09172019 - News Article - Snyder sentencing pushed back to December

Snyder sentencing pushed back to December
NWI Times
September 17, 2019
https://www.nwitimes.com/news/snyder-sentencing-pushed-back-to-december/article_6dcbba58-89c7-535c-98ca-3f4ff846698e.html

HAMMOND — A federal judge is delaying for another three months a decision on whether to exonerate former Portage Mayor James E. Snyder or sentence him to prison.

A federal jury convicted Snyder of two felony counts of bribery and tax evasion Feb. 14 following a 19-day trial.

Snyder’s sentencing has been postponed for the second time because Snyder’s legal team argues the verdicts should be overturned on grounds of prosecutorial misconduct and insufficient evidence to support any conviction.

Federal prosecutors have responded the evidence of Snyder’s guilt was overwhelming and nothing in their conduct of the case warrants a new trial or his acquittal.

U.S. District Court Judge Joseph S. Van Bokkelen issued an order saying he will give the prosecution and defense until Dec. 6 to make their final arguments and then he will rule Dec. 17 on whether to acquit Snyder, grant him a new trial or “announce the defendant's sentence.”

Voters first elected Snyder, a Republican businessman, in 2011 as mayor of Portage, the third largest city in Northwest Indiana .

Federal authorities say they began investigating hints of public corruption three years later. A federal grand jury indicted Snyder in 2016, during his second four-year term in office.

Snyder pleaded not guilty and demanded a trial which commenced early this year.

Federal prosecutors presented evidence and argued Snyder accepted a $13,000 bribe in 2014 in return for steering a $1.125 million public works contract.

They said Snyder actively sought to award those contracts to Great Lakes Peterbilt, a truck sales firm in Portage, by rigging the specifications for garbage trucks the city was buying to give Great Lakes an unfair advantage.

Prosecutors said Great Lakes gave Snyder $13,000 within weeks of Great Lakes winning the contracts. It came as a check made out to SRC Consulting, which prosecutors said was a nonexistent company. They said the money eventually found its way to Snyder’s personal bank account.

The government also argued and presented evidence Snyder obstructed the Internal Revenue Service’s efforts to collect unpaid business and personal taxes he owed by hiding his taxable income.