Feds outline evidence against Lake Station mayor
Post-Tribune
August 24, 2015
Federal attorneys outlined some of the evidence they want to use against Lake Station Mayor Keith Soderquist when his first trial starts next week, including evidence they say shows the mayor and his wife tried to hide their crimes from investigators.
According to a motion filed Friday in the U.S. District Court in Hammond, federal attorneys want to present receipts that Soderquist and his wife, Deborah Soderquist, gave them that supposedly explained where money from his campaign re-election committee went.
The government says in the motion, however, that those receipts were an attempt to hide that they had used the money on various gambling trips to nearby casinos.
"...The submission of these receipts are simply further evidence of the defendants' attempt to conceal the conspiracy," the motion says, adding that the evidence shows the Soderquists knew they had committed a crime.
It goes on to outline that conspiracy, saying evidence shows they made more than 40 ATM withdrawals from the mayor's campaign fund within 24 hours of their visits to casinos from 2010 to 2012. The withdrawals totaled more than $20,000, according to the motion.
"The defendants held out the Campaign Committee to donors as one thing - a fund meant to help re-elect Mayor Soderquist - and treated the Campaign Committee money completely at odds with that representation," the motion says.
The government claims they made similar withdrawals from the Lake Station Food Pantry's account, although the motion does not say how much was taken from that account.
The motion argues that these withdrawals match the decline of the Soderquists' finances, including losing $160,000 from gambling over a six-year period ending in 2013.
Evidence shows they withdrew $50,000 from their retirement accounts from 2009 to 2011, according to the motion, and that they discharged $35,000 in credit card debt because they were insolvent and couldn't make payments.
The government is asking a federal judge to allow the use of this evidence during the Soderquists' trial, which is set to start Monday.
Federal attorneys also filed another motion Friday asking that Scott King and Lakeisha Murdaugh, attorneys for the Soderquists, be barred from trying to elicit sympathy for their clients so that the jury would acquit them even if they think the defendants are guilty, which is known as jury nullification.
This includes not asking questions about the Soderquists' age and health, whether the government unfairly focused on them and not other criminals, their previous lack of a criminal history and the possible penalties they face if convicted.
The mayor and his wife were charged in the spring of 2014 with one count of conspiracy to commit wire fraud, seven counts of wire fraud and three counts of filing a false income tax return. The trial is expected to last four to five days.
Both of the Soderquists are also charged in a second case, along with Deborah Soderquist's daughter, Miranda Brakley, in connection with claims that Brakley stole money from the city when she worked there as a court clerk. That trial is set for November.
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