Judge says court getting to 'end of' final pending motions before Portage mayor's trial
Chicago Tribune
December 05, 2018
https://www.chicagotribune.com/suburbs/post-tribune/news/ct-ptb-snyder-motion-rulings-st-1206-story.html
A federal judge ruled on some of the Portage mayor’s final lingering motions before his public corruption trial next month but said he needed more to decide whether James Snyder’s Sixth Amendment rights were violated.
Snyder appeared Wednesday in Hammond’s U.S. District Court for a hearing on his requests to exclude some undercover recordings and information, which he claimed were protected under attorney-client privilege.
Snyder and his co-defendant, John Cortina, of Kustom Auto Body in Portage, are set to begin their three-week trial Jan. 14. The two have pleaded not guilty after they were indicted in 2016 with allegedly violating a federal bribery statute when the mayor solicited money from Cortina and “Individual A” and gave them a towing contract for Portage.
Snyder is also charged with obstructing Internal Revenue Service laws.
Judge Joseph Van Bokkelen said the January trial date was firm unless there was an extreme unforeseen circumstance that arose.
There have been dozens of motions filed in the two years since Snyder was first indicted, but Van Bokkelen said Wednesday they were finally getting to the “end of it.”
“We’re going to chip away at these things,” Van Bokkelen said.
Snyder argued that his Sixth Amendment rights were violated when a conversation he had with his brother, Jon Snyder, about his strategy with his then-attorney and now-U.S. Attorney Thomas Kirsch II was reported to investigators.
On Dec. 5, 2016, a month after he was indicted, James Snyder told his brother that Kirsch “suggested Snyder think about hiring another attorney because Kirsch’s calendar did not line up well with Snyder’s upcoming trial in January,” court records state. James Snyder said that he and Kirsch had also been “working on tax issues,” according to court records.
Jon Snyder, who pleaded guilty in October for failing to file a tax form, was an informant for the FBI at the time, attorneys said. He reported this information to FBI Agent Donald Cooley with the FBI’s Merrillville office, who wrote a report that then went to federal prosecutors, Jayna Cacioppo, one of James Snyder’s attorneys, said.
“That information should have never been allowed to get to the trial team, but it did,” Cacioppo said.
Cacioppo argued that this violated Snyder’s Sixth Amendment right and that the information should be excluded at trial.
“The information wasn’t gathered improperly,” Assistant U.S. Attorney Philip Benson said. “… There was absolutely no violation here.”
After James Snyder’s indictment, there was still an ongoing investigation whether had the mayor had improperly obtained over $90,000 from the city’s utility services board to cover attorney fees over questions about a trip he took to Austria, Cooley said.
Cooley, who has since retired from the FBI, testified that Jon Snyder was clearly instructed about the Sixth Amendment and not to solicit information from his brother about conversations he had with his attorneys.
“We told him to minimize the contact” and “don’t bring it up,” Benson said.
Jon Snyder avoided calls and texts from his brother for months, and Cooley and Benson went through some of the messages Wednesday. James Snyder sent his brother a January 2017 email with the subject line “something is up.”
“I need a friend and a brother right now…,” James Snyder wrote in the email.
But if the brothers were talking at a family gathering and James Snyder “blurts out” what he talked about with his attorney, “what are you supposed to do? Bolt out of the room?” Benson asked. Benson argued that was “unrealistic.”
Van Bokkelen said he would make a ruling on the issue in the next 10 days.
Snyder also tried to exclude some undercover recordings at trial.
In May 2014, a confidential informant met with James Snyder in the mayor’s office and recorded a conversation about which companies were on the Portage tow list, court records show.
Snyder’s attorneys argued that this recording should be excluded because it wasn’t turned over to the defense until this fall. Benson countered that the government turned over the recording as soon as prosecutors were aware of it, and that information from the recording was given to the defense in an earlier report.
Van Bokkelen ruled that the recording could be played at trial.
Snyder also asked to keep recordings made of Cortina out of the trial. His attorneys argued that the government filed its Santiago proffer — a document that essentially lays out the government’s case — late, which should keep the recordings out.
Van Bokkelen denied that motion, too.
Before the hearing ended, Van Bokkelen reminded the defense and government about civility.
“I’m a big guy on civility,” the judge said.
Attorneys can be aggressive at trial, but if the trial gets uncivil, that “will not be tolerated,” Van Bokkelen said.
“I’m talking both sides,” the judge said.
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