T-L Photo/ROBERT A. DEFRANK Meredith Broome is back in court Tuesday for her re-trial for obstruction of justice.

ST. CLAIRSVILLE — Meredith Broome, stepdaughter of the late Marvin Brown, former Powhatan Point mayor and businessman, was back in court Tuesday for the first day of her re-trial on a charge of obstructing justice, alleged to have occurred in 2013.

Broome, 35, also known as Meredith McLeod, of Rome, Georgia, was charged in June with tampering with evidence and obstruction of justice. In March, she went to trial and was found innocent of tampering, but the jury was deadlocked on obstruction of justice.

Broome’s mother, Deborah Doty Brown, is Marvin Brown’s widow. She was convicted and has served a three-year sentence for theft from his business. She has since been released from prison. Broome was accused of attempting to conceal her mother’s theft by trying to prevent a meeting between Marvin Brown and an accountant in 2013.

Belmont County Chief Assistant Prosecutor Kevin Flanagan and Broome’s attorney, Dennis McNamara, gave their opening statements before Common Pleas Judge John Vavra. They said they will argue how much she knew about her mother’s criminal activities and when she knew them.

Flanagan described the situation at Brown’s successful business of Powhatan Construction prior to his death in 2013, when Deborah Doty Brown handled finances as the bookkeeper. He said after Brown’s death, his sons looked at the company finances and found that Deborah Doty Brown had depleted the company assets.

“I’m talking about hundreds of thousands of dollars,” Flanagan said, adding that the money was used to fund Doty Brown’s and Broome’s Percocet addiction and Doty Brown’s gambling.

The jury heard transcripts from Broome’s first trial, as well as from witnesses recalled to the stand. Flanagan said this will include testimony from a drug dealer who sold expensive 30-milligram Percocet tablets to Broome for her and Doty Brown.

“That money had to come from somewhere,” Flanagan said.

It is alleged that Broome asked a then-friend to place a false call to Brown’s answering machine when Doty Brown was ensuring the late Brown was not present. The friend was reportedly asked to impersonate an accountant’s secretary to cancel a meeting which would presumably have revealed improprieties in the company finances.

During his opening statement, McNamara was in agreement that Doty Brown had committed crimes, but said Broome was financially dependent on her mother and ignorant of how her mother got the money.

“When Marvin Brown died in November of 2013, he didn’t know that any money was missing,” McNamara said. “No one knew, except Deborah. … (Broome) didn’t know that (Doty Brown) had taken money without consent or authority or illegally. She didn’t know the details about it.”

McNamara said the alleged false phone call was never made, the meeting with the accountant was not canceled, but postponed by Doty Brown, and the subject of the meeting was related to the sale of oil and gas rights on land owned by Brown. He also said one of the prosecution’s witnesses was a drug dealer and admitted liar.

“(Broome) didn’t do anything to obstruct an investigation, because there wasn’t one and because she had no reason to believe there would be,” McNamara said.

Witnesses included Hattie Conner, a former friend of Broome. Conner testified Broome asked her make a false phone call.

“(Broome) was asking me for her mom. Her mom wanted to know if I would call over to their house … answering machine, pretend I was… (Brown’s) accountant and reschedule an appointment … because her mom had the money messed up,” Conner said. “She offered me a (30-milligram Percocet tablet) to make a phone call.”

She said Broome gave her a note written by Doty Brown to leave on the answering machine. Conner said she decided not to make the call for fear Brown would find out and prosecute her.

On cross-examination, McNamara pressed Conner on several points, including vagueness and apparent discrepancies in times, dates, and the amounts of money Conner spent on drugs. McNamara also pointed out Conner has admitted to drug-related behavior but had not been prosecuted, and asked if this was in exchange for testimony. He also wondered if Conner’s drug issues at the time could have affected her memory or thinking.

Conner also related an angry altercation between herself and Broome Conner said occurred at some point after Brown’s death, where Broome allegedly blamed Conner for her mother’s prosecution. McNamara said Conner did not speak of this earlier.