Hey Ronnie Musgrove. Do you feel that noose getting tighter?

Kudos to Patsy Brumfield for staying on top of this story.

BREAKING NEWS: Another guilty plea expected in Beef Plant saga

8/12/2008 5:17:05 PM
Daily Journal

By Patsy R. Brumfield
Daily Journal

OXFORD - Beef Plant defendant Nixon Cawood, an executive with The Facility Group of Georgia, is set to change his plea to guilty on a one-count information Wednesday.

So says a filing late today in the U.S. District Court of the Northern District of Mississippi.

Cawood’s hearing is set for 10 a.m. before Chief Judge Michael P. Mills.

An information is a legal charge short of an indictment, which comes from a grand jury.

No other details were available, but it seems possible Cawood will follow his TFG colleague Robert Moultrie, who also pleaded guilty to a one-count information Monday.

Moultrie admitted he and Cawood agreed to pay then-Gov. Ronnie Musgrove another $25,000 campaign contribution - on top of an earlier $20,000 - to ensure goodwill should they need his help later on relating to the Beef Plant.

The Facility Group was hired in 2003 by the state to consult on the plant’s design and then on its construction.

The Yalobusha facility closed soon after it opened, putting hundreds of people out of work and leaving the state holding the bag on $55 million on loan guarantees.

Moultrie, Cawood and another colleague - plus their companies - originally were indicted in March on 16 counts they conspired to bribe Musgrove and defraud the state to repay their campaign contributions.

Musgrove, now a U.S. Senate candidate, insists he did nothing wrong. He has not been indicted.

In Moultrie’s plea deal, the government agreed to dismiss all those charges against him and the companies, in exchange for this new guilty plea and his cooperation in their continuing investigations.