Ex-Va. lawmaker hid links to ODU, prosecution says

RICHMOND

As testimony concluded Tuesday in former state Del. Phil Hamilton's federal bribery and extortion trial, prosecutors hammered Hamilton for his alleged attempts over three years to conceal the nature of his relationship with Old Dominion University.

The ex-lawmaker acknowledged under questioning that he misstated the facts when he told The Virginian-Pilot in July 2009 that he had not discussed the possibility of employment with ODU before securing state funding for a new teacher training center there.

As a series of emails later made clear, Hamilton was negotiating a job with ODU for months before he sponsored a $500,000 start-up appropriation for the new center in the 2007 General Assembly.

Hamilton was paid more than $80,000 by ODU over two years as director of the center until the relationship was made public in 2009. He was defeated in his re-election bid that fall after 21 years in the House of Delegates.

The Newport News Republican acknowledged under questioning Tuesday that he ignored the advice of two lawyers - one at ODU and one at the Virginia Freedom of Information Advisory Council - when he declined to release his correspondence with ODU in response to open-records requests in 2009.

The emails were sent from Hamilton's work computer at Newport News Public Schools, where he was a part-time administrator. The lawyers advised him that since he was a public official conducting public business, those emails should be released.

Hamilton decided not to release them, he testified, because, "I didn't believe they were in the transaction of public business."

The emails were ultimately seized by federal agents under subpoena.

Concluding more than eight hours of testimony, Hamilton said he takes "100 percent responsibility for causing the appearance of impropriety," even though he continues to assert that he never traded his legislative services for a job.

"I apologize today, as I have for the last two years," he said.

In his closing argument, Assistant U.S. Attorney Robert Seidel told the jurors that the case is about "an individual... at the pinnacle of power and influence in the state legislature who uses that power to benefit himself."

Hamilton was motivated by "that age-old vice, greed," Seidel said, citing emails between the lawmaker and his wife that indicated they were having financial troubles.

The emails and other documents in the case add up to a "mosaic of corruption," Sei-del said.

"The documents speak for themselves," he said. "Witnesses' memories can fade, people can see things differently, they can hear things differently. But the documents speak to you loudly, if not more loudly than witnesses."

For example, Seidel pointed to a 2008 email exchange between Hamilton and David Blackburn, the ODU administrator who hired him. The Senate Finance Committee had announced plans to visit the ODU campus, and Senate staffers were asking questions about the teacher center.

"I think they are digging!" Hamilton wrote, advising Blackburn to portray himself, not Hamilton, as the center's director when the committee visited.

Hamilton was trying to conceal his role, Seidel said: "He knew what he had done was not only wrong, it was a crime."

The case is expected to go to the jury today after a closing argument from Hamilton's attorney and a rebuttal from the prosecution. Bill Sizemore, (804) 697-1560, bill.sizemore@pilotonline.com