{"id":11220,"date":"2016-03-28T20:35:46","date_gmt":"2016-03-29T02:35:46","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/lastbestnews.com\/site\/?p=11220"},"modified":"2016-03-28T20:35:46","modified_gmt":"2016-03-29T02:35:46","slug":"right-to-work-ex-staffer-testifies-as-wittich-trial-begins","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/2016\/03\/right-to-work-ex-staffer-testifies-as-wittich-trial-begins\/","title":{"rendered":"Right-to-work ex-staffer testifies as Wittich trial begins"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Lucinda\"<\/a>

Kimberly Reed<\/p>

Special attorney general Gene Jarussi, center, listens during jury selection. Commissioner of Political Practices Jonathan Motl, far right, is suing Bozeman Republican Rep. Art Wittich, far left, for campaign practice violations. Also pictured is Wittich\u2019s attorney, Lucinda Luetkemeyer.<\/p><\/div>\n

HELENA \u2014 A highly anticipated civil trial to determine whether Bozeman Republican Rep. Art Wittich violated campaign practice laws during his 2010 primary campaign got underway in Helena on Monday.<\/p>\n

Wittich, the former Republican Senate majority leader and conservative stalwart in the state House, has been accused by, Jonathan Motl, Montana\u2019s top campaign ethics chief, of violating state campaign finance laws.<\/p>\n

Wittich is facing allegations that during his 2010 Senate campaign he illegally benefited from corporate campaign contributions and services from organizations tied to the National Right to Work Committee.<\/p>\n

After nearly four hours of jury selection the panel was whittled down to seven women and five men with two alternate jurors.<\/p>\n

Gene Jarussi, the special attorney general representing the commissioner of political practices, was the first to present his case to the jury. Jarussi said despite the seemingly complex nature of the case, the facts would clearly show that Wittich accepted illegal corporate campaign contributions and failed to report them during his 2010 primary campaign.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe evidence will show Mr. Wittich received campaign donations worth thousands of dollars which he never reported,\u201d Jarussi told the jury.<\/p>\n

Jarussi said Wittich, a Bozeman attorney who routinely works on complex litigation involving state regulations and real estate, knows the importance of reading documents, keeping records and paying attention to details.<\/p>\n

Jarussi warned jurors that Wittich\u2019s defense would try to \u201cmuddy the waters\u201d and make the case seem more complicated than it is.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s impossible to conclude he didn\u2019t know the score, that he didn\u2019t know what was going on,\u201d Jarussi said.<\/p>\n

\"CapreAir_Variable\"<\/a><\/div><\/div>\u201cIt\u2019s not easy to follow this complex web,\u201d Jarussi said. \u201cWe suggest when you step back and look at it in the the light of the day, it will be clear there was a violation of Montana\u2019s campaign finance laws, which govern all political campaigns in the state of Montana.\u201d<\/p>\n

One of Wittich\u2019s attorneys, Lucinda Luetkemeyer, in her opening remarks to the jury retorted that Wittich is a committed public servant who has been victimized by an overzealous government regulator.<\/p>\n

Luetkemeyer told jurors that Wittich was \u201csaddened\u201d to receive a letter from Motl in January 2014 informing him he was under investigation.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn 2010 [Wittich] volunteered to run for public office and worked hard to win the the general election by 70 percent of the vote,\u201d Luetkemeyer said.<\/p>\n

Luetkemeyer described Wittich as a committed family man and public servant who was shocked in 2014 to find out he was being sued by Motl.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen Art held Mr. Motl\u2019s letter in his hands \u2026 it was like the opening scene of a government overreach horror story,\u201d Luetkemeyer told the jury.<\/p>\n

\"Testify\"<\/a>

Kimberly Reed<\/p>

Sarah Arnold, a former National Right to Work Committee staffer in Montana, testifies during Republican Rep. Art Wittich\u2019s political corruption trial.<\/p><\/div>\n

Luetkemeyer told jurors they would hear from Wittich himself during the trial, and that Wittich would testify that he never coordinated with any outside groups, paid for all the services that were provided and reported every expenditure.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe worked hard, tried to play by the rules, and still found himself caught on the government\u2019s cross hairs,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

After opening remarks the court went into recess. When proceedings resumed, Judge Ray Dayton informed the courtroom that one of the jurors had been dismissed citing a conflict that would not allow her to stay through all five scheduled days of the trial. One of the two alternates was promoted in her place, bringing the make-up of the jury to six men and six women.<\/p>\n

First\u00a0to testify, on behalf of the plaintiff, was a former staffer for the National Right to Work Committee who worked in Montana in 2010.<\/p>\n

Sarah Arnold, who said she paid by the Right to Work and worked under the direction of Christian LeFer, detailed the inner workings of a sophisticated, multi-layered campaign operation run by LeFer that involved high-end mail and printing house, advanced computer systems, valuable voter databases, walking lists, campaign websites and a letter-writing mill that churned out campaign materials on behalf of candidates supposedly written by candidates\u2019 friends and family members.<\/p>\n

With Arnold on the stand, Jarussi walked jurors through documents that showed how the organization screened potential Republican candidates and then rewarded candidates who were \u201con board\u201d with Right to Work\u2019s \u201cagenda\u201d with campaign services. Arnold testified that vetted candidates who \u201cdid things the right way\u201d could see \u201cthousands of pieces of friendly mail\u201d coming into their district.<\/p>\n

Arnold told jurors that the Right to Work organization worked directly with \u201c14 to 16\u201d Republican candidates in 2010, including Wittich. Arnold said she believed Wittich knew the specifics of the operation working on his behalf and was one of the \u201cfavorites\u201d of LeFer, who ran the campaign.<\/p>\n

Arnold will continue her testimony on Tuesday when the trial resumes at 9 a.m.<\/p>\n

The Montana Free Press is a statewide, independent, nonprofit source for in-depth Montana news, information, and analysis. Visit montanafreepress.org<\/a> for more information.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

HELENA \u2014 A highly anticipated civil trial to determine whether Bozeman Republican Rep. Art Wittich violated campaign practice laws during his 2010 primary campaign got underway in Helena on Monday. Wittich, the former Republican Senate majority leader and conservative stalwart in the state House, has been accused by, Jonathan Motl, Montana\u2019s top campaign ethics chief, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":89,"featured_media":11223,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[2303,297,2521,4087,4089,4088],"class_list":["post-11220","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-art-wittich","tag-gene-jarussi","tag-jonathan-motl","tag-lucinda-luetkemeyer","tag-national-right-to-work-committee","tag-sarah-arnold","prominence-top-story"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11220","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/89"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11220"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11220\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/11223"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11220"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11220"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11220"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}