With his Virginia Beach rental properties hemorrhaging tens of thousands of dollars each year, thenVirginia Gov. Robert F. McDonnell turned repeatedly to family and wealthy benefactors for large loans, a man who helped manage the properties’ finances testified Monday.
McDonnell received more than $100,000 from his father, the manager testified. He received $50,000 from a radiologist friend, the manager said. And with the properties still losing money, McDonnell picked up a final $70,000 from Richmond businessman Jonnie R. Williams Sr. — the man at the center of the federal corruption case against the former governor and first lady, the manager said.
When Robert F. McDonnell took office as Virginia’s 71st governor, he and his wife were mired in nearly $75,000 in credit card debt, records show. That figure soon grew to more than $90,000 — and came down because of insurance proceeds, a family trust and the generosity of a wealthy Richmond businessman, the records show. On the 13th day of the federal corruption case against McDonnell (R) and his wife, prosecutors presented the evidence about the family finances as a striking wrap-up to their case, as they began working to connect the dots for jurors.
McDonnell and his wife, Maureen, are charged with lending the prestige of the governor’s office to Williams and his dietary supplement company, Star Scientific, in exchange for loans, vacations and luxury goods. Prosecutors have said the couple were motivated to seek the executive’s generosity in part because of financial distress.
Hulser said that the couple’s debt had dipped to about $30,000 by January 2011 — largely because of money they received from a life insurance payment and a family trust. But later that year, Maureen McDonnell deposited a $50,000 check from Williams, Hulser testified. And from that bank account, she wrote checks to cover bills and other expenses, the agent said. One of the checks went to pay off a Bank of America credit card in the former governor’s name. That would indicate to jurors that Robert McDonnell shared in the benefit of the $50,000 loan to his wife and possibly knew of its existence.
In one of several examples in Hulser’s testimony, on June 1, 2011, the day Maureen McDonnell purchased Star Scientific stock, phone records show she called her broker less than an hour before she called her husband. She was in Florida at the time, appearing at an event to promote Star’s new supplement, Anatabloc.
Prosecutors on Thursday unveiled what could be a critical new piece of evidence in their case against former Virginia governor Robert F. McDonnell and his wife, Maureen: a photograph of the governor, grinning and holding up his wrist to display a watch.
Testifying during the McDonnells’ federal corruption trial, businessman Jonnie R. Williams Sr. said he received the photo by text message in December 2012 in response to one he sent the governor. The watch on McDonnell’s wrist appeared to be the Rolex that Williams had purchased for the governor at the first lady’s request a year earlier.
The picture could shatter any assertion that the governor was unaware that Williams — who was then the chief executive of a dietary-supplement company — had provided the expensive timepiece. McDonnell (R) has previously said the watch was a Christmas gift from his wife.
Virginia Gov. Robert F. McDonnell has said his daughter and her husband paid for their own wedding. So a $15,000 check from a major campaign donor to pay for the food at the affair was a gift to the bride and groom and not to him and therefore did not have to be publicly disclosed under the law, the governor says.
But documents obtained by The Washington Post show that McDonnell signed the catering contract, making him financially responsible for the 2011 event. The governor made handwritten notes to the caterer in the margins. In addition, the governor paid nearly $8,000 in deposits for the catering.
When the combination of the governor’s deposit and the gift from the donor resulted in an overpayment to the caterer, the refund check of more than $3,500 went to McDonnell’s wife and not to his daughter, her husband or the donor.
The new documents suggest that the governor was more involved with the financing of the wedding than he has acknowledged.