Updated at 5:45 p.m. with updates from the afternoon's closing arguments
Arguments in House Speaker Mike Hubbard's felony ethics trial could come to an end as early as Friday morning as lawyers for the prosecution and defense began closing arguments Thursday afternoon.
Prosecutors say Hubbard intentionally and knowingly violated the ethics laws.
"He put a for sale sign in front of the speaker's office," Deputy Attorney General Michael Duffy told the jury during his closing arguments. "The defendant was on the brink of financial collapse. He was about to be on the hook for $822,000. That's why he went out and found people who had interests before the Legislature ... to ask them for $150,000 [investments his business]."
The prosecution alleges Hubbard solicited four different Alabama businessmen and trade organization executives for investments in his failing Auburn-based printing business Craftmaster Printers.
Defense attorney Lance Bell impersonated witnesses at the witness stand during his closing statement. Bell said no one chose Hubbard's Craftmaster for business, invested in his companies, helped him find clients or hired him to consult because he was the House speaker.
Instead, Bell said the men and women provided investments, business and help to Hubbard because they were his friends. The ethics law provides an exemption for pre-existing friendships and gift given between "friends."
Duffy said friends don't invest $150,000 in each others' companies — that's business, but Bell said all of the men said they helped Hubbard because he was their friend.
"If it had happened, you would have heard it from right here," Bell said as he pointed to the microphone sitting in front of him at the witness stand. "What matters is what comes from the witness stand."
Bell said the charges against Hubbard are a fishing expedition against the Auburn Republican by members of the government who are out to get him. He pointed to several rows of government officials, paralegals and lawyers sitting in the gallery and said they were out to get his client.
"It scares me," Bell said. "We have someone who is a citizen of this state. Matt Hart stood up here and said they didn't single out Mike Hubbard. Every one of them (the government officials in the audience) is the government singling out a citizen of this state."
Bell then pointed to former Alabama Ethics Commission Director Jim Sumner, who was sitting in the audience, and said he was the only witness called by the prosecution who didn't end up helping the defense.
Circuit Judge Jacob Walker later struck Bell's insinuation that Sumner was paid by the state and told the jury to disregard the statement.
Duffy gave a thorough outline of all 23 charges against Hubbard, citing portions of the ethics codes and the definitions it provides including the definitions of friend, principal and lobbyist.
Duffy said Hubbard had no experience in economic development, in reference to the four consulting contracts he had with businesses and trade organizations. He only had the mantel of his office to get the contracts.
"The defendant wasn't allowed to ask for that help [from lobbyists and principals], and he wasn't allowed to take it," Duffy said. "[A citizen legislature] doesn't give this defendant the right to violate the ethics laws. It doesn't matter that we have citizen legislature."
The defense said Hubbard was simply trying to make a living because the salary provided by the state, more than $60,000 for the speaker, wasn't enough. In Alabama, the Legislature is part-time and most continue to run their businesses and keep their previous jobs.
According to Duffy, Hubbard violated the state's trust and destroyed the public's confidence in government.
"The integrity of government — it matters," Duffy said. "We need to maintain the integrity of the government, according to the ethics law. The defendant ran all over [the ethics laws] with his conduct. He didn't care about any of it. He has diminished our integrity in our government. He has a right to make a living, he does, but not at our expense."
This morning:
Thursday morning, defense attorney Bill Baxley told the court the defense would call no more witnesses as Hubbard stepped down from the witness stand. Hubbard was the only witness the defense called in his defense.
Earlier this week, the defense told the court they would call several character witnesses in Hubbard's defense including City of Auburn Mayor Bill Ham, Opelika Mayor Gary Fuller and Auburn Heisman Trophy winner Bo Jackson.
None of those witnesses were called.
Hubbard testified over a three-day period in his own defense, under direct questioning by defense attorney David McKnight. McKnight questioned Hubbard about all of the charges against him.
Hubbard admitted to most of the facts in the case — he admitted he asked for investments in his printing business, he admitted to entering into contracts with several businesses and trade organizations, and he admitted he voted on a bill despite a fairly evident conflict of interest.
However, Hubbard completely denied one of the charges, disputing earlier testimony in the case by Montgomery lobbyist Dax Swatek. Swatek said Hubbard asked him to invest in his Auburn-based printing business, but he told Hubbard "not only no, but hell no" because he thought the investment would break the law.
Hubbard said he never asked Swatek for any kind of investment.
Though he admitted to the actions, his defense is relying on an exemption in the state's ethics laws that allow for the exchange of things of value if the things of value are given by friends. Hubbard said all of the investments in Craftmaster Printer were given by friends he met before he was elected speaker.
The prosecution says Hubbard used the mantel of his office to solicit those investments.
Thursday, Deputy Attorney General Matt Hart continued a heated cross examination of Hubbard, outlining several instances in which he said Hubbard's testimony this week did not match previous proffers he provided the state before his indictment in 2014.
Hubbard is accused of voting on the 2014 Fiscal Year General Fund Budget despite it containing language that would benefit a trade organization with which he had a contract. He was being paid $5,000 a month by the American Pharmacy Cooperative Inc., a trade organization based in Bessemer, Alabama, representing small and independent pharmacies .
Hubbard said yesterday he did not know the language in the General Fund was specific to the cooperative, he thought it would only ensure that "mom and pop pharmacies" would not be pushed out of the Medicaid business as the agency considered a large commercial pharmacy benefits manager.
PBMs are third-party organizations which provide services to the state to help with purchasing power and contain costs for the state's Medicaid system. PBMs handle all of the buying and selling of drugs to the state's beneficiaries.
"Do you remember telling me and others in a sworn statement back then that you were told there was language created … where [APCI] would act as their own PBM to save the state of Alabama money that would allow to keep [sic] independent pharmacists to be able to participate in the Alabama Medicaid Agency?" Hart asked Hubbard.
Hubbard said he didn't think the language would require the Medicaid agency to do anything, that it only required them to study the possibility.
In reality, the language contained in the General Fund would have instead required the agency to "analyze" the possibility of using a PBM, but it set requirements for the possible PBM that only APCI could meet. Other possible PBMs could not be considered.
"I said that I never read the language, the first I had heard about it was when I was called off of the floor by Josh [Blades], and I met with Josh Blades and with John Ross in my office and they said do you have a contract with APCI," Hubbard said. "I said yes, for out of state only. They said we think this language may make it where only APCI could do the PBM, and we think it looks bad. And I said I didn't have it put in there. I said the same thing I said right there [in the previous proffer]."
Hubbard said he told them to have the House take the pro-APCI language out of the bill, but there was no time before the impending vote.
"I had no opportunity to vote to take it out," Hubbard said.
He said he chose to vote on the General Fund because it would have been odd for the Speaker to not vote on his caucus' budget, and he knew that the bill would have to go back to conference committee where the language could be removed before returning to the Senate for final approval.
"If you had just done what Mr. Blades said and abstained, it was just going to pass 97–0 [instead of 98–0]," Hart said.
Hart also showed discrepancies between this week's testimony and testimony offered in 2014 concerning the charges against Hubbard that he accepted money from John Abrams and CV Holdings, the parent company of Capitol Cups.
Hubbard had another contract with Capitol Cups for $10,000 a month.
Capitol Cups manufacturers coffee mugs, sippie cups and other travel cups. The prosecution claims Hubbard used his state equipment, including his email and phones, and his state staff to push through a patent for another of CV Holding's subsidiaries, SiO2.
SiO2 manufactured a plastic test tube with a thin lining of glass. Hubbard said the stuck patent was costing an important employer in his district "hundreds of thousands of dollars a day," and the contract was with Capitol Cups, not CV Holdings, so he didn't see an issue with helping SiO2 like he helped other constituents, using his office.
In previous testimony in 2014, Hart said Hubbard testified he made all of the phone calls, but during week 1 of the trial, Hubbard's former chief of staff Josh Blades said he made the calls at Hubbard's request.
Hubbard said today that he testified in 2014 that he called Mississippi's House Speaker, and he admitted that he failed to mention Blades making the other phone calls. Hubbard said his testimonies did not differ.
All of the payments from APCI, Capitol Cups and the two other contracts including Southeast Alabama Gas District and Edgenuity — an education software company — went not to him but to his Auburn-based media consulting company Auburn Network Inc.
He said he did not pocket the money from the contracts.
"All of the contracts were with Auburn Network Inc., not with me personally," Hubbard said. "We employ 19 people. We pay benefits for 19 people. … All of that money did not go in my pocket."
Yesterday, Special Agent Greg Fee testified that Hubbard's company was receiving an average of $30,000 a month from the companies from 2012 to 2014.
Hubbard faces 23 felony counts of violating the state's ethics laws. If found guilty on a single charge, Hubbard could face a prison sentence between 2–20 years or a fine of up to $30,000.
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