WSB Radio The highly-anticipated testimony of former Channel 2 newswoman Marion Brooks' testimony came near the end of Wednesday's court action, and took all of 40 minutes.

WSB's Veronica Waters reports Brooks, a former anchor and reporter for WSB-TV, testified she and Campbell met at a birthday party for radio host Tom Houck not long after she came to Atlanta in 1996, and they began a relationship which lasted until 1999. The relationship picked up again for several months in 2001, she said, then ended by mutual agreement on good terms. Brooks left for Chicago in 1998 and took a job with WMAQ, but the relationship continued.

While in Atlanta, Brooks testified, the pair saw each other "a couple of times a week." After she moved away, the pair sometimes traveled back and forth for visits.

"Did you endeavor to keep your relationship secret?" asked Assistant U. S. Attorney Russell Vineyard.

"Absolutely," Brooks said, explaining that either Campbell would come to her apartment or the two would travel out of town. Brooks says Houck knew of their relationship, and a few people close to the Mayor including Dewey Clark and Gabe Pascarella. Clark, she said, sometimes picked her up from an airport; Pascarella, then a travel agent, would arrange some of the couple's travel.

Brooks said except for a pair of trips she planned and paid for, she did not pay for her airfare, hotels, meals or other travel expenses. She said Campbell did, and always used cash. He never used credit cards, checks or ATMs when they were together, she testified.

Vineyard asked Brooks if she saw Campbell carry cash.

"Maybe a couple hundred dollars," she responded. "Two hundred, three hundred." Vineyard asked her if she had seen him carry large amounts of cash.

"Not that I could say definitively," Brooks said. "He always had enough cash."

Brooks says after she had moved to Chicago in 1998, Campbell loaned her $16,000 cash for a down payment on a condominium. She testified that she didn't need all of it, so she gave some of it back to him right away. She paid the rest of that money back to Pascarella, she said, because Campbell told her he'd borrowed it from him.

Brooks ticked off a list of travel destinations the couple had visited over four years, including Los Angeles, San Francisco, Lake Tahoe, Las Vegas, San Antonia, Miami, Raleigh, Charleston, New York, Washington, DC, Montego Bay and Mexico.

She invited Campbell along on a trip she planned to Paris in 1999. She paid for those airfare tickets, she said.

Campbell's then-chief operating officer, Larry Wallace, also flew in to Paris with Campbell. They spent four days in Paris. Brooks says they did sightseeing and that Campbell left her one day to spend a few hours at a water company. While in Paris, she said, Campbell paid cash for the Bristol Hotel, meals, even a pair of street vendor watercolors he bought her as gifts.

As the Government moved to enter travel records and photographs from the Paris trip, defense attorney Billy Martin stood up to stipulate to the records, saying, "We don't contest these facts."

Vineyard continued, asking Brooks to identify the documents, then displaying them on a large screen for the jury.

"Was Mayor Campbell wearing a cap and sunglasses?" Vineyard asked.

"Yes," Brooks said.

The Government contends Campbell paid for the trip using money provided by city contractor United Water, but that he spent only one lunch with company officials while there.

Brooks testified that after Campbell left Paris, she paid for her remaining five-day stay at the InterContinental with her American Express card. Her expenses were about $2,200.

Brooks didn't appear to ever look at Campbell as she testified, and called him "the Mayor" when she referred to him on the stand. She is a petite woman who is now married and pregnant, and expecting a baby in May.

Brooks also testified that on a San Francisco trip, the Mayor bought her a $2,400 coat at a small boutique near their hotel. She says she does not know how he paid for it. He had given her other gifts over the years, including an expensive bracelet, a watch, necklaces and "knickknacks."

The defense's cross-examination was extremely brief. Lawyer Billy Martin did not even approach the podium, but chose to cross Brooks from the defense table.

Martin asked Brooks where she attended school.

"Spelman," Brooks said.

Martin asked if the Government had subpoenaed her to testify. She answered that it had.

He asked if they had brought her before a grand jury. She said yes.

"I'm sorry you had to go through this," Martin said. "No further questions."

Brooks' relationship with the Mayor surfaced in the Government's investigation in 2001. That year, she issued her only statement on the matter: "My life and my focus are in Chicago now." She discussed the probe with her Chicago bosses as the fact that her name had come up became a topic of gossip for some in the city.

Channel 5 then issued a statement: "We have discussed this matter with her, and we respect her privacy," it said.

Brooks married an Orlando attorney last March and the couple is expecting their first child.

After court recessed for the day, Campbell acknowledged that "there was no doubt" this had been one of the hardest things for him to sit through during the trial.

"This is a very humbling process, and I'm deeply saddened that there was such an intrusion into my personal life," Campbell said quietly. "Until the last witness was called, we were again very pleased that I'm one day closer to vindication. I've said I'm innocent; I continue to maintain that; my faith continues to be strong.

"But there's no doubt that it was deeply disappointing. It's a very humbling experience. Very sad. Very sad," Campbell said.

Sharon Campbell has not appeared in court this week.

Thursday, 9 February 2006