Friday, January 15, 2010
Key Witness Testifies In Lawson/Nighbert Case
KENTUCKY....
The prosecution's key witness and former deputy state highway engineer, Jim Rummage, testified Friday as the bid-rigging trial for Leonard Lawson and Bill Nighbert continued in U.S. District Court in Lexington. Rummage told jurors that in June 2006 Transportation Secretary Bill Nighbert ordered him to start bringing confidential bid estimates for road projects to Lawson, and he was only following orders. Rummage testified, during the next year, Lawson slipped a total of $20,000 in cash — $100 bills rolled in rubber bands — into his pocket while he delivered bid estimates that revealed what the cabinet was willing to pay for a project. When asked why he did not report leaking the estimates or receiving cash during 2006 and 2007, Rummage said he felt as the middle man between the department that generated the estimates and Nighbert's office, he would have become a scapegoat. "I would be the expendable one here," Rummage said.
The prosecution's key witness and former deputy state highway engineer, Jim Rummage, testified Friday as the bid-rigging trial for Leonard Lawson and Bill Nighbert continued in U.S. District Court in Lexington. Rummage told jurors that in June 2006 Transportation Secretary Bill Nighbert ordered him to start bringing confidential bid estimates for road projects to Lawson, and he was only following orders. Rummage testified, during the next year, Lawson slipped a total of $20,000 in cash — $100 bills rolled in rubber bands — into his pocket while he delivered bid estimates that revealed what the cabinet was willing to pay for a project. When asked why he did not report leaking the estimates or receiving cash during 2006 and 2007, Rummage said he felt as the middle man between the department that generated the estimates and Nighbert's office, he would have become a scapegoat. "I would be the expendable one here," Rummage said.
# posted by Homer Owens @ 6:02 PM 
