Espy trial gets underway

Prosecutors call former Agriculture secretary 'chronically short of money'

By Ted Barrett/CNN

WASHINGTON (October 1) -- Former Agriculture Secretary Mike Espy was a "super sports fan" whose complaints about being "chronically short of money" made him vulnerable to agriculture businesses wanting to influence his policies, Independent Counsel Donald Smaltz said as Espy's trial began Thursday.

Espy is on trial on 38 counts of accepting gifts and then lying about it.

"He was easy picking for companies that wanted to slip him something special," Smaltz said.

Smaltz, the independent counsel appointed by Attorney General Janet Reno to investigate Espy, said the then-Agriculture secretary once told an unnamed member of the cabinet that administration ethics rules "are a bunch of junk" and that he would "do what I did in Congress."

Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Carol Browner is scheduled to testify at the trial Friday.

Espy's defense lawyer, Theodore Wells Jr., countered that image, saying Espy was a hard-working secretary who improved food safety and expanded rural development but who made mistakes that are now being exaggerated as criminal.

"It's not a crime to make a mistake," Wells said in his opening statement.

Wells told the mostly black jury that Espy, who is African American, faced critics of his appointment because the former Mississippi congressman was "too young, from the wrong state and from the wrong race."

Wells told jurors Espy thinks there is a GOP plot to get him.

Espy is charged with accepting $35,000 worth of luggage, tickets to sporting events, limousine rides and other gifts from Tyson's Foods, Sun-Diamond Growers, Quaker Oats and other agricultural firms or their lobbyists. The firms are regulated by the U.S. Department of Agriculture (U.S.D.A).

Wells told the jury that Espy never allowed gifts to influence his decision-making.

But Espy is not accused of taking bribes. He is, in part, accused of accepting gifts in violation of the Meat Inspection Act of 1907 which prohibits any U.S.D.A. employee from accepting gifts from any one under the regulation of the department.

"The government doesn't have to prove Espy changed policy because of the gifts," Smaltz said.

Wells said Espy was, at times, the victim of his friends who often did not tell Espy that sporting event and plane tickets were paid for by companies under his jurisdiction.

For example, the government charges Espy with receiving U.S. Open tennis tickets from Richard Douglas, a lobbyist for Sun-Diamond Growers of California, a large farmers cooperative regulated by the U.S.D.A. The tickets, and limousine rides to and from the event, are valued at $4,446.

The government accuses Espy of knowingly accepting a gift from a lobbyist but Wells argued that Espy was told by Douglas, a friend from his college days, that Douglas had purchased the tickets. Espy thought he was receiving a legal gift from a friend, he said.

What Douglas did not tell Espy, Wells said, was that Douglas received reimbursement from Sun-Diamond for the expense.

Smaltz told the jury that Espy put his personal interests ahead of his official duties.

But Wells painted a different picture of Espy, the first black Agriculture secretary who resigned his office after these allegations surfaced.

Wells said Espy grew up in the Mississippi Delta, the poorest area of one of the nation's poorest states. He was the son of a funeral home owner and brought up in the black church. After college at Howard University in the District of Columbia, he attended law school in California before returning home to work for Legal Services, the federal agency that provides legal support for the poor.

Espy became the first black associate attorney general in Mississippi before being elected to Congress, the first African American sent to Washington from Mississippi in 100 years, according to Wells.

Wells countered Smaltz's argument that Espy is a fanatical sports fan. He told the jury that in question are tickets to five sporting events over a 14-month period.

The trial is expected to last two months.