Portage mayor declines to testify as corruption trial nears end
Chicago Tribune
February 11, 2019
https://www.chicagotribune.com/suburbs/post-tribune/news/ct-ptb-snyder-trial-day-16-st-0212-story.html
Indicted Portage Mayor James Snyder declined to take the stand Monday as his weeks-long public corruption trial nears its end.
Snyder’s defense attorneys rested their case Monday afternoon and closing arguments are set for Tuesday before jurors begin their deliberations. Before 15 days of testimony and evidence wrapped up, Judge Joseph Van Bokkelen asked Snyder if he had been advised of his right to testify in his own defense before declining to take the stand.
“Yes,” Snyder said.
Van Bokkelen asked if it was his decision not to testify.
“Yes, it is my decision not to testify,” Snyder said.
Snyder said he was “upset” at the judge’s ruling to not allow the jury to hear undercover recordings his brother, Porter County Assessor Jon Snyder, made that the mayor’s defense attorneys argued would document his innocence.
“It seems like there’s two different trials going on,” Snyder said.
Van Bokkelen denied a motion to allow Snyder’s attorneys to play undercover recordings that were not played by federal prosecutors earlier in the trial.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Philip Benson said the tapes should not be played, and it was the defense’s aim to get Snyder’s words played without opening him up to cross examination.
“They’re really trying to get in the words of James Snyder,” Benson said.
On the last day of evidence and testimony, jurors heard from two now-former employees of Great Lakes Peterbilt and an IRS agent.
The defense called Robert Buha, the former owner of Great Lakes Peterbilt, which allegedly bribed Snyder to win city contracts to sell Portage five garbage trucks, but he answered few questions.
Buha testified that he now owns a small business, and that he was part owner of Great Lakes Peterbilt from 1992 to 2014. Buha then invoked the Fifth Amendment, which protects his from making potentially self-incriminating statements, and answered no other questions.
Federal prosecutors claim that Snyder steered a city contract to one firm and netted himself a $13,000 kickback.
Prosecutors say that when Snyder first ran for mayor, he told residents he planned to automate Portage’s trash pickup, but would up allegedly steering contracts for $712,882.50 and another for $425,355 to Great Lakes Peterbilt, which was then owned by Robert and Steve Buha.
Great Lakes Peterbilt is now owned by a different firm.
After getting those contracts, prosecutors Great Lakes Peterbilt gave Snyder a check for $13,000 payable to his shell company, which state records showed had been dissolved.
Defense attorneys say that Snyder used his experience in offering health insurance to city employees through the Affordable Care Act, and making technology upgrades to advise Great Lakes Peterbilt about making similar changes.
Snyder was indicted in November 2016 and charged with allegedly violating federal bribery statutes. Federal prosecutors say the mayor allegedly solicited money from Kustom Auto owner John Cortina, a Portage businessman, and “Individual A” and gave them a towing contract for Portage.
Snyder has pleaded not guilty to the charges, according to court documents.
Cortina, 79, who was indicted alongside the mayor, pleaded guilty to a charge that he paid bribes to Snyder to get a spot on the tow list.
The defense has argued that $10,000 of that payment was a loan to the mayor’s campaign committee to help him cover legal costs, and the remaining $2,000 was membership to a roundtable group. The defense has said the mayor had no knowledge part of that money came from “Individual A” and was in no way a bribe.
Snyder is also charged with obstructing or impeding the IRS, according to court documents.
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