COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP) - Prosecutors allege a former health care executive
accused of witness tampering in a $1.9 billion corporate fraud case tried to
bribe a witness to give favorable testimony.
Defense attorneys say investigators misunderstood taped phone conversations.
Lawyers for executive Lance Poulsen were beginning their case Monday after
the government spent a week playing taped phone calls and meetings for a federal
jury.
Poulsen goes on trial in August on multiple charges of conspiracy,
securities and wire fraud and money laundering. The government alleges he misled
investors about unsecured loans his company was providing health care companies
such as hospitals and nursing homes.
Before that trial, he is defending himself against charges that he and
longtime acquaintance Karl Demmler, a Columbus bar and restaurant owner, teamed
up to persuade the witness to help Poulsen beat the fraud case against him.
Poulsen is founder and former chief executive officer of National Century
Financial Enterprises, once described as the country's biggest health care
financing company.
Poulsen said on a tape played Friday that the government's star witness
should explain that her previous statements to prosecutors were based on old
facts.
Poulsen said the witness should say, "But now, there is a new set of charges
and it's a new indictment and I'm not familiar with it," Poulsen said on the
recording.
Prosecutors say the witness, Sherry Gibson, a former National Century
executive vice president was promised $500,000 if she could "have amnesia" when
it came time to testify.
On Friday, Poulsen attorney Peter Anderson suggested telephone conversations
between Demmler and Poulsen were harmless because they corresponded with trips
that Poulsen, living in Florida, was about to make back to Columbus.
Jeffrey Williams, an FBI agent who led the investigation, disagreed, saying
records indicated dozens of phone calls back and forth between the two at
several different times last year.
Gibson pleaded guilty in 2003 to a lesser charge of securities fraud in
exchange for helping prosecutors.
Copyright 2008 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be
published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
|