TALLAHASSEE, Fla. — The opening statements in Andrew Gillum’s federal corruption trial on Tuesday were stark contrasts in viewpoints.
Either the former Tallahassee mayor who narrowly lost the 2018 governor’s race to Ron DeSantis was pretending not to take bribes from undercover FBI agents, as prosecutors allege, or he was really refusing to take bribes.
Either Gillum’s brother knew everything that Gillum was doing, as prosecutors allege, or his brother was just a troubled blowhard pretending to know.
How jurors view the situations over the next three weeks could decide the fate of the one-time rising star in the Florida Democratic Party, who is facing single counts of lying to FBI agents and conspiracy and 17 counts of wire fraud.
In a standing-room-only courtroom on Tuesday, Assistant U.S. Attorney Gary Milligan described a complicated web of contributions, bank transactions and text messages that he said showed Gillum scheming with his mentor and co-defendant, Sharon Lettman-Hicks, to illegally steer campaign money into his own pockets.
Milligan told jurors that Gillum was desperate for money after leaving a $120,000-per-year job with the progressive organization People for the American Way in 2016 to run for Florida governor.
With only his $70,000-per-year mayor’s salary, Gillum’s financial situation was “not ideal,” Milligan said. He had debts, including two expensive cars, house cleaners and private school payments for his kids.
To make up for it, Lettman-Hicks put him on the payroll at her company, P&P Communications, but the company wasn’t making any money from communications, Milligan said. Instead, the company was being paid in campaign contributions to do get-out-the-vote efforts and other work that never happened, he said.
At the same time, undercover FBI agents posing as developers were delving into Tallahassee corruption. Milligan said their initial target was local developer J.T. Burnette, who is now serving a federal prison sentence on corruption charges.
At the time, Gillum was not on the FBI’s “radar screen,” Milligan said, but the undercover agents hired Gillum’s friend, Adam Corey.
The agents befriended Corey and Gillum’s brother, Marcus. The agents pretended they were interested in building projects in Tallahassee, and they proposed campaign contributions in exchange for Andrew Gillum’s support for the projects.
Andrew Gillum repeatedly told the undercover agents that they should “separate in their mind’s eye” the idea of tying campaign contributions to the projects. Milligan told jurors that Gillum was trying to have it both ways: taking bribes without acknowledging he was taking bribes.
“He wants something to happen, but he doesn’t want to take responsibility for it,” Milligan said.
Ultimately, Gillum “didn’t take a bribe,” Milligan told jurors.
The government accuses Gillum of soliciting political contributions under false pretenses, routing the money through Lettman-Hicks’ communications company, and then distributing the money to Gillum.
Although prosecutors have hours of recorded phone calls, text messages, emails and bank statements, they appear to have little direct evidence that Gillum was orchestrating the alleged fraud scheme. Instead, Milligan said Gillum was “working through other people.”
Undercover agents became aware of Lettman-Hicks’ company through Gillum’s brother, Milligan said.
“His brother knows everything he’s doing,” Milligan said.
But one of Gillum’s lawyers, Anita Moss, described a political prosecution that placed a “target” on Gillum’s back. She said prosecutors didn’t have a single piece of evidence that Gillum knew about anything wrong or potentially fraudulent.
As for Gillum’s brother, he was “the troubled kid” in the family who knew nothing about politics and just wanted to impress his brother, Moss said.
“He’s literally a car salesman,” Moss said of Marcus Gillum. “He knows how to talk.”
Moss said Andrew Gillum knew the undercover agents were trying to bribe him, and he told his lawyer, Tallahassee lobbyist Sean Pittman, to tell the “developers” to reiterate that Gillum wouldn’t be bribed.
In 2016, the undercover agents plied Gillum’s brother and Corey with drinks and dinners. They also paid for Andrew Gillum’s ticket to the hit Broadway show “Hamilton,” one night in a New York hotel and a boat trip around the Statue of Liberty in 2016, prosecutors said.
Gillum never reported those gifts, and when he was asked about it by FBI agents in 2017, he denied receiving them, Milligan said.
Moss said FBI agents never asked Gillum about the New York trip during that interview. She said the interview was “a trap” by FBI agents to catch him off guard during a ribbon-cutting ceremony.
Lettman-Hicks’ attorney, Mutaqee Akbar, told jurors that federal prosecutors were misinterpreting the payments to her communications company. Some of the money was to mask $250,000 in political contributions from billionaire donor Donald Sussman, who didn’t want other candidates knowing he donated to Gillum in the primary, Akbar said.
In any case, the money was approved by accountants and other organizations, he said.
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