06292017 - News Article - Portage mayor's trial pushed back to January

Portage mayor's trial pushed back to January
NWI Times
June 29, 2017
http://www.nwitimes.com/news/local/porter/portage-mayor-s-trial-pushed-back-to-january/article_fa5874dd-49d2-529f-abcb-6ecf26146a2c.html

HAMMOND — The federal corruption and bribery trial of Portage Mayor James Snyder has been pushed back to January 2018.

In a ruling filed Thursday in the U.S. District Court Northern District, Magistrate Judge John E. Martin granted a continuance requested by both Snyder, his co-defendant John Cortina and federal prosecutors earlier this month.

The original request, however, had asked to postpone the trial until October.

The ruling sets the trial for Jan 29, 2018 before District Court Judge Rudy Lozano. The deadline for filing pretrial motions has been extended to Sept. 15, 2017. A final pretrial conference is scheduled for Jan. 12.

The latest continuance, which will push the trial date back a year from its original scheduled date, was sought because of the large amount of discovery, including "hours of undercover recordings and hundreds of pages of documents" under review by the defense and the expectation of additional material forthcoming from the government.

In granting the request, Martin wrote it was necessary for "the parties to review the voluminous discovery and because of the complexity of the trial."

Snyder, a Republican who is in his second term, was indicted Nov. 16. Charges allege he solicited money from Cortina in order to put Cortina on the city's towing list.