By Ivana Krynkiw

July 15, 2018 - The prosecution rested Thursday afternoon in the federal bribery trial for a Drummond executive and two Balch & Bingham lawyers.

The trial will resume Monday after a break Friday.

Among the last few witnesses in the prosecution's case on Thursday was an FBI agent's testimony about her interview with one defendant and the grand jury testimony of another.

Thursday morning FBI Special Agent Ashley Hunt took the stand first and talked about her interview with Drummond VP of Government Affairs David Roberson. Later, prosecutors with the U.S. Attorneys Office read aloud the transcript of Balch lawyer Steven McKinney's grand jury testimony. The grand jury testimony of Joel Gilbert, another Balch lawyer, was read aloud Wednesday.

McKinney, Gilbert, and Roberson each face six criminal charges relating to what investigators call a bribe to former state Rep. Oliver Robinson. They claim the three bribed Robinson to oppose the expansion and prioritizing of an Environmental Protection Agency Superfund site, because Drummond could have been responsible for the costly cleanup.

Thursday marks the end of week three of the trial.

Gilbert and McKinney testified before the federal grand jury that later indicted them, while Roberson gave a voluntary interview to Hunt. Robinson, who has pleaded guilty in the case and testified against the other three men, didn't speak in front of the grand jury.

According to Hunt, Roberson started working for Drummond in 2011. He said he had known Robinson since 1998, and the two had a "professional friendship." In 2013, when the EPA tapped Drummond as a potentially responsible party for the north Birmingham Superfund site, Roberson told Hunt that the company needed help and hired Balch.

Roberson told Hunt that the environmental group GASP was in the Superfund site and surrounding areas "badmouthing Drummond," and that plaintiff lawyers were knocking on residents' doors trying to get them to sign up for lawsuits. If the Superfund was listed on the EPA's National Priorities List and expanded into Inglenook and Tarrant, Drummond would have probably lost the ABC Coke plant in Tarrant, he said. That plant is a big money maker for Drummond, and the company didn't want to lose it.

He said in late 2014, Balch suggested forming the Alliance for Jobs and the Economy to go into the communities and "put out facts instead of fiction." AJE was a better way to hire several entities for work on the matter, he said, and Drummond already was consulting with Strada and Matrix through Balch. Roberson said he remembered the local magazine Robinson published, and thought the then-state representative would be good for doing public relations work.

The area designated in the Superfund isn't in Robinson's district, and Roberson said he didn't think Robinson would be on the ground doing the community outreach.

Roberson met with Robinson in the fall of 2014 and saw the proposal weeks later. He discussed the contract with Drummond CEO Mike Tracy and they negotiated it, agreed to it, and wrote a check. Roberson told Hunt that Robinson's daughter, Amanda, and a man named John Powe did most of the work, and Robinson "was the brain behind it."

Roberson told Hunt the payments worked like this: Balch received invoices from Robinson's foundation, the Oliver Robinson Foundation, which completed the work. Balch then invoiced AJE for the specific amount of money Robinson was owed, and AJE paid Balch. Then, Balch paid the foundation. Sometimes, Drummond had to pay the check instead of AJE.

When asked about the Alabama Environmental Management Commission meeting Robinson spoke at in 2015, Roberson said he did not discuss the meeting with Robinson or suggest he speak. Roberson thought speaking at the commission was a "waste of time." He didn't know Balch sent a lawyer to the meeting, either.

When asked on cross examination, Hunt said the only evidence showing Roberson asked Robinson to speak at AEMC was Robinson's testimony.

ADEM was "playing both sides," Roberson told Hunt, so he met with them and encouraged them to get more involved. He also met with David Byrne and former Birmingham Mayor William Bell, but "Bell did not want to get involved."

Hunt also talked about excerpts she pulled from the Balch billing records, which lawyers have quoted from over the past two weeks in the trial. Hunt gathered time entries from the firm regarding work done on or with ADEM, AEMC, then-Gov. Robert Bentley's office, then-Attorney General Luther Strange's office, Robinson, and Powe.

Defense attorneys said those excerpts, however, don't show the full time described in the mens' indictments nor do they provide a context as to what work was actually being done.

Hunt said she wasn't aware of any meeting between McKinney and Robinson, but told the grand jury that the three men all met with Robinson prior to his AEMC appearance. "My answer was true regarding Mr. Gilbert and Mr. Roberson," she said.

McKinney's grand jury testimony was also read aloud in court. After explaining the history of the EPA's north Birmingham Superfund site and how those sites were handled, he said the EPA was "exaggerating the condition of the site."

McKinney said he didn't have any contact regarding the AEMC meeting, and his involvement with the Drummond matters at Balch was minimal. He was the environmental department head at Balch, and that job required mentoring other lawyers and giving them advice. Because of his role, he helped lawyers prepare Drummond's answers to EPA questions and participated in discussions about what the next step was. He and then-ADEM Dir. Lance LeFleur were friends, and McKinney said it wasn't unusual for LeFleur to update him on something the department was doing that involved a Balch client that wasn't confidential.

A former Balch lawyer who worked in the environmental section, Irving Jones, testified Thursday afternoon. He said that under the directon of Gilbert, he drafted the letter Robinson sent to AEMC as a request to speak. Jones said he also reviewed a presentation by GASP and, under the directon of Gilbert, prepared counter arguments to the group's points. 

He said the arguments he formed and sent to Gilbert were very similar to those used by AEMC commissioners who questioned GASP's presentation. 

Jones also said he was ordered to draft the letters that Tarrant residents later signed and were sent to the EPA. Gilbert told Jones to revise the drafts, though, and "dumb them down a bit." Jones said Gilbert told him, "Irving Jones, how many degrees do you have? The people who are signing these letters may not have three degrees." 

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