A Brazos County jury on Saturday convicted P. David Romei on a felony charge of stealing $7,400 of public money but found him not guilty of seven counts of theft after 30 hours of deliberation during three days.

A punishment hearing is set for 8:30 a.m. Monday for the controversial former executive director of the Arts Council of Brazos Valley.

Romei showed little emotion and stared straight ahead as the judge read the verdict.

The theft conviction is a third-degree felony punishable by between two and 10 years in prison, but he is eligible for probation because he has not previously been convicted of a felony. He also was convicted of a Class A misdemeanor charge of misapplication of fiduciary funds, which is punishable by up to a year in jail.

About two dozen people filled the small courtroom on the third floor of the courthouse and sat in silence as District Judge Steve Smith read the verdict following the two week trial.

Romei's lawyers advised him not to say anything to the media as he left the courtroom.

"We cannot complain about the hard work of the jury, and, while we disagreed about the verdict, we respect it," said Romei's lawyer, Richard "Racehorse" Haynes.

"It could have been worse," he said.

District Attorney Bill Turner said he could not comment on the case until after the punishment phase was complete.

Romei -- who served as executive director from 1998 to 2005 -- was convicted of accepting a $7,400 reimbursement from the Arts Council of Brazos Valley for what he described to the council as consulting expenses for the city of College Station. The city paid the money to put up lighting at a new firefighter statue.

However, an electrician testified he did the work for free and Romei knew it. The electrician also told jurors it would have only cost $400.

The misapplication of fiduciary funds charge involved political donations Romei made to four campaigns with Arts Council money. The original charge was for $1,750 worth of contributions, but jurors reduced it to between $500 and $1,000, dropping the crime from a felony to a misdemeanor. The reasoning for the reduction was not immediately clear.

Romei was found not guilty of obtaining more than $15,000 in reimbursement checks from the Arts Council for money prosecutors said he never spent on council business. He also was found not guilty of spending more than $10,000 on trips to Europe, Alabama and Florida that prosecutors said were personal.

A tense trial

During the trial, prosecutors called 19 witnesses and entered into evidence hundreds of pages of documents showing Arts Council financial records and Romei's bank statements.

The documents showed that Romei received reimbursements of $3,450 and $5,000 for donations he said he made to the Texas A&M Foundation. A representative for the foundation told jurors that the fundraising organization never received the money.

Romei told jurors that he wrote a check for the $5,000 donation to the A&M Foundation, but forgot to mail it. The $3,450 reimbursement for an A&M Foundation donation was mislabeled and was actually for other work he completed, he said.

Witnesses testified that Romei went to Europe with a friend who did contract work for the Arts Council and his niece. The trips to Florida and Alabama were for his grandmother and father's funeral, respectively.

Bryan Schwartz, an investigator for Turner, testified that Romei told him that the trips he took were personal. Romei later said in court that the trips were business related. Arts Council board members testified in court that they never authorized Romei to take the vacations with the agency's money.

Prosecutors called former bookkeepers for the Arts Council who described a policy at the Arts Council preventing oversight of Romei's finances. He would open up all of the council's credit card statements and only let bookkeepers see pay stubs that didn't describe how money was spent, they said.

Romei told them that they should not create a travel account in the Arts Council budget and instead list travel expenses as marketing, they said. If the marketing account went over budget, Romei would then order the bookkeepers to pay for the trips out of another account to keep board members from asking questions, they testified.

He used his Arts Council credit card to spend $1,510 on prescription drugs, prosecutors said, and then obtained a reimbursement from the council for that money, prosecutors said.

Romei -- who testified more than 17 hours -- said he reached an agreement with the executive committee of the Arts Council that his prescriptions would be picked up by the council and he filed a reimbursement for the money because he forgot that he used the council's credit card.

Romei said he called then-City Manager Tom Brymer, who has since left the city, when he learned that the lighting at the firefighter statue was installed for free. Brymer told Romei that he could pocket the money for consulting work that he had done for the city, Romei said. Brymer testified he never had such a conversation, but Romei's lawyers suggested that he was coaxed into saying it by investigators.

Many of the witnesses called by the prosecution spoke highly of Romei and some shook hands with him as they stepped down from the stand.

Haynes worked to suggest that the trial was an effort to destroy Romei's reputation by his political enemies. Romei and the Arts Council were the subject of tense political discussion in 2005 about the amount of funding College Station provided to the arts and how the council spent its money.

In 2006, after Romei resigned from his position and moved on to a job at Texas A&M's Health Science Center, he accused current Arts Council Executive Director Padraic Fisher of being "dangerous" and sent board members embarrassing pictures of him. Most current board members have maintained strong support of Fisher and prosecutors have said he is not being investigated for any crime.

Haynes repeatedly mentioned the allegations Romei made against Fisher during the trial and, although the judge sternly warned against it, briefly went into the specifics of the allegations while questioning Romei.

Romei said he did not know the rules that nonprofit corporation's money couldn't be used in campaigns. Prosecutors countered that Romei worked in the nonprofit sector for 15 years and ran for the Alabama legislature in 1994.

The long wait

Until the punishment phase has been completed, the jury is restricted from speaking about the case to anyone. Lawyers from each side declined to have them polled.

The panel of seven women and five men spent 30 hours during three days deliberating in a room about half the size of the inside of a school bus. They ate five meals in the room and shared a bathroom. When they emerged after the verdict, papers lined the walls and the trash cans were overflowing.

They sent a note to the bailiff within hours following closing arguments requesting all of the evidence in the case and then did not send any other communication -- except about meals -- until the third day. The first question for the judge came about 1:15 p.m. Saturday and asked for clarification how they should handle the allegations involving more than $15,000 in reimbursements and $10,000-plus in travel costs paid for by the Arts Council.

Prosecutors said that all of that money was stolen in a common scheme that involved seven incidents.

They said in a note that they were unsure about how to handle the seven counts if they decided a few were untrue. The law states that to convict him of a felony they needed to find him guilty of enough counts so that the total amount stolen was at least $1,500.

Smith, the judge presiding over the case, sent back a note that was agreed upon by the lawyers that said they should rely on the original instructions given to the jury and do their best. A few hours later they sent a second note asking Smith essentially the same question.

They ended up returning a not guilty verdict for those counts.

They did not have any questions about the charge involving the firefighter statue or the misapplication of political donations.

Among those who remained at the courthouse through most of the deliberations included current Arts Council president Carol Wagner, immediate past president Becky Russell, former College Station councilman Chris Scotti and local artist and outspoken Romei supporter Linda Chateau. Other friends of Romei, including local businessman Tim Bryan, returned to hear the outcome.

The aftermath

Wagner was visibly emotional after the verdict.

"I don't think that it is even a point of disappointment or pleasure at this point," she said. "We respect the jury system and we realize that they have reached the decision that they have because they are the jury."

Romei was lauded by many as an effective fundraiser for the council. He testified during the trial that he raised the agency's budget from $300,000 to $1.5 million. Its assets increased from $40,000 to $1.8 million at the time, he said. The council's headquarters is named after him.

Board members have said that $400,000 was missing from its coffers when Romei left the council, however. They also expressed shock to learn that he was collecting 10 percent of the money he raised to construct the building that bears his name. For instance, when the city contributed $450,000 to the building, Romei pocketed $45,000.

The board's executive staff at the time knew about the deal, but other board members and city officials did not, according to testimony.

"We just have a great deal of reflection to do in the near future as to what we in the Arts Council need to do," Wagner said. "We really have been doing lots of good things and it is important that we continue the business of promoting the arts."

Comments

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11 comment(s) found!

Posted by: On: 11/25/2008

Comment Title:
After raising the the money he did. SO what if he pocketed a little? I mean really. really?

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Posted by: On: 11/24/2008

Comment Title:
ha ha ha, white collar crime, sent him to prison and make him pay that money back.

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Posted by: On: 11/24/2008

Comment Title:
Restitution, huge fine, and probation. Don't need to waste taxpayer bucks housing him. He can do no more harm if he has a record.

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Posted by: Observer On: 11/24/2008

Comment Title: Dodged most of the bullets
Romei should thank whatever gods may be the jury let him off on the Arts Council credit card counts. Sheesh!! Seemed awfully clear cut to me. He deserves to be sentenced to restitution and the max prison time, perhaps with shock probation. Whatever happens, he should never be able to ever get another job like the one he looted.

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Posted by: Sick at my stomach On: 11/24/2008

Comment Title: What about the rape charge?
That is what this guy did to the taxpayers and donors. We have been raped; look at the art(?) we bought, looks like 10th grade welding class, he got a PhD from the big school while passing money out to his professors for speaking, a trip to Europe on us with his friend, and on and on. This guy is a con artist with credentials now thanks to the scholars at the big school. Perhaps it is a good time for the big school to question the moral clause of some professors. At least maybe he will move on to San Francisco or anywhere else to play art director.

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Posted by: On: 11/24/2008

Comment Title:
Bryan citizens never go to Jail.

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Posted by: On: 11/24/2008

Comment Title: jail
Put him in jail! Make sure Big Bob is his gaurd! He would probably enjoy the sandwiches!

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Posted by: On: 11/23/2008

Comment Title: RE: Brymer lied ..
Totally agreed. The interview with Brymer was very suggestive. I think the jury was confused. It was not illegal to accept the money, only under false pretenses it became illegal. I'm very surprised they convicted on this one based on the cross of Brymer. This should not even have gone to jury. There was zero evidence.

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Posted by: On: 11/23/2008

Comment Title: Brymer lied ..
The City Manager lied .. be prepared to see an appeal.

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Posted by: Loser Police On: 11/23/2008

Comment Title:
He'll probably just get probation. I say lock up this loser!

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Posted by: On: 11/23/2008

Comment Title: Now it's $400,000?
Your article says unnamed board members claim $400,000 was missing when Romei left the arts council. Do trial documents or audits support such a claim? What are your sources?

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