Federal prosecutors in the trial of former Prince George’s County schools chief Andre J. Hornsby are expected this week to show a videotape of the defendant inside a hotel room accepting a $1,000 kickback from an FBI informant.
Defense attorney Robert C. Bonsib said yesterday that government officials indicated they could show the tape as early as today, when the second week of the trial begins in U.S. District Court in Greenbelt. However, he also said prosecutors probably would make wrong implications from the tape, which they say shows his client stuffing the cash into his shirt pocket.
Mr. Hornsby, 54, was indicted in August 2006 on 16 counts of mail and wire fraud, evidence tampering, witness tampering and obstruction of justice. The charges involve attempts to profit off a consulting deal and an educational-software deal with the school system. The mail and wire fraud charges alone each carry maximum penalties of 20 years.
The tape reportedly shows a Dec. 20, 2004, meeting in a Bowie hotel room between Mr. Hornsby, then chief executive officer of county schools, and Cynthia Joffrion, a software company executive and former Hornsby employee who became an FBI informant.
In opening statements, Assistant U.S. Attorney Michael R. Pauze said the money exchange was tied to the software contract Mr. Hornsby had arranged.
“You’ll see this defendant, this chief executive of schools, stuffing into his pocket, $1,000,” he told the 12 jurors and six alternates.
The tape also is supposed to include Mr. Hornsby describing how he tried to escape government spies by driving circuitously to Bowie and telling Mrs. Joffrion, who was not indicted, how she might hide future payoffs by buying him land, a truck, art and a 40-foot yacht.
Mr. Pauze has quoted Mr. Hornsby as saying: “There’s a yacht I want, almost 40 feet long. You want to pick it up for me?” Mr. Bonsib said he was surprised to learn prosecutors do not plan to call Miss Joffrion as a witness, which denies him a chance to cross-examine her.
“This was an unexpected development,” he said. “I guess they’re afraid of what the jury would see in her.”
Mr. Hornsby was hired by the school system in 2003 and resigned June 30, 2005, with $125,000 in severance pay.
His former live-in girlfriend, Sienna Owens, is expected to testify. Miss Owens has pleaded guilty to a tax violation in connection with the $1 million contract the school system had with the software company for which she had worked. She reportedly split a $20,000 commission with Mr. Hornsby.
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