DALLAS - News 8 has learned several people connected to the Commissioner John Wiley Price FBI probe are breaking their silence about the case.
While WFAA does not know the identification of those who were appearing before the federal grand jury Tuesday morning, it is known that several people with close ties to Price say they have been subpoenaed to testify.
The Dallas Morning News reported that players involved in an alleged shakedown scheme of a California developer for a South Dallas logistics center will appear before the jury sometime this week.
Among those expected to talk our businessman Jon Edmonds and Pettis Norman. Neither Edmonds nor Norman have been accused of any wrongdoing.
Both developer Edmonds and former Dallas Cowboys player Norman were identified in a series of articles in the Dallas Observer in 2008 that outlined an alleged initiative by Price's associates to force Inland Port developer Richard Allen to hire them as consultants.
The Inland Port is a massive rail, trucking and warehouse district located in south Dallas County off Interstate 45. The port was going to bring tens of thousands of jobs and a huge new tax base to southern Dallas.
But, according to then County Judge Jim Foster, Allen refused to bow to the pressure and hire the consultants. Foster said Allen complained to him about feeling "squeezed."
"He told me he couldn’t afford to give them 15 percent of this project and that he doesn’t do business that way,” Foster recalled. “I told him I don't think we should have to do business that way, that it was completely unethical and unacceptable."
In late June, the FBI raided the houses and offices of Price and two of his close associates.
Search warrants revealed that the FBI is investigating money that flowed through his campaign funds, land deals and his car collection.
He has not been charged with anything and publicly has denied any wrongdoing.
