DVDs, audio tapes, become the stars of the show in Martin trial: UPDATE

Back in the day...

Our readers are right! On the DVD in which Raymond was referring to the ‘pool place,’ it wasn’t a pool HALL he was talking about; it was a POOL STORE. And it is Buzz Zirkelbach to whom he was referring.

We’ll have more accurate stuff from here on out now that Ang is here…she takes amazing notes. Now here’s the original post, unaltered, so you can see what we’re talking about.

BENTON—While confidential informant Jeremy Potts took the stand again for several hours this afternoon in Raymond Martin’s federal jury trial, as predicted, the real star of the show were the DVDs and audio tapes featuring the Gallatin County sheriff.

After an unexplained two-hour lunch break, the return to testimony was seamless. There was no mention of whatever the hiccup was that caused an early break in the matter in the late morning. Federal prosecutor James Cutchin returned Potts to the stand; the young man was visibly less nervous than he had been in the morning’s testimony.

Cutchin refreshed Potts’ memory of where the testimony left off: how the sheriff, when speaking to him about his drug activities (selling dope for Martin), intimidated him with his revolver.

The testimony then focused on DVDs and audiotapes that had been produced when the federal agents working on the case in early 2009 wired up Potts to capture…of the sheriff in action.

As mentioned earlier, the video and audio were pristine for the most part (some were of lower quality, fuzzy and out of focus, but those were the exceptions.) In one, Raymond Martin’s elbow can be clearly seen sticking out of the driver’s side window of his sheriff’s SUV: the sheriff’s emblem on the sleeve patch can be very clearly observed. In another, the wooden handle of his revolver can be easily made out. In a later one, it shows Jeremy Potts being handed a large bag of pot by the sheriff, and Potts can be heard asking Martin for identification on how much the bag weighs; Martin identifies it as a pound of marijuana. In this same video, it can plainly be seen that Potts is handing Martin wads of $100 bills to pay the sheriff. At this point, Potts tells Martin that the money is from his buddy in Indiana buying these pounds of pot. In reality, Potts’ “buddy” is in jail; the money was provided him courtesy of ISP’s Glenn Rountree; each bill is marked.

According to information Disclosure was given, there was “heavy surveillance at each of these meetings. The whole woodline is full of cops.”

At one point on video, Potts and Martin had a lengthy discussion on how to take care of marijuana plants. Martin tells Potts about how ‘white’ his plants were (Potts later opined that Martin wasn’t watering them enough). Martin told Potts he knew a “really good place to take him to dig up some dirt instead of buying some at the store,” and they also talked about using MiracleGro. There was testimony about some jersey gloves Martin used throughout the surveillance; on one DVD, it shows Martin getting out of his vehicle with jersey gloves in a spot around the driver’s seat; Martin proceeds to put them on and goes to the back of the vehicle, pops the hatch, and hands Potts a large bag of marijuana, which he then stuffs under his shirt.

There’s more; but we’re starving. We’re going out to get something to eat (we haven’t had any food in 24 hours, if that tells you how busy we’ve been, but all papers are delivered!)  When we get back, we’ll add to this update. Keep checking back! And get out and get this month’s issue, so you can follow along…

***a few noms later***

Okay, we’re back. Italian food, and no, I didn’t have beef. I had chicken. whoopee.

After the incident wherein the jersey gloves were revealed, a DVD was shown in which Martin was talking about a source in Ridgway. Potts was telling Martin that his “buddy in Indiana” could buy a few pounds of pot and asked Martin if he could get anymore. Martin says, “yeah, let me call my source in Ridgway, he can get a half pound of green (fresh pot). I’ll get back to you in 30 minutes.”

The unspoken *gasp* moment in this, of course, is: Martin has a source in Ridgway who can choke up a half a pound of green in 30 minutes? And yes, indeed, he did. We never learned exactly who this person was. However, during the conversation, Martin brings up “the guy who runs the pool hall.” As it turns out, the guy who runs the pool hall is Skipper Patton…Shawneetown police chief Radar Patton’s nephew. There’s no direct connection, that we can ascertain, between the pool hall guy and the weed guy…but who knows.

Another videoed incident is where Martin was telling Potts that he has a source—”an old guy”—who has a relative with cancer in New Orleans, and was getting ready to go tend to his relative. When this guy gets back, Martin says, he’ll be able to provide several pounds.

About a competitor in Ridgway, in another DVD’d moment, Martin tells Potts: “I’m gonna try to put the fear of God in him. He’s competition, you know.” We never have learned who this was, or what Raymondo did to put the fear of God into him. With as many dead bodies floating around Gallatin during this time frame, maybe he simply made it so that dude MET God. Wait…that’s another charge. Nevermind.

Anyway…Potts will be on the stand on direct for about an hour in the morning (Wednesday 09.15.10), then the real fun begins when Martin’s attorney, John O’Gara, gets to cross-examine Potts.

There may be more coming up tonight…we learned (once we got back together and compared stories) what the glitch was today that called everybody out of the courtroom…and it’s a doozy, you’re just not going to believe it. But bear with us…if we don’t get it tonight, it’s because we’re tired (and we haven’t seen each other in two days; an oddity in and of itself!

So keep checking back…we’ll have more. Mark your RSS feeds, and for crying out loud don’t waste another minute if you don’t have this month’s (Sept/Oct) current issue…it has the Raymondo Re-hash, which is everything you need to know about the case up to this week’s kickoff of the trial!

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Posted by Jack Howser on Sep 14 2010. Filed under Franklin, Gallatin. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry