Marlene Sokol, Times Staff Writer
Thursday, January 13, 2011
TAMPA — Shea Hughes, son of the late businessman who loaned Jim Norman's wife $500,000, has testified before a federal grand jury about the transaction, insisting it was not an act of corruption.
Hughes, 49, confirmed Thursday that a government lawyer questioned him for about 15 minutes about the deal involving Norman, who was a Hillsborough County commissioner at the time and is now a state Senator.
"They asked me if I knew anything about the note," Hughes said, referring to a document uncovered after his father's death in 2008. "It was a loan to Mearline Norman. It was a note payable to the trust, to the estate of my family."
During an election challenge last fall, Norman and his wife Mearline testified that Hughes had invested $500,000 to help Mearline buy a waterfront house in Arkansas in ...