Augusta Chronicle
AUGUSTA, Ga. — Jason Beard didn’t have to testify, he told a federal court jury Thursday, but the former Augusta fire marshal insisted.
“I’d like for the jury to hear my side of the story, the truthful side,” he said.
The jury didn’t buy it. After deliberating close to three hours Thursday evening, the jury convicted Beard of six counts of extortion and one count of attempted extortion.
Judge J. Randal Hall, who presided over the four-day trial, allowed Beard to remain free on bond pending sentencing. A date has not been set.
On the first Saturday of each month from August 2014 through January 2015, Beard collected payments from the managers of two clubs – Level 9 Bar and Grill and Rendezvous at Three. He didn’t know then, but FBI agents recorded each meeting with one of the managers, Eurl Kittles, and they recorded each of their phone calls.
Beard testified that he didn’t have enough firefighters able and willing to work special assignments at the clubs, and that after July 2014 when he learned from sheriff’s deputies of problems in the downtown clubs on First Fridays, he had to focus his deployment of firefighters there.
With nine or so other clubs uncovered, Beard said he did the best he could – he monitored those clubs by repeatedly driving by to estimate crowds by the number of vehicles and ensure the fire lanes were clear.
In his closing argument Thursday, Assistant U.S. Attorney Troy Clark replayed a recording from December 2014 in which Beard tells Kittles, who was counting money, to just put it all in, then laughs and hugs Kittles after the money was in his hands.
In November 2014, when Kittles told Beard he had a little extra for him, Beard responded, “Long as y’all don’t say anything we don’t say anything.”
Also on the December 2014 recording, when Kittles told Beard he had 600 people in the club, which has a fire safety capacity of 299, Beard responded, “I got you. It ain’t no biggie.”
Defense attorney Jack Long argued that the FBI and federal prosecutors were taking comments and acts out of context. He said Beard was covering the clubs as best he could, and with no evidence the clubs were overcrowded, there was nothing he was turning a blind eye to.
Long described the case as an unsuccessful federal investigation that caught what they thought was a little fish in hopes of catching bigger ones, but Beard didn’t know of any corruption to tell them about. They prosecuted Beard to justify the effort and expense, Long said.
The case is small in terms of money, but that is because the FBI was able to break it up so quickly, countered Assistant U.S. Attorney Frederick Kramer. He noted that Beard stopped what he was doing after the FBI appeared on his doorstep in January 2015.
“People don’t hide what they think is right. They hide what they know is wrong,” Kramer said.
The most telling sign, prosecutors told the jury, was that Beard assigned firefighters to work at Level 9 and the Rendezvous at Three before the investigation began, and after the managers stopped paying him, he once again assigned firefighters to those clubs.
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