RICHMOND, Va. — Former governor Bob McDonnell of Virginia and his wife, Maureen, on trial for allegedly conspiring to use his office for personal enrichment, outlined an unexpected defense Tuesday: Their marriage was so broken that they did not communicate enough to conspire about anything.
In opening arguments in the couple’s corruption trial in federal court here, their lawyers made clear that they planned to rely on the sordid details of their unhappy union as the basis of their legal defense. It was the first time the McDonnells’ version of events had been heard in a widely publicized case that for months has been characterized by the lengthy indictment against them, which charges the couple with accepting more than $165,000 in cash and luxury gifts from a Virginia businessman.
Maureen McDonnell, her lawyer said, had a “crush” on the businessman, Jonnie R. Williams Sr., the prosecutors’ star witness, who the government said would detail the designer clothing, vacations, golf rounds, and cash he provided in exchange for the governor’s help in promoting his company, which made a dietary supplement.
Williams was a frequent visitor to the Executive Mansion, where he and Maureen McDonnell would meet privately.
He was known as “Maureen’s favorite playmate,’’ the lawyer, William A. Burck, told jurors. “Maureen McDonnell and Jonnie Williams had a relationship some would consider improper for two people not married.’’
Over two years, Maureen McDonnell and Williams exchanged 1,200 phone calls and texts.
The government said that for Williams, it was about making money.
According to both sides, Williams gained access to the governor by befriending the state’s first lady, spending some $19,000 on a shopping spree for designer clothes and accessories, and buying a $6,500 Rolex watch for her to present to her husband.
The motives of Williams, a serial entrepreneur known variously as a super salesman and someone whose businesses repeatedly ran afoul of government regulators, are likely to be front and center in the trial.
If convicted on all counts, the McDonnells face more than 20 years in prison. Bob McDonnell, limited to one term under state law, left office in January.
Defense lawyers said Williams repeatedly changed his account of his relationship with the McDonnells — first denying he sought anything in return for his generosity, later saying they had “an arrangement” — after the government promised him immunity in a separate case involving his company, formerly named Star Scientific.
Prosecutors do not portray Williams as an angel. Jessica Aber described him as “a vitamin salesman.’’ But she alleged a quid pro quo between Williams’s gifts to the McDonnells and the governor’s actions on his behalf. She presented a text message from Bob McDonnell to Williams in May 2012 reading, “Per voice mail, would like to see if you could extend another 20k loan for this year.’’
Williams’s response: “Done.’’