Opinion ID: 148154
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Preliminary Events & Willie Junior's Plea Bargain

Text: On June 17, 2002, the Florida Circuit Court for Escambia County handed down an indictment against Appellant for one count of money laundering, one count of bribery, and one count of unlawful compensation or reward for official behavior. Record Evidence (R.E.) Doc. 8 Ex. A at 1-3. The State alleged that Appellant, a county commissioner, made payments to Willie Junior (Junior), another county commissioner, to secure Junior's vote in favor of the County's purchase of the Pensacola Soccer Complex from Joe Elliott (Elliott). Allegedly, Elliott in turn provided Appellant and Junior with monetary kickbacks upon the county's purchase of the property. Several months before Appellant or Elliott went to trial, the State struck a plea bargain with Junior, in which he agreed to plea nolo contendere to numerous charges, including bribery, extortion, grand theft, and racketeering. In return for his cooperation with the State, which required Junior to inform the State and the grand jury of any and all criminal offenses committed by him or others of which he had knowledge, the State granted him immunity from prosecution for further related offenses and agreed to seek prison time of only 18 months rather than the 125-year maximum sentence he otherwise could have faced. The agreement also provided that if any information Junior provides is determined to be false, this grant of immunity is withdrawn and, additionally, the State may prosecute Junior for offenses relating to the giving of false statements or perjury .... The parties agree that the State may revoke this agreement if, in the sole discretion of the State Attorney, any of the following circumstances have occurred: A. Junior's refusal to cooperate as provided in this agreement. [sic] B. Junior's statements or testimony are incomplete or untruthful; C. Junior failed to comply with any of the terms of this agreement .... R.E. Doc. 8 Ex. C at 1015. As the State prepared for both Elliot and Appellant's separate trials, Junior met with State investigators several times and provided details of the meetings he had with Elliot and Appellant. In December 2002, Junior served as the State's star witness at Elliott's trial, repeating the information he had provided to the State in prior meetings implicating Elliot and the Appellant. As noted, the essence of the scheme about which Junior testified was that Appellant met with him multiple times to offer him a bribe in exchange for his voting in favor of buying the soccer complex from Elliot. The trial ended with Elliot's acquittal. Approximately one month after Elliot's acquittal, Junior met with a State investigator and provided additional facts that implicated Appellant more directly in the soccer stadium deal, some of which conflicted with Junior's prior statements. Specifically, Junior previously had stated that when Appellant wrote 100/100 on a notepad and passed it to him, he and Appellant did not discuss the meaning of the note and that Junior assumed the note indicated that they each would receive $100,000 if the Pensacola soccer complex deal was approved. In his new statement, Junior claimed, for the first time, that Appellant actually told him, [I]f the soccer complex goes through, it will be a hundred for you and a hundred for me, when Appellant passed him the note. Before the Elliott acquittal, Junior also maintained that the 100/100 incident occurred after the County Commission voted to appraise the soccer complex property. In his revised account, Junior stated that the incident took place before the appraisal vote and asserted for the first time that, after the 100/100 note episode, Appellant specifically told him that Elliott would speak with him about the matter. In addition, Junior previously had told the state that Appellant had given him a large cooking pot filled with money, but that he and Appellant had no conversation about or during the event. After Elliot's acquittal, Junior claimed that Appellant told him that he had taken $25,000 from the pot. Junior later amended that statement to say that Appellant told him that he first took $10,000 and then took another $25,000 from the pot. In his third version of events, Junior also stated that while giving Junior the pot of money, Appellant repeatedly exclaimed that he was sick and tired of not being able to get three votes, contrary to Junior's earlier statements that there had been no conversation during this transaction. See R.E. Doc. 8 Ex. M at 4-5, Doc. 26 at 7. Upon hearing these new statements, the State Attorney attempted to revoke Junior's plea agreement by filing a Notice of Revocation of Terms of Plea Agreement (Notice of Revocation or Notice) in Junior's criminal case. In support, the State Attorney charged, inter alia, that Junior changed his testimony and failed to give complete statements in the Elliott trial. Although the plea agreement explicitly left its revocability to the State Attorney's sole discretion, the state trial court sua sponte intervened and disallowed the revocation on the grounds that Junior's revised statements were not under oath at trial or hearing, and therefore not technically a violation of the plea agreement. R.E. Doc. 8 Ex. M at 7. The State then filed an amended information against Appellant with the same offenses, but supported with the additional statements provided by Junior after Elliot's acquittal. R.E. Doc. 8 Ex. A at 6-7.