Day three of Telfair-Nixon trial

            Day three of the Telfair-Nixon trial began this morning at 8:30 p.m.  After the jury was brought in the Government began calling its witnesses. The first was Stephany Fall. Fall works as the Purchasing Director for FAMU and was questioned on her job and if she recognized a piece of evidence. Once Fall acknowledged what the document was the Government proceeded with no further questions and the defense declined to cross examine her.

            After Fall, the Government called Dr. Charles O’Dour to the stand. O’Dour is the Vice President of Audit and Compliance at FAMU. Throughout his testimony he was asked questions about the content of his meeting with Nixon on Aug. 4, 2009 in regards to the grant and where the monies went and came from. O’Dour was then cross examined by Nixon’s other attorney Phillip Busby.

            Busby rehashed most of the questions previously asked by Rhew-Miller from the Government. Once Busby finished, O’Dour was cross examined by Telfair’s attorney Jimmy Judkins. Judkins asked whether or not O’Dour knew who Telfair was, O’Dour did not, and then proceeded to asked O’Dour if he could recall documents that received from Nixon at their meeting in 2009.

            The next witness to the stand was Zachary Coates. Coates is a special agent with the Federal Bureau of Investigation and was the case agent. Throughout Coates’ testimony he recalled and showed numerous documents such as Telfair and Nixon’s tax returns, the contracts in question, and emails between Telfair and Nixon that had contracts attached in them. After about an hour of testimony Coates was then cross examined by Judkins after a brief recess.

            After the recess Judkins began with a brief rehash of information previously received about Coates and what he does for a living and his connection to the case. Judkins questions Coates with semi-hard hitting questions that seem to either stump or surprise Coates for a while causing him to pause and think before he answered. Coates was still being cross examined around noon today.