Espy set to testify against Warnock
Mike Espy will testify against former Madison County Engineer Rudy Warnock in his ongoing federal bribery case, which is finally set to begin in December, according to court documents.
Espy, the attorney for the Madison County Board of Supervisors, was hired as the lawyer for Canton Municipal Utilities about the time Warnock was hired as CMU’s engineer back in 2016 for a stint that lasted less than a year.
Warnock was indicted in 2021 on federal bribery and wire fraud charges concerning his work at Canton Municipal Utilities. Former CMU Chairman Cleveland Anderson, along with Canton aldermen Eric Gilkey and Andrew Grant, were also indicted on bribery charges.
Warnock is alleged to have gifted cash, football tickets and concert tickets in exchange for engineering contracts with the city of Canton and CMU.
Espy served as Secretary of Agriculture under President Bill Clinton and previously ran against Cindy Hyde-Smith for the U.S. Senate.
Espy declined to comment for this story.
The U.S. Attorney’s Office filed several motions earlier this month. Motions are typically legal mechanisms presented to a judge outside of a jury to request the exclusion or inclusion of evidence, defenses, etc.
On one motion to exclude inadmissible evidence, the U.S. Attorney is asking that Espy’s previous indictment in 1997 on federal corruption charges not be admitted into the record because he was ultimately acquitted on the 30 counts.
“The government anticipates calling Espy as an eyewitness to Defendant Warnock’s corruption in this case,” the motion states. “Espy saw Warnock purchase expensive items for Grant and (Eric) during a trip. Espy, who served as CMU attorney during the period pertinent to the indictment, may also testify about nonprivileged emails he received and conversations he had regarding Canton’s sewer problems and the proposed solutions.”
The U.S. Attorney’s Office is also seeking to make Grant’s 2019 conviction for conspiracy to commit voter fraud inadmissible because it could cause “unfair prejudice.”
Grant and Gilkey have both pleaded guilty to their roles and are expected to be witnesses for the prosecution.
Another motion filed by the U.S. Attorney’s Office seeks to stop the defense from attempts at jury nullification by arguing that “other public officials and businesspeople have engaged in similar behavior” as that was “how business was typically done in Canton.”
The same motion also seeks to exclude evidence of prior good acts, saying the defendants should not be able to invoke acts of good conduct in the community.
A third motion seeks to exclude the merits of the acts done by Warnock and Anderson.
“The government anticipates the defendants will attempt to argue that certain official acts taken by the public official defendants were good for the community or otherwise meritorious, and as such, would have been performed irrespective of Defendant Warnock providing the public official defendants with things of value,” the motion states. “But whether the official acts taken were good, necessary, or important for the community is irrelevant to the crimes charged and irrelevant to any cognizable defense.”
The final of four motions filed seeks to admit “other acts” evidence into the case against both Warnock and Anderson.
Two prior acts against Warnock date back to the 2013 Canton municipal elections when Grant ran for the first time as an alderman.
“Defendant Warnock gave Grant $1,000,” the motion states. “During the same conversation in which the money was exchanged, Defendant Warnock told Grant that if any work became available in Canton, Defendant Warnock would be interested in it. The government anticipates Grant will testify regarding this instance of conduct.”
The prosecution says in the same year Warnock purchased lunches for Grant’s poll workers and provided transportation for voters on his behalf.
As for Anderson, the prosecution said he made attempts to have his wife and other family members hired at CMU and for his role in an alleged murder-for-hire scheme.
“During the course of the charged conspiracies, Defendant Warnock, Defendant Anderson, and Eric Gilkey had a conversation about a Madison public official (later revealed by Warnock to be Mayor Mary Hawkins Butler),” the motion states. “In Gilkey’s presence, Defendant Warnock complained to Defendant Anderson about the official’s treatment of Defendant Warnock. In response, Defendant Anderson offered to arrange for people to come down from Chicago to kill the official. According to Gilkey, Anderson seemed ‘serious’ when he said this. The government anticipates Gilkey will testify regarding this instance of conduct.”
U.S. District Judge Henry T. Wingate has yet to rule on the motions.
The case, which has been continued over a dozen times, dates back to December 2021 when the four were indicted by a federal grand jury. The indictments were sealed until November 2022.
Warnock had served as the county engineer since the early 2000s, rising up from assistant county engineer. He was finally removed in January 2016 when three new supervisors were elected.
His tenure was riddled with controversy throughout the years. Questionable projects included Sulphur Springs Park and a $1.2 million airport study for the Madison County Economic Development Authority.
Warnock, who had billed the county tens of millions of dollars over the years, quickly found work in Canton and, eight months after being ousted from the county, had billed CMU $1.15 million for work.
His tenure at CMU was also riddled with controversy. The chair at the time was ousted after alleging corruption.
Two months after Warnock’s hire, the CMU board ousted the general manager and increased the overall operating budget by $540,000 to nearly $13 million. He then coordinated with the CMU board to declare a sewer emergency and discussed floating a bond upwards of $45 million to address the city’s needs.
Warnock was fired in late 2016 and sued CMU for $6.3 million. The lawsuit was later dismissed by a federal judge.