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Schrenko under cross: Temple was “the Puppet Master”
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Former State School Superintendent, Linda Schrenko, who pleaded guily Wednesday to money laundering and embezzling to finance her failed campaign for governor, testifed Thursday as part of her plea deal with the government.
Most of her testimony was aimed at Merle Temple, her former deputy superintendent and lover, who was charged late Thursday with obstruction of justice for allegedly planning to protect Schrenko when he testified against her.
Schrenko said she and Temple took cash to various people to get them to write campaign checks, including her mother, her daughter, and state Rep. Sue Burmeister of Augusta.
Contacted by telephone Thursday afternoon, Burmeister said: “I wrote two checks out of my personal account that I gave to her campaign. And I have just been served a subpoena to testify. I haven’t seen it yet. It was delivered to my office. So at this point, I feel I probably cannot comment. Linda personally did not give me money.”
When asked if Temple did, she said, “I probably can’t comment because I haven’t talked to anybody.”
Campaign disclosure reports filed by Schrenko’s campaign show Burmeister wrote campaign two checks, one on Dec. 31, 2001 for $150 and one on June 29, 2002 for $250.
Under cross examination Thursday afternoon, Schrenko testified that Temple called himself “the Puppet Master,” because he worked behind the scenes on her campaign and thought he was largely in control of the state Department of Education.
Temple was a former law enforcement officer and spokesman for Bell South in the Augusta area before Shrenko brought him in as a deputy state school superintendent, she said.
During her tenure, Schrenko said she controlled a $7 billion annual budget. But on several occasions, she said, Temple asked her sign documents she didn’t think she had authority to sign. Schrenko testified she once signed a $4,500 contract but didn’t know what it was for, at Temple’s request.
During her gubernational campaign, with her health bad, her finances “abysmal” and with a poor showing in the polls, Schrenko said she considered dropping out of the race. “I think I spent every night crying for hours,” she said. “I was ready to just go home. It was hurting me physically.”
Botes recommended she take vitamins, she testified.
But Temple and her original campaign manager talked her into staying in the race, she said. That’s when she said Temple told her he’d put the commissions he earned from Botes’ computer company and some of his own retirement money into her campaign.
She said that after she and Temple learned in 2004 they were under federal investigation, Temple insisted they go to see Botes. The three met at a Buckhead pub, she said, and Temple hugged Botes.
“Merle’s not a hugger,” Schrenko said, but he joked that he was checking Botes for a wire. “Mr. Botes said he was wearing tennis clothes and had noplace to hide a wire,” she said.
Botes and Temple, she said, were both afraid the federal government would tap their telephones.
After Temple made a deal with the government last year to testify against her, Schrenko said he continued to call, email, visit and bring her presents. She said the government warned him to stop doing that and, for three weeks, she said he did. Then he began calling and visiting again, she testified. “Temple told me that, according to his plea aggrement, he wasn’t supposed to have any contact with me whatsoever.”
Schrenko said Temple told her believed he would get a two-year probated sentence plus community service for his part of the embezzelment and money laundering scheme. He later told her he’d get a third of whatever sentence she got, she said.
Staff writer Nancy Badertscher contributed to this story.
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