pattern or practice

Excerpt from Tom Tousis Deposition Holmes vs City of Racine

Dickert about your West Racine project? 2 A    No, not before that. 3 Q    Did — did he -4 A    I really hadn’t talked to John for quite a bit 5     of time before he started soliciting us for 6     money. 7 Q    Well, on this particular occasion, the day that 8     you agreed to make a contribution, who brought 9     up the West Racine project? 10 A    John did.  John was reviewing my prints. 11 Q    He was what? 12 A    Reviewing the prints. 13 Q    How did he obtain the prints? 14 A    He asked to see them and when he was asking me 15     if we could do the project without pumps, with 16     no gas, just do grocery and restaurant. 17 Q    Okay. 18 A    Various questions like that. 19 Q    And at this point he had no authority 20     whatsoever over your project. 21 A    No. 22 Q    Do you know if he was sitting on any 23     committees? 24 A    He might have been on the same committee 25     that — he probably was.  It was only a few
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1     years after our first project, so… 2 Q    Okay.  Ultimately how much money did you agree 3     to give him? 4 A    Well, I originally wanted to max out, wrote the 5     check from my father and after talking to my 6     father, but John said he was very short and 7     needed to pay for radio and he wasn’t going to 8     win and he was out of money and depleted his 9     own so he asked if we could do twice the 10     amount. 11 Q    Okay. 12 A    Okay.  So — and it was rough, you know, the 13     real amount’s got to be around $1,900 so I just 14     rounded it to, you know, approximately 2,000 15     bucks. 16 Q    And did you give him — did you write checks 17     for him? 18 A    No.  He didn’t want it that way. 19 Q    What happened?  What did he say? 20 A    He said he didn’t have time, because this was 21     days before the election to turn around the 22     money to pay for advertising, so it was either 23     radio or print or both or that he needed to pay 24     for it immediately otherwise he was going to 25     lose.
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1 Q    All right.  So what did you end up doing? 2 A    Giving him — giving him cash. 3 Q    How did you give him the cash? 4 A    He — he provided a jar with a “John Dickert 5     for Mayor” sticker on the front of it and said 6     to take any contribution, pass to my customers, 7     like leave it on the counter and collect money. 8     That’s the story he was giving me. 9 Q    The day that — the day that he asked you to 10     make this contribution how long after that did 11     you receive the jar? 12 A    Oh, it was the same day.  It was hours 13     following. 14 Q    Who brought the jar to you? 15 A    John, I think, brought the jar to me. 16 Q    Okay. 17 A    He had somebody pick it up. 18 Q    So the day that you had this conversation, the 19     day he brought you the jar, did you put the jar 20     on the counter for customers to put money into? 21 A    No, it never got to the counter. 22 Q    Where did you take the money from? 23 A    We just took it out of the sales that day. 24 Q    How much money did you put in the jar? 25 A    It was just short of 2,000 bucks, you know,
Page 69 1     uneven number, so 1,900 something dollars and 2     singles and fives and ten and 20s and mixed up. 3 Q    How big was the jar? 4 A    It was a mason jar.  It wasn’t very big at all. 5     It was like a Ragu container.  It wasn’t very 6     big at all. 7 Q    You said it was covered with stickers on it? 8 A    It was one sticker across the front. 9 Q    What was on the -10 A    It was taped or it was something taped to the 11     front of it.  It was a “John Dickert for Mayor” 12     type of a small banner type of decal. 13 Q    Okay.  Did you ultimately put cash in the jar? 14 A    Correct. 15 Q    Then how did you transfer the money back to 16     Dickert? 17 A    He sent at the time one of his campaign workers 18     over to pick it up. 19 Q    Do you know who the campaign worker was? 20 A    Zach Williams. 21 Q    Had you met Zach Williams before? 22 A    Never.  That was the first time we ever met, 23     I’d say. 24 Q    Did you meet him in person for

Full Deposition