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Alleged briber of W.D. Childers on trial
©Associated Press
December 3, 2002
SHALIMAR -- A real estate salesman went on trial Monday, charged with bribing two now-suspended Escambia County commissioners, including ex-Florida Senate President W.D. Childers.
Joe Elliott is accused of bribing Childers and Willie Junior to vote for the county's purchase of a former soccer complex in Pensacola from Elliott and his wife, Georgann. She also has been charged with bribery-related crimes and will be tried separately.
A six-member jury and two alternates were selected for the husband's trial Monday. The trial is expected to last all week.
It will be a preview of the state's case against Childers, set for trial March 31. Childers also is charged with bribing Junior to vote for the $3.9-million soccer deal last year by giving him a steel cooking pot filled with up to $90,000 in cash.
Junior has pleaded no contest to several corruption charges in exchange for a promise of no more than 18 months in prison. He has agreed to testify against Childers and the Elliotts. Junior has told prosecutors that Joe Elliott gave him $10,000.
The Elliotts' trials have been moved to Okaloosa County because of extensive media coverage of the case in Pensacola.
Childers and Junior are among four of Escambia's five commissioners who were suspended by Gov. Jeb Bush after being indicted on various corruption charges.
An Escambia County Court jury in June convicted Childers on a misdemeanor count of violating Florida's open-government Sunshine Law by discussing public business in private with another suspended commissioner.
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