baxley argued the arrangement aimed to avoid internal party criticism over the use of Craftmaster.

Both Ross and Howe also testified that they worked as lobbyists for APCI in 2013, at the same time Hubbard was working as a consultant for the company and later voted on budget language that APCI sought to introduce. Ross and Howe both testified that they were unaware of Hubbard’s relationship with APCI until after a meeting with the speaker on APCI priorities.

Ross said he was “angry” with Ferrell Patrick, APCI’s lobbyist, upon hearing the news, and the firm later ended its relationship with him.

“We did not like the arrangement that was in place as far as us lobbying and the legislation moving through and the speaker being a consultant with APCI,” Howe testified.

The trial will continue Wednesday. The witness list should include Craftmaster president Barry Whatley.