Ex-speaker indicted on perjury charges
TALLAHASSEE (AP) – A grand jury charged former House Speaker Ray Sansom with perjury Wednesday in an indictment related to $6 million Sansom steered to Northwest Florida State College for an aircraft hangar.
Also indicted was Sansom’s friend and political supporter Jay Odom, who was charged with official misconduct.
A proposed lease between developer Odom and the school, as well as e-mails about the hangar the school planned to build led to the new charges, State Attorney Willie Meggs said.
“The intent and plan was for Jay Odom to use the building,” Meggs said, adding that Sansom testified “no private individual would have use of the building, and there’s much documentation to the contrary.”
Odom had sought and failed to get government money for the hangar. Sansom later stuck an appropriation in the 2007-2008 state budget for the project, describing it as a training facility for the school. A grand jury charged Sansom with official misconduct last month.
“The appropriation was for a multiple-use, joint-use building,” Meggs said. “The building that was being built was, in fact, an aircraft hangar.”
The school’s president, Bob Richburg, was fired after his indictment last month on official misconduct and perjury charges. Meggs said the school didn’t provide the proposed lease with Odom until after Richburg was ousted.
Sansom stepped down as speaker in January, a little more than two months after taking the office. In addition to the airport building, Sansom steered millions more to the school when he chaired the House Budget and Policy Council. He then accepted a $110,000 job at the Niceville school on the same day he formally became speaker.