Lawyers contest latest indictment in Walters case

Kim Smith

Friday, Sept. 22, 2000 | 10:29 a.m.

Attorneys for golf course developer Billy Walters were hoping this morning to get the indictment against their client dismissed for the third time, this time for good.

Walters has been indicted three times on money laundering charges. Twice the charges were dismissed because of errors made during the grand jury process.

At a hearing that began this morning before District Judge Mark Gibbons, Walters' attorney, Richard Wright, was again arguing that the grand jury proceedings were tainted.

Prosecutors with the state attorney general's office say Walters, James Jay Hanley, Daniel Pray and John Tognino are guilty of money laundering because they allegedly collected on bets made over the telephone to bookmakers out of the state.

Wright, however, argues in court documents that the deputy attorney general who presented the case against Walters made errors when explaining money laundering statutes to the grand jurors and allowed a great deal of evidence to be presented that tainted the jury.

One-fourth of the testimony heard by the grand jurors came from New York detective Edward Galanek, who had nothing to do with Walters' case, Wright said.

Galanek "pontificated" at great length about organized crime and bookmaking and told several irrelevant stories about cases he had worked on, Wright said.

"Without question, the tenor of Galanek's testimony was that the defendants were engaged in transactions with organized crime families in New York and likely paid organized crime families 'tribute' money," Wright complained. "Galanek's storytelling about such a relationship was entirely speculative. Galanek admitted he had no personal knowledge of and did not work on this case."

In fact, Wright said, prosecutors prevented him from testifying about those very things during the first two grand jury proceedings because they knew it was improper, but allowed him to go on and on during the third proceeding.

Wright also alleges that the prosecutors allowed witnesses to testify about police search warrants and wiretaps, which may have prejudiced the grand jurors.

In addition, Wright said grand jurors heard a witness who wasn't a qualified expert testify about computer data and received documents from another witness with no personal knowledge about them.