Plaintiff: Benjamin joined rival firm

Columbia City Councilwoman Tameika Isaac Devine got current Mayor Steve Benjamin a job as bond attorney in 2003 on a proposed high-dollar city project to build a publicly financed hotel in the Vista, the plaintiff in a lawsuit against the city testified Tuesday.

“I thought it was a great idea and put him on the team,” testified Bobby Lyles of Stevens & Wilkinson, an architectural firm suing the city for some $1.6 million in state court.

But then Benjamin, instead of helping get city bonds issued to finance the project, became a partner in a rival company to whom the city eventually awarded the contract for a smaller, privately owned Vista hotel, Lyles testified on the second day of an ongoing jury trial.

Lyles, who thought Benjamin was his partner in working up a bond package, testified he had no idea Benjamin was joining a competitor who instead would be awarded the contract for the publicly funded city hotel, a job worth millions in profits.

Lyles was the first witness his lawyers have put up. The firm says it lost $1.6 million for unpaid work done because of the alleged broken contract for the hotel that was to abut the convention center in the Vista.

Asked by his lawyer Dick Harpootlian if he was surprised that Benjamin didn’t issue the bonds he was supposed to, joined a rival company without telling Lyles, and then went on to win the project Lyles thought his company would get, Lyles said, “I was disappointed.”

At the time, in 2003 and 2004, Benjamin was a private attorney and businessman.

In cross-examination, city attorney Kathleen McDaniel declined to ask Lyles questions about Benjamin leaving Lyles’ team and showing up in a rival’s group.

The trial is playing out on two levels. On one hand, it is a complex contract dispute. On another, it is offering a behind-the-scenes glimpse into the details of big money deals made by members of Columbia City Council.

Late Tuesday, with the jury out of the room, McDaniel told Judge Alison Lee that Devine will likely testify for the defense on Wednesday.

It is unclear whether Mayor Benjamin, who is under subpoena, will testify. A spokesman for Benjamin late Tuesday issued a statement asserting that Benjamin’s actions at the time were entirely proper. Since Benjamin is under subpoena, he is under court order not to discuss the case.

In his testimony Tuesday, Lyles said the rival hotel-building partnership that Benjamin joined included, in part, Greenville businessman and future S.C. State University chairman Jonathan Pinson, current Richland County Council member Damon Jeter and Greenville businessman Bo Aughtry. Pinson has since been sentenced to five years in prison for racketeering; Aughtry has served as chairman of the S.C. Department of Health and Environmental Control.

The names of Aughtry’s group members previously have not been reported widely. Incorporation law in South Carolina does not require partners’ names be made public.

His group, Lyles testified, was made up of his firm, Stevens & Wilkinson, and several big-name firms experienced in everything from interior design to earthquake protection to landscaping to structural engineering. At times, he had 50 professionals working on the Vista hotel every week, he testified.

“It’s quite a big team that puts together a building these days,” testified Lyles, 74, a Columbia native who has an architecture degree from Clemson University.

Stevens & Wilkinson had designed the Marriott hotel on Main Street, had helped lead the multi-year upfitting of the State House and was a natural fit for the city’s project of a 300-room flagship hotel for the convention center, he testified.

As plans for the proposed city-funded hotel were being formulated in 2003, individual City Council members chimed in with ideas, Lyles testified.

Former council member E. W. Cromartie, for example, wanted a gift shop and an “impressive fountain” in the hotel lobby, Lyles testified. (Cromartie resigned from council in 2010 and served a stint in federal prison for income tax evasion.)

The city also insisted that a parking garage adjoining the hotel have a service entrance big enough for 18-wheel service trucks, Lyles testified. That would have added several million dollars more to the eventual price tag of the project. Benjamin’s group went on to build a normal parking garage at the hotel without a special 18-wheeler entrance.

Lyles’ dispute with the city concerns a 2003 agreement the city had with Stevens & Wilkinson when that firm and its partners did initial design work for the proposed city-funded hotel. But after months of working with Stevens & Wilkinson, the city put out new bids and eventually chose another developer who built the hotel largely with private money.

The city’s version of events is that Lyles and his group were working largely on speculation. The city did pay Lyles’ group $697,000 but says the firm is owed no more.

The legal feud has been simmering since 2005, when Stevens & Wilkinson sued the city. Although issues in the case have been fought before numerous judges, this is the first trial by jury.

Court resumes Wednesday morning. Lawyers for Lyles are expected to play excerpts from a videotaped deposition former Columbia Mayor Bob Coble gave in the case.

Coble recently suffered a massive heart attack and doctors advised him not to undergo the stress of sitting on the witness stand, lawyers said.

This story was originally published July 28, 2015 at 1:28 PM.