WSB's Veronica Waters reports the defense team was livid when, with an IRS agent on the stand Wednesday, the prosecutor said Campbell had made "an admission" about how he fared in weekly high-stakes poker games with friends.

The IRS's Bill Salinski had spent much of the afternoon detailing for the jury financial transactions and banking statements of Dewey Clark, who testified that he had passed $50,000 in bribes to Campbell from a strip club owner seeking a liquor license. Clark had lived with and worked for Campbell for six years. Salinski had also testified about some financial transactions on Campbell's bank accounts.

The exchange that angered the defense team came late in the afternoon.

Assistant U. S. Attorney Sally Yates: "Agent Salinski, has Mayor Campbell made any representations concerning whether he usually won or lost in the Friday night poker games?"

Salinski: "Yes, he has."

Yates: "Okay. What are those representations?"

Defense attorney Billy Martin: "Objection, Your Honor!"

Defense attorney Jerry Froelich: "Objection, Your Honor! Hearsay."

Yates: "It's an admission, Your Honor, of the defendant."

Attorneys had a sidebar with Judge Richard Story and the jury was dismissed for the day.

Government attorneys said in court they were trying to show that the defense has made opposite claims about Campbell's luck in poker to explain his cash flow. A section of a document in connection with a 2005 hearing read "In reality the defendant usually lost the poker games..." But the defense says the Government is taking a witness statement from a transcript and trying to attribute it to the Mayor.

Defense attorney Billy Martin called it "outrageous."

"In my 30 years of practice, I've never seen a U. S. Attorney try to slip something in so highly prejudicial as this," Martin told the judge, his voice breaking.

Judge Story acknowledged the comment was risky, pointing out the trial—now in its third week, counting jury selection--could've been jeopardized.

"I think this was dangerous. This was an area that was risky, that put us at risk...If we had traveled more down that road," Story said. "You know the hot button issues. You know when something's a close call." Story told lawyers to tell him Thursday morning what they thought should happen.

Martin said lawyers would decide whether to seek a mistrial in the case or ask for other sanctions against the prosecutors. He said they would also research, if there is a mistrial, whether double jeopardy would attach to the case and scuttle another federal prosecution of Campbell.

Campbell's former executive assistant testified Wednesday she overheard a conversation in the kitchen of the Mayor's office suite at City Hall in 1999. Serena Skaggs testified Clark told Campbell, "You know you wrong. You took that boy's money!" Skaggs told the jury the Mayor replied, "Technically I didn't; you did."

The testimony aims for the heart of the Government's claim in opening statements that Campbell took bribes from those seeking business with the City, but that he insulated himself by using go-betweens to deliver the cash.

Skaggs admitted that she had never told the FBI of the alleged conversation when she was interviewed years ago, and said at the time, she feared losing her job.

Skaggs also said she again began keeping in touch with Clark a couple of years after he left his job at City Hall. She testified that he had given her money on occasion.

"If you asked Dewey for money, he'd give it to you," Skaggs said. "It was just money for my son."

If the trial continues, one of the next witnesses on the stand is expected to be Herbert Timmerman, who pleaded guilty to bid rigging water equipment with another businessman in 1999.

Thursday, 2 February 2006