A federal prosecutor opened the federal money-laundering trial of criminal defense lawyer J. Mark Shelnutt on Tuesday by asking the jury, "Why would a lawyer ask a secretary to run some cash through her checking account? Why would he give her a box of $7,000 in cash and ask her to write [him] a check and give him money back?"

That transaction, said Special Attorney to the U.S. Attorney General Carlton R. Bourne Jr., illustrates Shelnutt's crossover from honest advocate for Columbus, Ga.'s largest drug trafficker to a willing partner in the drug trafficking conspiracy.

"He crossed the line," Bourne said of Shelnutt, "because of the lure of big money."

Shelnutt defense counsel Thomas A. Withers countered in an hourlong opening statement to the jury that it was federal agents and prosecutors, not Shelnutt, who had lost their way. In making Shelnutt the target of a criminal investigation, Withers told the jury, "the government has lost its legal compass, has lost its sense of right and wrong."

The evidence supporting the government's 40-count indictment charging Shelnutt with 30 counts of money laundering and aiding and abetting a drug conspiracy "will shock you," Withers said, "not because of anything this man has done ... but because of the lengths to which the government has gone for the purpose of trying to get Mr. Shelnutt."

U.S. District Judge Clay D. Land is presiding over the trial.

A federal grand jury in Columbus indicted Shelnutt last May, charging him with laundering and conspiring to launder more than $40,000 in funds derived from illicit drug deals that the attorney was paid to defend drug trafficker Torrance "Bookie" Hill and members of Hill's Columbus drug ring.

Shelnutt was also charged with making false statements to a federal agent, failing to file an IRS form required for all cash transactions over $10,000 and witness tampering by attempting to influence the testimony of his secretary before the grand jury.

Shelnutt also faces a charge of attempting to bribe a federal prosecutor by offering him two University of Georgia football tickets at face value.

Bourne, an Assistant U.S. Attorney from Georgia's Southern District, is leading the prosecution of Shelnutt for the U.S. Attorney of Georgia's Middle District, which includes Columbus. The Middle District office recused because the assistant prosecutor who is the subject of the alleged bribery attempt works in that office.

At about 20 minutes, Bourne's opening statement was one-third the length of the defense's opening.

During that time, Bourne told the jury that Shelnutt aided and abetted Hill's drug conspiracy by trying "to keep control over members of the conspiracy" after their arrests in May 2005 in what became the largest drug bust in Columbus' history.

Shelnutt, who represented or arranged counsel for a number of accused members of Hill's operation, "urged people to stick together and not reveal his involvement," Bourne said.

The lawyer, he added, also got a list from Hill of drug dealers who owed Hill money from drug deals, directed the collection of that money, had it brought to him as payment for defending Hill, and then failed in two cases to file a federal cash reporting form (known as IRS Form 8300).

That failure to report those cash payments and the instance in which he gave his secretary the box of cash and she later repaid him with a check marked Shelnutt's efforts "to make dirty money look clean," Bourne said.

Shelnutt also used the cash to make payments on a $485,000 property he shared with several other investors in Florida and deposit funds into his then-wife's personal bank account, Bourne said. He also stored more cash in bank safety deposit boxes, Bourne added.

When his secretary, Joanne Strickland, was subpoenaed to testify before the grand jury investigating Shelnutt, the prosecutor said, "He took her aside and tried to get her to lie" by insisting that the box containing the cash was a loan.

Bourne insisted that there was no evidence that the money was a loan, saying Shelnutt "tried to tamper with the witness to get her to give false testimony before the grand jury."

Bourne also offered the jury an account of a four-hour meeting that Shelnutt had with an Assistant U.S. Attorney from Georgia's Middle District in February 2007. Shelnutt had tracked the prosecutor down, said Bourne, to "talk him out of being a suspect."

During that meeting, Bourne told the jury, "This defendant lied to" the prosecutor -- identified in a July pretrial hearings as Assistant U.S. Attorney Jason M. Ferguson -- and an FBI agent (identified earlier as Mark Kalish).

Bourne's account to the jury on Monday differed on several key points from Ferguson's testimony under oath during the July hearing. Ferguson acknowledged attempting to prompt Shelnutt into requesting a meeting by notifying the lawyer that one of his clients -- who is now cooperating with federal prosecutors -- was a grand jury target.

Ferguson said in July that he had lied to Shelnutt when the lawyer asked if they were being tape-recorded -- a point that clearly troubled Judge Land.

On Tuesday, Bourne acknowledged that many of the government's witnesses against Shelnutt are drug dealers, drug dealers' girlfriends and their relatives.

Withers, Shelnutt's lawyer, compared the witnesses' pedigrees to that of his client, the son and brother of Methodist ministers, an Emory University law school graduate who has represented not just drug dealers but also law enforcement officers, judges and members of his church congregation. His former law partners include Chattahoochee Judicial Circuit's current district attorney, Julia A. Slater, said Withers.

Federal prosecutors, he said, have bought the witnesses' testimony with their freedom and, in doing so, "The government has turned a blind eye to drugs and violence in a manner that is shocking."

Withers also scoffed at what he said would be the government's reliance on drug ringleader Hill as a key witness against Shelnutt.

In defending Hill, Shelnutt negotiated a cooperative plea agreement with the federal government that put Hill in the custody of the Drug Enforcement Administration agent who would soon target Shelnutt.

When Hill was arrested a second time on drug charges while cooperating with federal agents, Shelnutt told him, "You've blown your chance," Withers said. He asked the jury whether those were the actions of a lawyer attempting to conceal his alleged illegal activities on behalf of Hill's drug ring.

Hundreds of hours of taped telephone calls between Hill and his drug minions that have been turned over to Shelnutt's defense show that it was Hill, not Shelnutt, who directed his wife, his girlfriend and other members of his drug ring to collect money from dealers who owed him money so he could pay his lawyer, Withers said.

"To suggest that Torrance Hill gave Mark Shelnutt a list flies in the face of the evidence," the defense attorney explained. "He doesn't need to give a list to Mark Shelnutt. He has all these other folks out there doing his bidding."

Withers also attacked Bourne's allegation that Shelnutt had laundered a box of cash through his secretary's bank account. Withers said that Shelnutt had occasionally made loans to her, given her Christmas bonuses, helped her purchase a car and otherwise "treated her with care."

The cash in question was a loan to help Strickland pay for her daughter's wedding 12 days later, Withers said. Strickland repaid Shelnutt, minus $500, with a check.

But Strickland originally told the FBI it was $5,000 rather than $7,000, Withers said -- saying that discrepancy from Shelnutt's account that he gave her $7,000 was the reason he was indicted for making a false statement to the FBI.

Strickland later returned to the grand jury to correct her original account, Withers said.

"The good things that Mark Shelnutt had done for her have been twisted by the government," he said.

Withers also told the jury that Shelnutt and the other partners in his firm routinely took in tens of thousands of dollars in cash.

Their practice was to split the cash every Friday. Shelnutt, in turn, made deposits into his wife's personal account, from which the couple paid their monthly bills, paid his portion of the Florida property mortgage, which was in his name, and used it for other purposes.

Withers acknowledged the firm's cash practice was not handled correctly from an accounting point of view. But he denied that the practice constituted money laundering.

"It's not a crime for a lawyer to be paid in cash," he told the jury, "even if he knows the money is coming from an illicit or illegal source."

Shelnutt's cash deposits were neither concealed nor disguised, he said because both accounts had direct links to Shelnutt. "You don't commit money laundering by putting cash into your wife's account," Withers explained, adding, "The government will not have any tie between the money going to [Shelnutt's wife's] account and Torrance Hill."

Withers also challenged the government's assertion that Shelnutt was attempting to control accused members of the drug ring to protect himself from prosecution. Shelnutt, he said, actually referred several accused ring members to other lawyers -- an action he suggested Shelnutt would not have taken if he feared any revelation of his alleged involvement with the ring.

But federal agents were clearly after Shelnutt, Withers said. In June 2007, Shelnutt was accused by an FBI agent of attempting to bribe a woman who had made allegations against one of Shelnutt's former clients. But Shelnutt was able to locate tape recordings he had made of two brief conversations he had with the woman that contradicted the accusation that had been conveyed, leading Assistant U.S. Attorney Mel E. Hyde Jr. to tell Shelnutt he "would call off the dogs," Withers said.

Instead, federal prosecutors eventually shepherded through the grand jury an indictment charging Shelnutt with attempting to bribe Hyde by offering him, at face value, two tickets to a University of Georgia football game at the end of an unrelated case the two had successfully concluded, Withers said.

"Mr. Shelnutt had worked with Mr. Hyde for years and years," Withers said. "If the government had what it should have ... it wouldn't be bothered with Georgia football tickets at face value.

"There is something wrong, deeply wrong with this case," Withers concluded. And as a result, he said, "Mr. Shelnutt sits here a shattered man."

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