P. David Romei told Arts Council bookkeepers to list his personal travel costs as marketing and other business-related expenses, a former employee testified in Romei's felony theft trial Thursday morning.
Former Arts Council of Brazos Valley chief of staff Amie McCoy said she listed Romei's personal travel costs in financial records as marketing expenses and paid for them out of the marketing budget.
"It was presented to me as something that the Arts Council paid for, and since we didn't have a travel account, I would have to put it somewhere else," she said.
Prosecutors showed jurors documents Wednesday that they said indicated Romei used more than $10,000 of Arts Council money to pay for plane tickets, hotel rooms, car rentals and meals related while traveling.
He is accused of using the council's money to take a vacation to Europe, fly to his father's funeral in Alabama and his grandmother's funeral in Florida.
Prosecutors also said that he paid for family members to fly in to College Station with Arts Council money.
Most of those travel expenses came from the Arts Council's marketing budget, McCoy said, but other accounts were also used.
"If the expense put it over the marketing budget, then [Romei] would say that it fit here or it fit there," she said. "If there wasn't room in the account, then I would have to find somewhere else to put it. I may have put it under staff and board development."
McCoy and another former employee of Romei testified that their boss had little oversight on how he spent the Arts Council money. All other employees were required to obtain approval from Romei to be reimbursed for business-related charges, they said. Romei also signed off on his own reimbursements.
"To my knowledge, no one approved Dr. Romei's reimbursements," said Kellie Tubbs, former accounts manager for the Arts Council.
No employees had access to statements from Romei's Arts Council credit card, the employees said.
"Employees would gather around Romei's office and he would open the mail and give it to the appropriate employees," District Attorney Bill Turner said, paraphrasing Stubbs' testimony during his examination. "While doing so, he would not allow the bookkeeper to open the credit card statements that show how he spent Arts Council money."
He would instead tear off a stub from the bill that did not describe individual purposes and give it to an employee to pay, he said.
"He would hand me the payment stub and the envelope that it needed to be mailed in and then, when it was time to pay that bill, I would bring it back to him," he said.
The Arts Council's board of directors were not provided with descriptions of individual expenses by Romei or other employees, Tubbs said. In addition, board members were not allowed to speak with Arts Council employees about the council's business, according the an employee handbook provided at hiring.
"If they came to us about business about the Arts Council, we were to direct them to Dr. Romei," Tubbs said. "We were Dr. Romei's employees, and he was responsible to the board of directors."
Tubbs said she was unsure of what exactly the board of directors knew about Romei's travel purchases.
"I think the entire board did not know about all of the trips that were paid for, but it was my understanding that the executive committee knew about the trips," she said.
No one from the board of directors had yet testified Thursday afternoon. Tubbs was still on the stand being cross-examined when the trial took a break for lunch. She was expected to return to be questioned by Romei's defense attorney, legendary Houston lawyer Richard "Racehorse" Haynes, at 1:15 p.m.
Romei is charged with eight counts of theft and four counts of misapplication of fiduciary property. In addition to using Arts Council money for trips, he is accused of obtaining reimbursement for illegal political contributions and other personal purchases.
If convicted, he could face up to 10 years in prison, but is eligible for probation because he has never been convicted of a felony.
His trial began Monday and is expected to last two weeks.
RSS
Mobile
Daily Emails
Twitter
Facebook
