Testimony continued Wednesday in the federal trial regarding former standardbred owner David Brooks, who is alleged to have illegally inflated the value of a body armor business, DHB Industries, and
illegally siphoned off company funds to pay for personal expenses.
On Wednesday, prosecutor Christopher Ott took testimony from a former bookkeeper for Tactical Armor Products, according to a story in Newsday. The company, the government alleges, was ostensibly owned by Brooks’ former wife, Terry, but actually in David Brooks’ control. While the plant, in Tennessee, provided material for DHB Industries, it did so at vastly inflated prices, alleged the prosecutor and court documents.
Newsday reports that while the TAP manufacturing plant was in Tennessee, the company's administrative office was in a small space in Westbury, near DHB, according to a government witness, Elinore Kaye, the bookkeeper for TAP from 2002 to 2006.
Kaye testified that all major decisions about TAP, including the payroll cheques for each employee in Tennessee, had to be approved personally by David Brooks.
Ott read a list of 100 people and companies, including veterinarians, horse trainers, grooms and hay providers. Kaye said she was familiar with the names because TAP had written cheques to them at Brooks' orders.
Attorneys for Brooks have argued that TAP was actually a private company owned by Terry Brooks, and that the written authorizations to issue checks were initialed or signed off on by lower-level employees of TAP, not David Brooks.
Some details of the alleged scheme to support Brooks' horses were contained in his indictment, but details of the alleged scheme have come out only in the court proceedings. Brooks is charged with fraud and obstruction of justice in various schemes that resulted in looting DHB of about $190 million.
The trial is expected to continue for about four months, according to estimations by attorneys for both sides.
For more information, go to newsday.com.
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This story courtesy of Harness Racing Communications, a division of the U.S. Trotting Association. For more information, visit www.ustrotting.com.