Federal prosecutors rest case in Lincoln Park retrial

Eric Tucker

Tuesday, July 26, 2005 | 9:23 a.m.

WORCESTER, Mass. -- After calling just two witnesses, federal prosecutors rested their case Monday against the Lincoln Park dog track and two former executives, who are charged with conspiring to offer up to $4 million to bribe the speaker of the Rhode Island House through his law firm.

David Brents, former chief financial officer of park owner Wembley USA, on Monday described several meetings he attended in which company executives discussed making payments to the law partner of former House Speaker John Harwood.

Brents recounted a January 2001 meeting in which Nigel Potter, former chief executive of Wembley's London-based parent company, Wembley PLC, and one of the executives on trial, called the proposed payments a retainer and referred to them as a "done deal."

Prosecutors have said the payments proposed to Harwood's law partner Dan McKinnon were instead a bribe meant to sway Harwood to muster legislative support for more video lottery machines at the Rhode Island dog track. They also hoped to shore up opposition to a rival casino proposed by the Narragansett Indian Tribe, prosecutors charge.

Defense lawyers have said the payments were never approved, and that they were meant to be a bonus for McKinnon's legal work on behalf of the dog track.

Daniel Bucci, the park's former general manager, is also charged in the alleged scheme. McKinnon rejected the payments, and neither he nor Harwood was charged.

On Monday Brents testified for a second day in U.S. District Court in Worcester, where the trial was moved after an earlier trial in Providence, R.I., ended in a hung jury on the most serious conspiracy charge and several wire fraud charges.

Brents recalled Potter referring to the proposed payments as a "done deal" at a Wembley USA board meeting in Aurora, Colo., in January 2001. According to Brents' initial minutes of the meeting, Potter told fellow executives that Wembley PLC had approved annual payments of $500,000 to McKinnon for three years and $1 million for three years.

"These payments have been characterized as some form of retainer," Brents wrote.

After circulating the draft minutes to other executives who attended the meetings, Brents said Potter made several handwritten revisions -- including correcting the number of $500,000 payments from three to two and noting that the payments had been approved "in principle."

The minutes were later amended to reflect Potter's revisions.

The amended version also included a line that read: "These payments have been characterised as a retainer but legal confirmation that this is acceptable is awaited."

But Brents said he did not prepare the amended version of the meeting minutes and noted that he spelled "characterized" with a "z" rather than with an "s," the British spelling. Potter is British.

He acknowledged under cross-examination, however, that he did not take verbatim notes of the meetings and said the minutes did not record his stated opposition to the proposed payments.

Brents and Francis "Skip" Sherman, the former chief executive of Wembley USA and the only other person to testify, have maintained throughout the trial that they opposed the plan to pay McKinnon a performance bonus.

U.S. District Judge Mary Lisi did not immediately rule Monday on requests by the three defense lawyers to acquit their clients, which were made after the jury was dismissed for the day. Lisi did agree to dismiss a lesser charge against Bucci.

Prosecutors also introduced into evidence testimony from Potter that the judge said was given at a "prior proceeding." The testimony includes Potter discussing the size of his earnings.

The first trial in February ended when a federal jury in Providence deadlocked on the central bribery conspiracy charge and failed to reach verdicts on other wire fraud counts. They also acquitted the three defendants of several other charges.