Posted by DECATUR, Ala., Aug. 20, 2008 – For prosecutors the case is simple: Did Sue Schmitz do the things she told the CITY Program she did? Their answer, “No, she didn’t.”
And, Assistant U.S. Attorney William Athanas says, when Schmitz started to be questioned about things she said, “Don’t you know how I got this done. Roy Johnson and Paul Hubbert got this done for me.” Prosecutors say they will present a witness to testify she said “maybe I need to call Paul Hubbert.” Mr. Roscoe Lane, a CITY program director, allegedly told Schmitz,”Maybe you do.”
In October 2006, according to Athanas, “[She said,] ‘If Lane ever comes to Montgomery looking for money for the CITY program, I’m going to tell him – you’re fired…,’ fueled by a belief she didn’t have to answer to anybody.” He told the jury “No one person, no matter how powerful, is above the law.”
Defense attorney Buck Watson said prosecutors got a few things a little wrong and that Schmitz “never smarted off to anybody in her life. You can look at her and tell. She thought she had been blindsided.”
Watson says Schmitz was supposed to develop relationships with state legislators and that in once case, when $4.5 million was fixing to be cut from the CITY program budget, Schmitz arranged a visit by former Senator Jeff Enfinger, who subsequently got the funding back in the budget. “With that one contact…she may have saved that program.”
Watson said the whole case is about intent, “Did Sue Schmitz scheme and intend to steal money? Did she steal money? The keyword – intent. Do I get paid without good results some time? You bet. Sue Schmitz did not steal any money.”
He says, “You’re going to hear a lot of things that can be interpreted a lot of ways.” He says Schmitz is a person of integrity.
“She was out there working: She got a bus donated to Huntsville CITY program; She got furniture from Northrop Grumman (NG) for CITY; She got computers…donated for three different centers; She contacted NG. She’s not a Web site maker. She got that done. She got $7500 from NG (for CITY).
Did a program designed to help at-risk youth became a parking place for a legislator who found herself in need of a job after she discovered it was pretty much an impossibility to serve in the Legislature and perform her job as a teacher in Madison County, a job where she had gotten a substitute to take her place when she needed to be in the Legislature?
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| Seth Hammett |
If you believe the testimony of former postsecondary chancellor Roy Johnson and Speaker of the House Seth Hammett it did – with substantial help from them after they both received requests from AEA director Dr. Paul Hubbert and in the case of Hammett, directly from Schmitz herself.
Hammett says, “She came to my office to ask me for assistance. She was not able to continue her job as a teacher. [She] asked me to make a change in the budget for the Community Intensive Training for Youth (CITY) program so a job that was available would be funded.”
Defense attorney Buck Watson told the jury the Legislature is a part-time job and legislators have to have other means of income. “She had to quit from the Legislature or find another job. She wanted to stay in education and she wanted to continue building her teacher’s retirement. She talked to people at random and she talked to people she knew had contacts to help find her a job.”
He says that’s what people do every day to find work. “I don’t think I’d go to the man cutting the grass (to help find a job). First she went to Dr. Paul Hubbert, director of her professional association. He will testify here I hope and he will say she is appreciated. He knew Sue well. She’d been supportive and he wanted to help her. He called Dr. Roy Johnson; said Sue Schmitz needs a job. That was the end of that conversation.”
Johnson said he received two requests for help for Sue Schmitz after the November 2002 elections. “I met with the Speaker and he asked me if we could be of assistance in finding employment.” He said Hubbert told him Schmitz was “having a difficult time with her [school] board.”
Johnson then “looked across our system to see what we might have available or could be created in the area in which she lived.” He said he considered Calhoun Community College and Drake “but I didn’t have a resume, didn’t know much about her.” Those schools also fell under a federal consent decree (Shufford) related to the system’s hiring practices and put certain requirements in place such as posting jobs and making hiring decisions based on merit to ensure equal opportunity for all applicants.
He said he told Dr. Jim Cornell, president of Central Alabama Community College (CACC) that “I have a request from Hammett and Paul Hubbert and asked if he’d look at it. There was no opening in CITY, the program was struggling.” ‘
What Johnson told Cornell came closer to a commandment than a suggestion. “It took on the connotation of more than a request. It took on the connotation this is something we need to do.”
“Paul Hubbert and I have been friends and political allies for 40 years. He didn’t call me often, when he did call…it was important to him…Dr. Hubbert didn’t ask for many things. I knew he was an important political ally as we sought to get our budget funding. He would get votes together in the Legislature as we would gather votes together in the Legislature.”
Cornell eventually told Johnson he could “work out employment but wanted assurances we would fund the CITY program and I gave him that assurance.”
But, according to Johnson, after Schmitz got the position and after an Ethics Commission decision regarding flexible work schedules and the need to properly document work.
Johnson testified he began to get reports from CACC president Susan Salatto that the acting director of the CITY program Larry Palmer “was complaining to her Sue Schmitz did not show up for work…didn’t show up at all and I asked the president and director to make sure she understood the policies.”
He said at a November 2005 meeting Palmer said Schmitz didn’t show up. Schmitz said he didn’t give her a proper description of duties.
Defense attorney Buck Watson says, “First off Sue Schmitz was never assigned to the Huntsville, Alabama office…She didn’t have a person to whom she was reporting (in Huntsville) She was assigned to Ed Earnest operating out of Pelham, Talladega. She had no real obligation to be in the Huntsville office.”
He told the jury in his opening statement that Larry Palmer “never had a session with her, never went anywhere with her, never gave her an opportunity…”
Johnson said in his testimony he expected Schmitz, “to show up. Keep a daily log of her work. Time spent in the Legislature could not count as work for CITY…She stated to me, “Well every day I’m at the Legislature I’m working for the CITY program.”
In later cross examination by the defense Johnson further stated, Schmitz “did not seem to understand her work in the Legislature couldn’t substitute for her work in the CITY program.”
Johnson said at the meeting Schmitz was given a copy of the flextime policy and clear expectations were set. Defense attorney Buck Watson said talk by prosecutors and others about Schmitz’s progress reports and timesheets and logs not being submitted were not Schmitz’s fault. “These progress reports, the timesheets, the logs – are a shambles, filled out different ways at different offices.”
Watson told the jury, “I want to talk from my heart about timesheets. I don’t think she put down one bit of time she didn’t work.” He said she was told “you’ve got to report it that way; everybody does 8 hours a day/five days a week.” He says IF “there was a mistake in judgment it is an honest mistake in judgment and does not turn it (timesheet issue) into a crime.” He says Larry Palmer signed off on “every one of them. Some of the timesheets the workers in the office filled out for the employees and then they came in and signed them.”
In December Johnson says he had another meeting with Palmer. “I gave Mr. Palmer two instructions: First, you have my full support to act as director and I expect you to. Second, if Ms. Schmitz continues not to be in compliance he should be in writing to her and that would be the first step in a disciplinary process.” In June 2006, Johnson “directed him to follow up again in writing to Ms. Schmitz about being in compliance with our policy.” In October of 2006 Schmitz’s contract was not renewed.
Johnson remained fairly steady under cross examination from defense attorney Jake Watson who got Johnson to admit he had not always been truthful with prosecutors:
“You’ve always been truthful with them?”
Johnson: “In my initial meeting with them I was probably less than truthful and less than forthcoming in that meeting.” Johnson was a sympathetic figure as he explained later, “When it came to family matters I was more protective of my family and children than I should have been.”
Johnson told Watson he didn’t recall whether or not prosecutors had asked about Sue Schmitz in their first meeting. “I’m sure they did but I don’t specifically recall.”
Johnson’s most personal moment came when asked by Assistant U.S. Attorney Athenas asked about earlier grand jury testimony and how long Johnson expected to spend in prison.
“My children, I was trying to protect them…At age 63 I have admitted publicly my failings. If I have an opportunity to live out any part of my life with my wife and family I’ll consider myself blessed.”
As for Hammett, as mentioned earlier, he says Schmitz came to him asking him to increase funding for the CITY program. Under questioning Hammett was asked if Schmitz told him specifically why the money was needed. “So that she could change jobs,” said Hammett. He says Hubbert told him to “expect a visit from Sue Schmitz… [He] said she was going to come see me because she was going to need to change jobs.”
Hammett told Hubbert “I’d be glad to help. I met with Richard Lindsay, chairman of Education Appropriations Committee.” Asked why he met with Lindsay, Hammett said he “met with Lindsay to effect change in the budget because she asked me and Paul Hubbert asked me.”
He said he met with Roy Johnson and “I said to him (Johnson) I said if that job was provided I would do my best to provide funding.”
But Hammett had to eat some of his previous grand jury testimony during cross examination by defense attorney Jake Watson. Watson went over Hammett’s grand jury testimony in which Hammett said “I can’t honestly say that she sought that position but I knew that she got it.”
Asked about that, Hammett said, “I hadn’t thought about that in five years. I was trying to remember… I certainly don’t recall saying get yourself a job and we’ll get you some money in the budget.”
Watson said to Hammett, “Different testimony today?” Hammett responded, “I’ll admit I hadn’t thought about it for a long time.”
At that point Judge Proctor invited all the attorneys for a little discussion in the back.
In the beginning trials general favor the prosecution because they get to put on their evidence first, in this case prosecutors laid a good foundation, but the defense will later get a chance to punch a few holes.
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Seth Hammett for Governor in ‘10?
ForgetAboutIt!
Things like this are what happens when you allow one party to control things continously for over 100 years.
dan t is completely right. All this controversy should lead to an interesting election in 2010, not to mention that with each passing election Alabamians who use to vote D as part of the solid south die off or cross the isle.
For years Hammett parades himself on TV and in public as some aloof deep thinker. He is aloof but not because he thinks, but because he manipulates in order to cover up for his bosses up the food chain. The speaker of the house is merely a pivot man in the circle jerk of corrupt payoffs, at least in Alabama. I predict Hammett will run for Governor.