Judge rejects motion to move Moe, Perry trial

Public corruption charges against Orville Moe, the embattled former operator of Spokane Raceway Park, and Dale R. Perry, the ex-mayor of Airway Heights, won’t be dismissed and their forthcoming trial won’t be moved from Spokane at this time, U.S. District Court Judge Edward Shea ruled Thursday.

Two bribery counts against Moe should be dismissed because the federal law they were brought under is vague and unconstitutional, defense attorney Mark Vovos argued to the court.

Perry’s attorney, Assistant Federal Defender Amy Rubin, joined in the motion, asking the court to dismiss two counts of soliciting a bribe and two additional counts of accepting a bribe.

“The facts in this case … are entirely different than the intent of the federal law,” Vovos argued to the court.

First Assistant U.S. Attorney Tom Rice responded by saying the prosecution only has to show that the city, Airway Heights, was receiving federal funds at the time its mayor accepted money in exchange for his favorable influence. The corruption doesn’t have to directly involve the federal funds, Rice said.

“The intent here is to prevent corruption of a public official – the mayor of Airway Heights,” the prosecutor said. “If you bribe an agent of an organization that receives federal funds, the bribery laws apply.”

The federal judge agreed, referring to a 2004 Supreme Court ruling upholding the anti-corruption law.

Later, Rubin asked the court to order separate trials on the bribary and solicitation charges.

The two are intertwined, Rice responded, and spelled out in e-mails the Airway Heights mayor sent to officials of Northern Quest Casino before eventually getting the money from Moe.

“Mr. Perry is a gambling addict who lost substantial sums of money at Northern Quest Casino” and was on the “verge of bankruptcy” when he solicited money in exchange for his political influence, Rice told the court.

The judge denied the motion to separate the charges.

A grand jury indictment returned last September alleges that Moe, who then was operating Spokane Raceway Park in Airway Heights, loaned Perry $18,000 in October 2002 and $109,000 in October 2004.

The indictment alleges the loans were part of a scheme by Moe to win the Airway Heights mayor’s support to influence the City Council to cast votes favorable to Moe and Spokane Raceway Park.

That included a March 1, 2004, City Council vote, supported by Perry, to repeal an admissions tax enacted by the council the previous November.

The admissions tax would have applied to tickets sold at the drag strip and oval track and likely would have made the operation responsible for reporting the total gate at the race facility – something Moe has refused to provide to approximately 500 limited partners.

In their separate civil suit still evolving in Spokane County Superior Court, the limited partners accuse Moe of defrauding them of the $2.5 million they invested in the 1970s in Washington Motorsports. Moe was president of Spokane Raceway Park, the general partner in the limited partnership formed with the sale of stock.

At Thursday’s hearing, Vovos also asked the federal judge, who is from Richland, to move the scheduled September trial from Spokane because of “extensive” media coverage of Moe, who has been embroiled in the state court case since 2004.

Vovos argued that it will be impossible for Moe to get a fair trail in Spokane because newspaper accounts have referred to him as a “crusty, gun-toting millionaire” and a “drag-racing czar.”

The judge said Moe has been portrayed various ways in printed media accounts “and not all of them are unflattering.”

“I don’t regard all this publicity as prejudicial,” Shea said from the bench. “Not all of it’s flattering to him, but it doesn’t mean he can’t get a fair trial.”

In opposing a change of venue, Rice said in a motion that nearly all of three dozen potential witnesses live in Spokane County “and it would be a grave inconvenience” to require them to travel to Richland for the trial as Vovos suggested.

Shea turned down the motion to move the trial, now set for Sept. 17.