Day 12: Defense expects to call final witness Wednesday in Lake County Sheriff Buncich's corruption trial
NWI Times
Aug 22, 2017
nwitimes.com/news/local/crime-and-courts/day-defense-expects-to-call-final-witness-wednesday-in-lake/article_c6032870-1d2e-5e3e-9870-4a4bca01db56.html
HAMMOND — U.S. District Judge James T. Moody sent the jury home around 2 p.m. Tuesday after hearing from an expert witness in the trial of Lake County Sheriff John Buncich.
One more defense witness is expected Wednesday morning and defense attorney Bryan Truitt did not anticipate that person would be on the stand long. The prosecution and defense are then anticipated to each get 90 minutes for closing arguments.
Moody told the jury he would like to start by 8:30 a.m. Wednesday.
Much of Tuesday revolved around cash deposits made into Buncich's personal and campaign accounts between early 2014 and late 2017.
After deliberating behind closed doors for about two hours Tuesday morning, Moody, over defense objections, gave the green light for Assistant U.S. Attorney Philip Benson to recall an expert witness related to cash deposits made into Buncich's personal as well as campaign accounts.
Buncich is pleading not guilty to six counts of wire fraud and bribery alleging he used his authority over towing contracts to enrich himself and his campaign.
After Moody's ruling, Benson recalled IRS agent Gerard Hatagan, who testified earlier in the trial that Buncich failed to properly report some cash donations made to him by Scott Jurgensen, a 20-year veteran of the Merrillville Police Department and owner of Samson's Towing in Merrillville, and William "Willie" Szarmach, of Hobart, the former owner of CSA Towing in Lake Station. Both men are government witnesses and testified earlier they gave the sheriff about $30,000 in campaign contributions and kickbacks between 2009 and 2016 in return for more lucrative towing work.
Buncich contends he never required tow companies or their owners to pay him to get on the tow list, and he never required them to buy his campaign fundraising tickets.
On Tuesday, Hatagan went over records of cash deposits made into the sheriff's "Buncich Boosters" campaign committee account and Buncich's personal accounts between April 8, 2014, and Oct. 2, 2016. During this time, the government contends Buncich received $26,000 of alleged bribe payments in cash, while only $11,240 in cash deposits were made to the campaign account.
During this same time period, however, about $58,000 in cash deposits were made to Buncich's personal bank accounts, according to bank records.
In the case of a $7,500 payment made on Sept. 2, 2016, by Jurgensen there was no immediate record of the money being deposited afterward in the campaign account, but the bank records showed $6,000 in cash payments were made over the next 20 days into Buncich's personal account.
Buncich testified Monday the $7,500 was the remaining payment for one hundred $100 fundraising tickets that Jurgensen had purchased from him. While the money was not directly deposited in the campaign account, Buncich testified that he did make a notation that the money was partial repayment for loans he had made to the committee and that it would have been later accounted for in his campaign report.
In arguing against Hatagan's testimony, Buncich's defense attorneys had contended the payments from the towing firms do not match up with deposits made into Buncich's personal accounts.
Defense attorney Larry Rogers on Tuesday noted the cash deposited into Buncich's personal account were significantly more than the payments he had received from the tow truck drivers. Under questioning from Rogers, Hatagan acknowledged he did not know the source of the cash payments into Buncich's account.
Hatagan later told Benson, however, that it was his opinion that the money came from an illegal source and the money was not included as income in tax returns.
Rogers earlier asked Hatagan whether he knew if Buncich was a collector of police relics and participated in the buying and selling of such relics. Hatagan said he did not.
Rogers also presented a record of checks written from Buncich's personal account to the campaign account that were listed as loans to the committee. There were more than $15,000 worth of such checks written to the campaign account over the two-year period of 2014 and 2015, according to evidence presented by the defense.
Earlier in the trial, Hatagan said Buncich had lent his campaign committee more than $80,000 in personal funds over the years and that it isn't illegal for the sheriff to repay the loan from his campaign committee as long as it is property accounted for.
Buncich has previously said it costs about $200,000 to run for sheriff.
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