Grand jury to probe Florida House speaker over college job

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Alex Leary | Miami Herald/St. Pete Times

TALLAHASSEE — A grand jury decided Monday to look into allegations that House Speaker Ray Sansom abused his position by taking a six-figure job at his hometown college.

''From this point on, we'll be calling witnesses,'' State Attorney Willie Meggs said at the Leon County Courthouse. "I don't know what we're going to find until we look. We will get the people who have this information and present it to the grand jury.''

Sansom, R-Destin, took the unadvertised $110,000 a year job at Northwest Florida State College on the same day he became speaker of the House two months ago.

The Miami Herald/St. Petersburg Times Tallahassee Bureau then reported that over the past two years, the college got about $35 million in extra or accelerated construction funding, including $6 million for an airport building once sought by a prominent developer and Republican donor, Jay Odom.

Read the full story at MiamiHerald.com

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