South Union Street

Controversial state Sen. Scott Beason, in a recording played in a federal corruption case on Friday, referred to supporters of a casino in a predominantly black county as “aborigines” and talked about voting for a black woman as House speaker because then the Democrats could not raise money.

Prosecutors, just days after objecting to having secretly recorded conversations of GOP lawmakers discussing race and gambling issues played in court, played what one prosecutor had referred to as “explosive, explosive” tapes in court on Friday.

In one conversation with then-state Rep. Ben Lewis, a Dothan Republican who is now a judge, Lewis refers to those in Greene County as “y’all’s Indians.”

“They’re aborigines, but they’re not Indians,” said Beason, a Gardendale Republican who is running for Congress.

In the first corruption trial of VictoryLand owner Milton McGregor and others charged with conspiracy and other crimes, the defense challenged Beason’s credibility using those comments and others he made in discussions with fellow Republicans.

Defense attorneys did not play the tape in the first trial, which ended in August, but questioned Beason about it.

Also, on Friday, a prosecutor played a conversation in which Beason said he tried to talk fellow Republicans when he was in the House into voting for black Democratic Rep. Yvonne Kennedy as House Speaker. Beason explained it as a strategy that would have made it difficult, if Kennedy was elected speaker, for Democrats to organize and raise money. Kennedy is from Mobile.

Beason, who recorded the conversations with a recording device he used as he cooperated with the FBI in the corruption investigation, criticized those unwilling to go along.

Lead federal prosecutor Kendall Day also played a recording on Thursday, which Beason also recorded, in which several Republican lawmakers discuss gambling legislation and discuss how gambling, if it was on the November 2010 ballot, would drive black voters to the polls. Republicans were trying to take control of the Legislature for the first time in more than 130 years.

One senator said that every black voter would be bused to the polls.  

Then-Sen. Larry Dixon, R-Montgomery, said, “they’re going to be bused on HUD-financed buses.”

Day referred to the comments on Thursday as “pretty hateful” and “repugnant.”

Beason was the first witness for the prosecution in the first trial for McGregor and the other defendants. Defense attorneys have said prosecutors have indicated they would not call Beason back to the stand in this trial.

Beason has since apologized for the comments, but his Republican colleagues in the Senate removed him from a key post.

Day played the recordings with Country Crossing developer Ronnie Gilley on the witness stand. Gilley, McGregor and Gilley lobbyist Jarrod Massey met with Beason to discuss his support of the gambling legislation.

Gilley said they were willing to offer Beason $500,000 in exchange for his vote.

Gilley referred to Beason as a “6-foot 4, 250-pound gutless wonder,” and said he never liked him, but would have probably still offered Beason the bribe in exchange for his vote if he was the key vote in favor of the gambling legislation in 2010.

“Unfortunately, our greed would have led us to purchase his vote,” Gilley said on the witness said.

Gilley said he himself was very egotistical, but Beason “exceeded that.”

Gilley and McGregor were pushing legislation in 2010 to try to ensure their casinos could stay open as state authorities cracked down on electronic gambling. 

– posted by Sebastian Kitchen