State: Welcome to Escambia County

PENSACOLA -- Carrying a battered briefcase, W.D. Childers still shows up at his private office these days, even though he has been indicted, suspended from his County Commission seat and is caught in a political scandal that's unfolding like a bestselling legal thriller.

"What do you want me to do? Cry and weep and moan because I got suspended? I've got plenty to do," said Childers, who has an old sign over his computer that says "W.D. Childers, Dean of the Florida Senate," a legacy of his 30 years in the Legislature.

Childers left the Senate two years ago because of term limits and won a seat on the Escambia County Commission. Nothing around here has been the same since.

Even by Florida standards, the Escambia scandal is a doozy. Four out of five county commissioners were indicted in April on corruption charges.

Not only does the drama revolve around the 68-year-old Childers, one of the quirkiest politicians in state history, it has a dizzying cast of characters and plenty of intrigue:

-- A cigar-chomping car salesman who says he peeled $8,000 from a wad of cash in his pocket and laid it in a county commissioner's palm. ("I always keep some cash in my pocket," he said later. "It's not uncommon.")

-- A couple who say they used their profits from a land deal to buy breast implants for their son's wife ("I was tired of wearing a training bra," she said in court.)

-- Thousands of dollars mysteriously wired to a company that runs a gambling boat off the coast of Mississippi.

-- A married county commissioner who, as a political favor, got someone to buy his girlfriend a bedroom suite (She sent it back, saying it was too cheap.)

-- A star witness who owns a funeral home with a drive-through window so people can view the deceased without getting out of their cars.

Gov. Jeb Bush replaced the indicted commissioners while the trials grind on. The political spectacle spawned a courthouse joke: You can't spell Escambia without scam.

County land buys

It started with a pair of questionable county land purchases and widened from there.

In November, the County Commission bought a soccer complex for $3.9-million, the largest county land deal ever. Three months later, the commission voted to spend $2.3-million more on an old car dealership. There was no public discussion. Both parcels were bought from Pensacola real estate agent Joe Elliott, a longtime friend of Childers. Elliott made $830,000 on the two sales, according to the Pensacola News Journal.

Commission observers said the land deals were part of a series of too-predictable votes. It looked like some of the commissioners were working out deals beforehand, which is illegal. It wasn't even clear why the county bought the properties.

The News Journal raised questions, and 1st Judicial Circuit State Attorney Curtis Golden soon was investigating. His inquiry quickly expanded, and led to charges that county commissioners were meeting in secret to discuss all sorts of public business, including county building contracts, the landfill and new voting districts. Some of the conversations happened over lunches of country-fried venison and Whataburgers.

Golden filed a slew of felony charges against the commissioners, including bribery, racketeering, money laundering, extortion and grand theft. Some of the charges stem from alleged bribes surrounding the two county land deals. Others suggest a County Commission that traded its votes for cash and favors from local developers, engineers and real estate agents.

Among those indicted is Republican Commissioner Mike Bass, 56, on charges that he solicited campaign cash from developers in exchange for votes. With a felony trial hanging over his head, Bass announced he won't run for re-election this fall.

The state's star witness is indicted Commissioner Willie Junior, a 60-year-old Democrat who is the longest-serving member of the commission, and the only black ever to serve on the board. Junior pleaded guilty and cut a deal for less jail time. Now he's telling tales of cash changing hands, shakedowns of local developers, and more. Among other things, Junior said he borrowed $90,000 from Childers and took a $10,000 cash bribe from a local real estate agent.

So far, two commissioners have been convicted on misdemeanor charges of breaking the state's Government-in-the-Sunshine Law, which bars officials from discussing the public's business in private.

Childers and Commissioner Terry Smith, 46, called the local elections supervisor at home and told her where they wanted new County Commission voting district lines drawn.

Childers was acquitted of two other Sunshine Law violations and got a hung jury on a third. He mounted an unusual defense: He talked to other commissioners, but they didn't talk back. These were monologues, he said, so no illegal "discussions" took place. His broader defense was that he's paying the price for shaking up an already-corrupt county.

"I stepped on everybody's toes," he said. "'I don't think I missed anybody."

During Childers' trial, an acting county attorney testified that she once heard Childers say: "The Sunshine Law can kiss my grits."

That's unusually G-rated for Childers, a salty frog-catching champion who once called a political opponent "just a damn sniveling, whining, snotty, snot-slinging, cry-baby pretty boy."

Childers has hired South Florida criminal defense attorney Richard Lubin to defend him on bribery, extortion, racketeering and grand theft charges. Lubin has a roster of high-profile clients, including one of America's most famous lawyers, F. Lee Bailey, who was disbarred in Florida.

During 30 years of public life, Childers has faced myriad allegations, including a statewide grand jury investigation.

In an interview two years ago, he laughed it all off: "I'll take the heat for a lot of people for things I didn't do," he said. "I figure everything they wrote about me, I had it coming somewhere else for something they didn't catch me at."

Probe widens

The scandal also has spawned a major investigation into Anderson Columbia, one of Florida's biggest road builders.

"The grand jury began by investigating the Board of County Commissioners and some of their actions," said State Attorney Golden. "Along the way, we discovered information that caused us to expand our investigation into Anderson Columbia."

That information came when Mike Murphy, a car dealer and local politico, started talking. Initially, he waved a cigar around and pleaded the Fifth Amendment during a deposition. Later, the 64-year-old Murphy got an immunity deal and told prosecutors plenty, including that he was on Anderson Columbia's payroll.

That raised eyebrows: Two Florida lawmakers -- former House Speaker Bo Johnson of Pensacola and Randy Mackey of Lake City -- also were once paid by Anderson Columbia. Both served prison terms for not reporting the income.

Murphy said he paid some money and did favors for commissioners, but didn't pass any Anderson Columbia money on to them.

Anderson Columbia's presence looms large in Pensacola because it has a whopping $1.5-billion lawsuit pending against the Pensacola News Journal over investigative stories the paper did about the company's influence.

Now, Golden is looking into those allegations and presenting evidence to the grand jury.

Golden, 68, is Florida's longest-serving state attorney, and he knows nearly everyone involved in the scandal. Childers controlled his state budget for years. One of Childers' daughters works for Golden, so he reassigned her to the juvenile crimes division. One of Childers' lawyers, the wealthy trial attorney Fred Levin, is Golden's friend.

Judges were imported from nearby Okaloosa County because local judges have too many conflicts of interest.

"It's never easy," Golden said, "particularly when it involves people you've been friends with and done business with in the county."

The rhetoric around town has become hot enough that Levin, for whom the University of Florida law school is named, drew a Florida Bar complaint for calling indicted Commissioner Junior a "rat fink."

The county also was hit with a sexual harassment lawsuit from an employee who says she had an affair with Junior. The county wanted to settle the case in May, but couldn't because so many commissioners had been indicted that there was no quorum. The replacement commissioners settled the suit.

Junior also is reportedly struggling to hold onto his funeral home business, the one with the drive-through window.

'Better than abortion shootings'

For years, Pensacola has been known as a conservative, Bible-belt city, the place where antiabortion activists murdered two abortion doctors. The radio dial is filled with sermons.

While the trials continue at the courthouse, a marquee at Pensacola Beach advertises the international gathering of Christian surfers. The downtown civic center is putting on Grace 2002, a Christian music festival.

But the Pensacola News Journal is filled with bad news on the local government front.

Local columnist Mark O'Brien suggests putting up a plaque at a soccer complex where Junior says he accepted a $10,000 "loan" from local real estate agent Joe Elliott just before the county voted to buy it. (Prosecutors say Elliott wired $231,000 to a company that owns a gambling boat in Mississippi the day after the county approved the land buy, though it's not clear why.)

"If they have time, tourists can also visit the Escambia County Courthouse to see the halls and offices where commissioners allegedly hit up developers for dough," O'Brien wrote.

Former County Attorney David Tucker said the scandal has hurt Pensacola's reputation.

"It's better than abortion shootings, I guess," he said.

Tucker said he could paper his walls with the subpoenas he's gotten.

Everybody in town talks about the scandals, trading theories.

Most intriguing are the tales being told by Murphy, the car dealer. Once he got immunity, he told Golden that Anderson Columbia hired him to help the company get county business.

"They had been told I had friends, you know, on the commission," Murphy said in a deposition.

Murphy denied passing the Anderson Columbia money on to commissioners. But he said he did loan $8,000 to Junior and bought a bedroom suite for Junior's girlfriend. He also paid a printing bill for Commissioner Smith. He said he's always done favors, including loaning cars for free to off-duty police officers.

He touted his friendships with the politically powerful, including Florida Attorney General Bob Butterworth and U.S. District Judge Lacey Collier.

Murphy said Anderson Columbia also hired him to get information about the News Journal, including names of former employees who would talk badly about the paper.

Murphy couldn't remember how much money Anderson Columbia paid him, but thought it was somewhere between $100,000 and $150,000 over several years. He said he had no written agreement, but would periodically call Anderson Columbia co-chairman Joey Anderson III and ask for money.

"I just called Joey," he said. "I said, "Joey you need to send me a check,' I think is basically all I ever said, and sometimes he'd send me $3,000, sometimes he would send me $2,500."

"Mr. Golden, I got over $100,000-plus . . . in four or five years . . . that ain't no money."

Said Golden: "Well, I beg to differ that $100,000 isn't money, but that's beside the point."

Golden said his resources have been stretched by all the cases the scandal has spawned. He expects the trials to go on through next year.

Each trial draws a gaggle of courthouse watchers, there to see what comes to light next.

Most say the county is clearly in crisis.

Not Childers.

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Lucy Morgan

From the Times state desk