Courtroom to be transformed

Oconee’s top floor courtroom, the scene of a three-week civil trial that ended Friday, will be transformed Monday morning to accommodate the lawyers and parties for another civil case which could take two weeks to try. Plateau Excavation against Oconee County and others is categorized as “complex” litigation and pairs a contractor against a county, for which the contractor extended an airport runway. But the project was marked by stops and starts and stymied when an employee of the county’s former airport consultant was arrested and charged with mail and wire fraud. He was later sent to prison for a year and a day and ordered to make restitution to Oconee County in the amount of $118 thousand. The trial, at which Circuit Judge Lawton McIntosh presides, is expected to begin with qualifying a jury pool. About 90 Oconeeans have been directed to report to be jury pool, from which the trial jury is to be chosen.