Packet #834 - July 2, 2009Feds drop charges
against Nate Smith in Crimestoppers case
Former Columbus Police Officer Nate will not go on trial in federal court in Aberdeen Monday in the Crimestoppers embezzlement case that also involves former West Point Police Officer Boone Lairy. Yesterday the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Oxford dismissed the embezzlement charge against Smith. The charge was dropped after Smith took a polygraph test in Oxford on Monday, but his attorney, Carrie Jourdan, said that the polygraph test was just the last step in a long process to convince federal officials that Smith had no involvement in the case.
Smith, 42, said yesterday that he is relieved that the charges have been dropped but said he now wants to find out why he was ever charged at all. He said that he had served in Iraq and on the police force and was indicted on “the word of a crack-head”—a reference to police Ramona Brooks, an unindicted co-conspirator (this is not the daughter of Dist. 5 Supervisor Leroy Brooks, also named Ramona).
Jourdan said that she is pleased that the charge was dropped and credited Asst. U.S. Attorney Robert Mims with “doing the right thing.” She said that as bad as it was
for Smith, it could have been worse: she
said that federal authorities at first did not want to grant him bond, because of allegations that he had threatened a witness.
Lairy’s trial will proceed as scheduled on Monday. A third defendant, Shawnda Holliday of Aberdeen, pled guilty in February to one count of conspiracy in connection with the case. She was sentenced to three years’ probation last month. Involved in the alleged conspiracy but not indicted was Ramona Brooks of Columbus (not Supervisor Leroy Brooks’s daughter, who is also named Ramona). It appears that Brooks and Holliday will both testify in Lairy’s trial next week. Lairy is accused of using his position as Crimestoppers administrator to pay Holliday and Brooks for bogus tips and then split the money with them.
Smith, Holliday and Lairy were charged in October 2008. Smith with conspiracy to embezzle government funds after he was named by Brooks, along with Lairy, as an accomplice in the scheme. Holliday never accused Smith of involvement and in fact reportedly told authorities that she didn’t know him.
Smith said yesterday that the alleged embezzlements ran from 2003 to 2008. He noted that he was serving in Iraq for a year during 2003 and 2004 and that he returned to the police force in 2004 but left in 2006 for medical reasons.
Smith said that he was arrested at his home by federal marshals in October 2008. “I’m in bed asleep and the feds knock on my door with the SWAT team around my house. They’ve got M-4s and M-16s and I have no idea why they’re there. They came at me hard.”
Smith said that he was taken to Aberdeen and placed in a federal holding cell, where he was given a copy of his indictment. He said he read that he and Boone Lairy conspired to steal Crimestoppers funds. He said he had never heard of Lairy before and asked aloud, “Who is Boone Lairy?” and a stranger in the cell responded, “It’s me.”
Smith said that Lairy told federal agents from the beginning that he and Smith did not know each other. “They thought we were lying,” Smith said, referring to the federal officials.
Smith said that he was indicted because of Brooks’s allegations. He asked, “How did Nathan Smith come up in a federal case? He’s got nothing to do with nothing but her [Brooks’s] word.”
Smith said that he hired Jourdan to represent him on the day that he was arrested and that both of them had been asking for a polygraph test from the beginning. He said that a test was finally scheduled for Monday. “I guess they finally started listening to me,” he added. He he drove himself to Oxford and answered all the questions put to him and passed them all.
Smith said that Brooks told the federal investigators that she scammed the money from Crimestoppers on false tips and then split it with him and Lairy. “She said we were good buddies.”
The alleged Crimestoppers embezzlements were discovered when Lt. Jeff Guyton took over as head of the CPD’s Criminal Investigation Division in 2008. Guyton and Smith had served in Iraq together in the National Guard. Smith said of Guyton, “He’s been going around telling everybody I did it.” He added, “It’s my turn now. I’m going to find out why my name came up in the first place.”
Jourdan, who won national recognition for gaining Kennedy Brewer’s acquittal through DNA testing, said that there “was not one shred of evidence linking Nate Smith to the crime or to Boone Lairy. We produced a lot of documentation to show there’s no way he [Smith] could have gotten the Crimestopper codes [necessary to authorize payments] and we produced two years’ of cell phone records. If there was any wrongdoing Nate was in no way responsible. We were getting ready for trial and once the U.S. Attorney [Mims] took a close look at the evidence they did the right thing and dismissed the case.”
Jourdan described Brooks as a “very unreliable” witness and said that there was nothing to support her allegations. She added that Smith was “basically retired part of the time this was allegedly going on.” She said that even when Smith was on the police force he had nothing to do with Crimestoppers. “It just didn’t make sense,” she said.
Jourdan said that she tried unsuccessfully to sever Smith’s trial from Lairy’s. She said with the trial looming “they ultimately took a close look at the case and dismissed the charge.” She said that Mims “ultimately agreed with me and ran it by his boss. I think that the clincher was the polygraph. We’re so thrilled that the govenment did the right thing.”
“I’m excited,” Jourdan went on. I want to give Robert Mims credit. The snitch [Brooks] named Nate, and the other stuff she said proved to be true, but when he [Mims] reviewed the facts he did the right thing.”
Teen robbed at gunpoint Downtown at noon
Officer Bobby Webber searches Willie Edward Wallace after Wallace
was found hiding in a stand of cane near the Old Marble Works last
Friday afternoon.
A 19-year-old Columbus male was robbed at gunpoint by three males during the lunch hour last Friday near the CableOne office on College St. The robbers ran south on foot and the victim called 911.
Police rushed into the area and minutes later got a break when a motorist reported seeing a male throw a gun into a bush at the corner of 7th Ave. South & 4th St. Police were able to watch the streets on all four sides of the block and knew that at least one of the suspects was still in the block. Police walked the interior of the block and finally spotted a male hiding in a stand of heavy cane between Betty Land’s house and Joe and Carol Boggess’s house (Whitehall).
Officer James Grant reaches into the bushes for the pistol.
The suspect initially identified himself as Cortez Carr but officers finally determined that he is Willie Edward Wallace, 20, of 815 13th St. North, Apt. E-2. He denied throwing the gun into the bushes but officers concluded that they had a good circumstantial case against him because he was hiding 40 yards from the bushes. Wallace is charged with armed robbery. Police are still seeking the other two robbers.
The victim reportedly knew the robbers, but perhaps not by name. There are indications that the robbery involved an attempted drug deal. Police have not identified the victim but the Packet has been reliably informed that he is Joseph Miller, a West Point native now living in Columbus.
The investigation is continuing and police hope that anyone with information about the crime will call the Police Dept. or Crimestoppers.
Construction of middle school pushes CMSD
budget to $70 million
by Brian Jones
The Columbus Municipal School District is projecting $46,363,157 in revenues and $69,689,032 in expenditures for FY 09-10, officials announced at a June 30 budget hearing. This is an increase in expenditures of $5,267,308 and an increase in revenues of $3,208,450 over last fiscal year.
A major part of the projected expenditures are construction costs, which total $23.6 million. Most of the construction costs center around the new middle school.
"Those construction costs are something we do not normally have in the budget of this size," said Business Manager Ken Hughes. "We may have something smaller, but not $23 million worth. If you take the expenditures for construction out, we have total expenditures of $46,013,784. When you compare that to our revenue, you see that it's lining up a little more reasonably."
"An expenditure like that $23 million is going to show up about once every 30 years," Superintendent Del Phillips said.
The budget includes $349,373 in revenues over expenditures, Hughes said.
No tax increase is projected.
The largest source of revenue is from the state, which provides $21,939,548, an increase of $170,812 over last fiscal year. The largest state source is the Mississippi Adequate Education Program, which brings in $19,916,844; this is up slightly over last year's figure of $19,653,687. However, this figure is an estimate as no hard numbers had been announced by the state at the time of the budget hearing.
"We are projecting revenues, like every other school district, by using what was sent to us about a month ago by the governor's office," Phillips explained. "What they send us after the vote is taken by the legislature may change that. If it does, we'll do like every other school district and amend the budget once the state sends us the correct figure. We tried to take a conservative approach. We felt like this figure would be the least amount that the state would send us."
Other state revenue sources include $299,663 in educational enhancement funds; $345,244 in ad valorem tax reduction funds; $381,797 in homestead exemption reimbursement funds; $465,000 in vocational education funds; and $531,000 from other state sources.
Local revenue streams bring in $15,110,836. The largest amount of local funding is ad valorem taxation, which will bring in $13,674,136, an increase of $810,596 over last fiscal year. The district also receives $462,330 in interest income; $377,860 in food service sales; and $520,010 in "other local revenues."
Federal revenue accounts for $9,303,273, an increase of $1,804,974 over last fiscal year. Title I funding is the largest federal funding area, totaling $2,562,716. Child nutrition, the next highest amount, totals $2,604,000.
On the expenditure side, the largest area is facilities construction, which accounts for $23,675,248. The largest facility cost is construction of the new middle school at $18,659,982. Additions at Sale Elementary will cost $1,980,282; additions at Joe Cook Elementary cost $1,676,880; and additions to Stokes-Beard cost $1,358,104.
The next largest area of expenditure is instructional services, which totals $22,440,716, a decrease from last year's instructional costs of $22.9 million.
"We serve five K-4 schools and one intermediate school at Hunt," Hughes said. "Between those five schools, we are projecting 2,565 students. It will require 151 teachers and 46 paraprofessionals to serve those six buildings."
Elementary instructional costs total $10,700,811.
"In the middle school, we've got 665 students in grades seven and eight," Hughes said. There are 36 certified staff and one paraprofessional at Lee Middle School, he said.
The total middle school instructional budget is $2,351,707.
On the secondary level, the instructional budget is projected as $4,946,380.
"We are projecting 1,270 students," Hughes said. "We have 57 certified staff and three paraprofessionals there, and we offer 120 Carnegie Units."
Other instructional expenditures include:
• Gifted education: $339,082. This includes five certified staff and serves 165 students in grades two through eight.
• Special Education: $2,556,646. This includes 57 certified staff and 24 paraprofessionals. SPED is offered in all buildings.
• Alternative education: $304,774. This supports a K-12 alternative school with six certified staff and one paraprofessional, serving 85 students.
• Vocational: $1,241,316. Vocational programs serve 375 students. It includes 23 certified staff offering 10 career education programs at McKellar Technology Center and Tech Prep in grades seven through 12.
The district's support services budget is $17,268,339, an increase of $1,327,673. Non-instructional services expenditures total $2,452,405, up from last year's figure of $2,371,725.
Debt service expenditures are $3,736,684, and include $2,484,439 in principal; $1,198,269 in interest; and $18,000 in fees. This is an increase of $292,777 over last fiscal year.
The district's assessed valuation is $215,965,287, up from $188,205,074. This increase is due to the recent reassessment, Hughes said.
The CMSD is projecting an operational millage of 48.55 and a debt service millage of 11.42, for a total millage rate of 62.97. Last fiscal year, the operation millage was 53.30 and debt service was 11.50.
"When our assessed valuation went up in the most recent reassessment," Phillips added. "That reassessment is done every four years by law by the tax assessor. One important thing to note is what we've been able to do...our operational millage went down. Basically, everything that would have increased because of our appraised value increasing, we basically took that away on our operational millage. If you look across the state, most districts would have taken that extra millage and done something with it, but we actually went down 5 mills."
The district's tax request will be the same this year, and the district will take new property.
New steel company
will bring 65 jobs
At Tuesday’s board meeting, the Lowndes County Supervisors approved a memorandum of understanding with New Process Steel Co. that will result in construction of a $25 million facility employing 65 people. The supervisors agreed to pay a 10% match ($180,000) to secure a $1.8 million state economic development grant to help fund the project. The deal calls for New Process Steel to repay the county the $180,000, however. The county is basically escrowing the 10% match to secure the grant.
The New Process plant will take rolls of “thin” steel from the Severstal plant and slit and cut the steel to customer order. The plant will be located on approximately ten acres due north of the Severstal plant but south of the Industrial Park Road.
Link officials have been discussing the project with New Process officials for two years. Originally, Link officials hoped to bring New Process and two other steel finishers, Heidtman and Nova. The Heidtman and Nova projects were closely connected to a railroad boxcar manufacturing plant that ultimately was located in Decatur, Alabama. When that project did not materialize here and the global economy crashed the local Heidtman and Nova projects were abandoned.
