More than 100 potential jurors walked into Athens High School around 9 a.m. Friday, only to have all but 15 excused less than an hour later and plans made for those left behind to meet at Limestone County Courthouse for the opening statements of Limestone Sheriff Mike Blakely’s trial.

Jurors received direction from Judge Pamela Baschab ahead of the statements, reminding them who they could speak with and what was expected of them as the trial progressed, as well as thanking them for their service. The chosen jurors were predominantly white and female, with only three men and one Black individual among the group.

Assistant Attorney General Kyle Beckman presented the prosecution’s statement. He gave a brief overview of the charges faced by Blakely — six thefts and five ethics violations — as well as how those charges came to be.

He told jurors the trial would likely “take a while” because there would be so much evidence to go through and encouraged them to take notes. He asked them to not only hold him accountable to what he said Friday but said he hopes they’ll hold Blakely accountable, too.

“Just because Mike Blakely is sheriff doesn’t mean he’s above the law,” Beckman said. He later told the jurors, “Evidence led us to this courthouse, this morning and these 11 charges.”

As for the defense, lead defense attorney Robert Tuten kept it relatively simple: There was never an intention to commit a crime, there’s no missing money and there is a logical explanation for everything.

Count 1

The first of the theft charges faced by Blakely involves a $1,500 donation from the local Realtor’s Association to his campaign in December 2014, according to Beckman.

Since it was meant for his campaign, it should have been cashed with the bank and account specifically made for campaign funds, as well as reported on that month’s campaign finance report, Beckman said. However, he told jurors that Blakely failed to include the donation on the report.

Tuten said the campaign manager experienced a backup of raw sewage through multiple drains in his home, destroying a portion of the campaign records.

Count 2

Before the Realtors donation, in the summer of 2014, Blakely met with Athens attorney John Plunk and Trent Willis of Red Brick Strategies at a local barbecue restaurant. Beckman said after this meeting, Plunk would pay more than $20,000 to RBS for campaign-related services at $3,500 per month.

However, in November of that year, Blakely made a payment from his campaign account for $7,500 — $4,000 of which was then paid back to him in the form of a check from RBS that was cashed with Blakely’s personal account, according to Beckman.

Tuten said he doubts there’s any proof of a contract for services between RBS and the Blakely campaign, but that Blakely learned they were two months behind on payments, thus the $7,500. When Willis later made it known that it was an overpayment, he gave Blakely a $4,000 refund, according to Tuten, who reiterated there was no criminal intent behind the exchange.

Count 3

In November 2017, Beckman told jurors, Austin Hinds made a $2,500 donation that was cashed using Blakely’s personal account. He later told the campaign manager that he had received a cash donation for the amount and offered to write a check that could be deposited into the campaign account, Beckman said.

Tuten said Blakely was busy with the campaign but did write a check to ensure the funds made it to the right account, noting that Hinds received two receipts for the contribution as a result.

Count 4

The fourth theft charge involving campaign funds stems from an incident in March 2015, when Blakely allegedly received $3,000 from the campaign account for an “election training event” in Washington, D.C. Blakely put the funds in his personal account, Beckman said, but he never made it to Washington or the event.

And, like with each of the other alleged thefts, withdrawals from Blakely’s personal account in the days that followed would have resulted in overdraft fees had it not been for the deposit, he said.

Tuten told jurors that a “medical issue” prevented Blakely from attending the event, and “through no fault of anybody’s, everyone sort of forgot” that money had been paid specifically for him to attend.

He and Beckman each noted that after receiving a letter in October 2018 alerting him to the AG office’s investigation into misuse of campaign funds, Blakely remembered the $3,000 for the Washington trip and attempted to put an equal amount back in the campaign account.

Count 5

The fifth charge stems from a Las Vegas trip in which Blakely and two Limestone County Sheriff’s Office deputies drove to a conference at Palace Station Casino in December 2014. They were given $60 per day for travel expenses, but Blakely took $2,500 from county funds for additional expenses, Beckman said.

While paying for hotels and fuel were acceptable expenses, Beckman said there was only documentation accounting for $1,600 of the $2,500 received and claimed the remaining funds were never returned. Tuten disputed this, saying Blakely returned the money and only asked for it in the first place because he and the deputies got to Vegas and realized it was more expensive than they thought it would be.

Count 8

Counts 6 and 7 were dismissed by the AG’s office after the indictment. Count 8 stems from a second conference trip in Vegas, and just like the first one, Tuten said the group drove out there only to realize it was more expensive than expected.

“Prices fluctuate,” he told jurors.

However, to cover the extra costs, Blakely decided to get an LCSO employee still in Athens to wire $1,000 to him at Palace Station. The funds were taken from a safe in which inmate belongings, including cash and valuables, were kept, and the jail clerk in charge of the safe kept a running list of the times she removed cash for Blakely and when he paid it back, according to Beckman.

Tuten noted the records from this time period would be several years old by now, so “some exist, some don’t.”

“Again, evidence will show there’s nothing sinister about it,” he told jurors.

Counts 9–11

The next three counts on Blakely’s indictment all relate to a trip involving him and members of the Limestone County Commission in August 2016. According to Beckman, Blakely arrived at the Association of County Commissions of Alabama conference in Orange Beach, which was due to have a special event for sheriffs that year.

Blakely is said to have traveled down with commissioners on a Sunday, participated in a golf tournament there on Monday, then left with two of the commissioners to visit a casino in Biloxi, Mississippi, on Tuesday.

Beckman said he got a $1,500 check from local law enforcement funds to cover staying in a condo and official travel expenses during the conference, but he never registered for the full conference or even the sheriffs’ event and had an LCSO employee wire him $1,000 from Athens to the casino in Mississippi.

Beckman told jurors that two days after leaving for the casino, Blakely dropped off the two commissioners at a restaurant near the intersection of interstates 10 and 65 so they could get a ride from a third commission member back to the conference, then visited another casino on his way back to Limestone County. He further stated that Blakely later received a $218 reimbursement from county funds after he claimed to have not received his full per-diem amount for the trip.

Tuten didn’t deny much of Beckman’s account — his client did stay at a condo, he used a county vehicle to get to the conference, he went to Biloxi with commissioners and he got a loan from someone who happened to be an employee.

However, Tuten said, the employee in question had been a friend of Blakely’s since his days as a state trooper, before he ever became Limestone’s sheriff, and Blakely had only ever planned to be at the conference for golfing. Tuten described the conference as a chance to see vendors and network with people in the field, something that likely continued after someone offered a free trip to golf in Biloxi.

“Nothing wrong or illegal about it, thus no crime,” he said.

Count 12

Blakely has been Limestone County’s sheriff for nearly 40 years, and for about 18 months of that, he received $27,000 more in salary than he was supposed to — something Beckman said Blakely conveniently forgot to mention to the county but was caught during a routine audit.

Beckman told jurors Blakely was given two options — pay it back in monthly installments that would be documented for public record or in a lump sum — and Blakely chose the latter, obtaining a $30,000 loan and planning to sell his parents’ home so he could cover paying the loan back.

However, through discussions with a local real estate agent, Blakely was introduced to a businessman in need of laborers, Beckman said. He told jurors that eventually, a deal was reached in which Blakely received a $50,000 payment and three inmates from the Limestone County Jail — one of them being a convicted murderer — were selected to work for the businessman.

Tuten didn’t mention the inmate labor, but he did say Blakely was informed of the overpayment in salary, chose a lump-sum payment instead of installments and received a check from the real estate company that bounced. He said Blakely considered putting his property back on the market but the real estate agent talked him out of it and gave him another check that cleared.

Count 13

The final count of Blakely’s indictment also deals with inmates and with their personal belongings. Beckman explained for jurors that when an inmate is brought to the county jail, their personal items — cash, wallet, phone and other items — are logged by a jail clerk and kept in a safe until they are transferred for release.

It’s the cash that serves at the heart of this charge, as Blakely is accused of repeatedly receiving funds from the safe over the course of three years. Beckman said records kept by a clerk show Blakely received $29,050 in “loans” from the safe and wrote 19 checks to replace the funds, and he expects the clerk will testify in court to how she was asked to keep the checks for weeks or months at a time because Blakely did not have enough funds in his bank account to cover the check amounts.

Beckman said Blakely stopped taking funds from the inmate safe after he received a check for $975,000 in June 2017.

For this count, Tuten reiterated to jurors that a review of the records will show the amount that’s supposed to be in the safe is in the safe. He ended his opening statement by telling jurors there’s a “very simple and logical explanation for every single charge.”

Court to resume Monday

Court was adjourned before lunch Friday, but not before Baschab gave one final round of reminders and directions for jurors. Notebooks that were provided to jurors during opening statements were retrieved before they left, and they were reminded to not discuss the trial or research the case.

Baschab also told everyone in the courtroom to mind their clothing choices during the trial. A Blakely supporter had entered the courtroom wearing a shirt that said “Blakely for Sheriff,” leading Baschab to specifically advise against wearing campaign slogans.

Later that afternoon, Blakely’s team filed a motion requesting he be given a chance to “argue in support of his requested jury instructions” after evidence is presented and before the jury hears the list of charges on which they’ll deliberate. A response had not been filed in the state’s public court records system as of The News Courier’s press deadline.

Blakely’s trial is set to resume Monday morning at the Limestone County Courthouse.