Devine doesn’t recall requesting Benjamin as bond lawyer

Columbia City Council member Tameika Isaac Devine told a Richland County jury Wednesday that she had no clear memory of requesting in 2003 that Columbia Mayor Steve Benjamin, then a private attorney, be hired as bond attorney for a proposed multimillion-dollar city hotel project in that year.

That allegation surfaced Tuesday as Bobby Lyles, a key witness for architectural firm Stevens & Wilkinson, testified that Devine had asked him to make Benjamin the development team bond attorney to work on a bond package to finance the hotel project.

“No, I don’t recall that,” Devine told the jury.

Plaintiff’s attorney Dick Harpootlian pressed further, “You could have done it, you just don’t recall?”

Devine paused, then said, “I could have done it. I would say, if I did it, it was probably as an asked-for suggestion. ... I would not have done that on my own.”

The Benjamin allegation is important because, if the jury believes it, it could add to the general picture of unprofessional conduct on the part of the city in its dealings with Stevens & Wilkinson, a picture the plaintiffs are trying to paint.

Plaintiffs’ undisputed evidence at the trial indicates Benjamin worked for months with the Stevens & Wilkinson team, then suddenly became a partner in a rival development team that won the job from the city in early 2004. Stevens & Wilkinson was paid $697,000 but has sued the city to collect some $1.6 million more it says the city owes it.

Both sides finished presenting their cases Wednesday. Jury arguments are expected Thursday as the trial moves into its fourth day at the Richland County courthouse.

Benjamin was under subpoena but was not called as a witness in the trial. On Tuesday, a mayor’s spokesman issued a statement asserting that all the mayor’s actions at that time were proper and that he joined that rival development team with the then-City Council’s formal approval.

In his cross-examination of Devine, Harpootlian was chatty and polite, asking her about the hot weather in Houston where she had just flown in from.

It was a sharp contrast to his earlier lashing cross-examination of city witness former city manager Steve Gantt, which at times grew so intense that defense attorney Reece Williams asked Judge Alison Lee to tell Harpootlian to stop “harassing” the witness.

Although Gantt told the jury he remembered then-Mayor Bob Coble making a motion during a July 2003 City Council meeting to pay Stevens & Wilkinson only $650,000, Harpootlian played an excerpt of a tape of the meeting to Gantt that showed Coble made no mention of any dollar amount. A majority of council then voted on the package – without anyone saying how much it would cost, according to the tape of the meeting played in court.

Although Gantt insisted an invoice submitted by the firm only required the city to pay $650,000, Harpootlian showed the jury that Gantt had actually issued a check for $697,000 – the implication being that Gantt wouldn’t have gone over $650,000 unless Gantt knew the city actually was going to owe the firm much more money as the project moved along.

“You apparently approved paying more than $650,000?” asked Harpootlian.

“Yes, sir,” replied Gantt. “I assumed it to be an advance.”

Under Harpootlian’s questions, Gantt, who retired as city manager several years ago, told the jury he is still on the city’s payroll, earning $5,000 a month for various part-time consulting jobs.

But under questioning by the city’s attorney, Kathleen McDaniel, Gantt put the blame for Benjamin’s failure to put together a bond package not on Benjamin but on Stevens & Wilkinson’s failure to provide Benjamin with needed information for the package. That team was supposed to put together a financial plan that would have allowed the city to go to the bond market, but it never did, so the firm’s project never got started, Gantt testified.

Another witness for the plaintiffs was former city Mayor Coble. Testifying via a video deposition, Coble said he knew Stevens & Wilkinson expected to get paid for ongoing work it was doing on the hotel project. That was in contrast to the testimony of Gantt, who told the jury the firm was working on speculation.

The civil trial before Lee is in its third day. Architectural and engineering firm Stevens & Wilkinson is seeking some $1.6 million for work it did in 2003 and 2004 for a city-funded, 300-room Vista convention center hotel that never got built. Instead, the city abandoned that project and chose a group of private investors that included Benjamin and Greenville developer Bo Aughtry. They went on to build a private, smaller hotel that was subsidized with some $3 million in public money and property.

Although legal issues in the case have been heard in numerous courts for 10 years, including the S.C. Supreme Court, this is the first time a jury has heard the case.

In a defeat for the city, Judge Lee ruled late Wednesday could not present an expert financial witness who would have told the jury that his review of the work done on the hotel project by Stevens & Wilkinson showed it actually did only $818,000 worth of real work, as well as offered an opinion on the feasibility of the project.

“All this is going to do is confuse the issue,” Harpootlian told the judge.

In ruling for Stevens & Wilkinson on the expert issue, Lee said the only issue for the jury to consider in the case is what the terms of the firm’s and the city’s contract were, and whether the city breached that contract.

The trial has not only examined details in a complex contractural dispute, but offered a behind-the-scenes glimpse into how Columbia’s public officials make big money deals.

Stevens & Wilkinson is portraying the city as a powerful local government that turned its back on a sizable, but legitimate, bill that came due.

The city, on the other hand, is depicting Stevens & Wilkinson as a grasping creditor that knew it was doing work on speculation for the city, failed to get the job and wants to get paid anyway.

This story was originally published July 29, 2015 at 2:51 PM.