Sooooooooo, federally indicted Portage Mayor James Snyder is suing the city, and that my folks, is what I call karma for every official in Portage and Porter County.
The same officials who are boo hooing about how much money Snyder's lawsuit is going to cost them, are the same officials who thought it was okay to retaliate against me because I reported Magistrate Johnson to state officials.
These same officials sat back when my home was unlawfully entered by the Portage PD and my ex - and when my precious furbabies Abbi and Bailey were killed as a result of this unlawful police entry. And later, these same officials declared that I didn't have a right to answers or justice.
Moral of the story, Portage and Porter County officials: You can't expect to do wrong to others and expect good to come of it - sooner or later, Karma bites you in the ass - so, just think of Snyder as Karma for all the harm you caused me, because I did the right thing by reporting Magistrate Johnson.
UPDATE: Portage mayor files lawsuit against City Council, clerk-treasurer over utility board
NWI Times
Mar 2, 2018
http://www.nwitimes.com/news/local/porter/portage-mayor-files-lawsuit-against-city-council-clerk-treasurer-over/article_1cc14d69-6d63-584a-9e21-46cbea56a26b.html
PORTAGE — Mayor James Snyder has filed a lawsuit against the City Council and clerk-treasurer over the council's operation of the Utility Service Board.
Snyder, represented by Indianapolis law firm Bingham Greenbaum Doll, is asking the court for both immediate and permanent action to declare the board's operations illegal and rule the recently passed stormwater fees void and unenforceable.
The lawsuit was filed Thursday in Porter Superior Court. The suit specifically names council members Elizabeth Modesto, D-1st; Pat Clem, D-2nd; Scott Williams, D-3rd; John Cannon, R-4th; Collin Czilli, D-5th; Sue Lynch, D-at-large; Mark Oprisko, D-at-large, and clerk-treasurer Chris Stidham.
The lawsuit is the latest volley in a battle between Snyder and the City Council since the council took over operations of the Utility Service Board just over a year ago.
"After nearly 90 days of no written response from the City Council attorneys, my staff and the city Board of Works felt this was the best, most efficient and most cost-effective way to remedy the potential legal and financial risk the city has been put in by two ordinances that I signed that we have been informed by other mayors and legal experts are not legally valid," Snyder stated Friday in a written statement.
"We look forward to a speedy declaratory judgment and final resolution to the matter so residents know who to call when an issue arises. It is my job to enforce all city ordinances, and when being informed one is not valid or is potentially illegal, it is my duty to seek speedy remedy," Snyder said. "It is not a matter of the council’s convenience, it is a matter of doing what is right. We have had enough meetings; the residents deserve corrections and collaboration, and I truly believe a majority of the council wants this as well."
The council adopted an ordinance in February 2017 to take control of the Utility Service Board after wrangling with Snyder over his spending of USB funds.
City Council Attorney Ken Elwood said Snyder forced the council to take that action because of "spending money for his own benefit," including attempting to pay $93,000 for attorney fees to defend his federal corruption indictment and spending utility funds to lease "$60,000 to $70,000" vehicles for his own use.
The lawsuit contends that, under state law, the USB, which was created by combining separate stormwater and sanitary sewer boards in 2010, violates state code. In addition, he contends the ordinance that put the City Council at the helm of the USB is also in violation of state law. Because those two ordinances are in violation of state law, the suit also contends, an ordinance that gave the council a salary for running the USB and the ordinance establishing the use of impervious surface measurements to charge stormwater fees for nonresidential customers are illegal.
Snyder sought advice from Bingham Greenbaum Doll last year on the issue. The law firm produced a memo stating the USB was illegally created.
Elwood said the lawsuit came as a surprise to the council, which has hired its own Indianapolis-based law firm, Clark Quinn, for advice and representation. Clark Quinn issued an advocacy memo, Elwood said, which stated the laws are vague and there are "many arguments" on both sides.
Elwood said he has been working with City Attorney Gregg Sobkowski in attempts to work out the differences and had hoped the two Indianapolis-based firms could meet to negotiate an agreement.
"Instead, he's wanting to spend thousands of dollars to settle this. This will stop projects because we don't know how much money we will be spending on legal fees," Elwood said.
Michael Griffiths, an attorney with Bingham Greenbaum Doll, disputed Elwood, saying his firm has reached out to the council's firm to seek a resolution prior to going to court.
"We did reach out to them a few times and tried to resolve this. Our goal was to try and stop this before it went to this action," Griffiths said.
Elwood said he also questions Snyder's standing in filing the lawsuit and finds the action illogical.
"He was chairman of the Utility Service Board for six years and has taken all kinds of action," Elwood said, adding those actions could now come into question. "Where's the logic in that?"
"When the mayor took office, that structure was in place, and he had no reason to question it," Griffiths said.
While named as a defendant in the lawsuit, council member Cannon is defending the lawsuit and believes Elwood should be replaced as the council and USB attorney.
"For months now, Mayor Snyder has been transparent and open with the City Council about his concerns with the USB and fees. If this fee is not legal, it will cost us hundreds of thousands of dollars to litigate. If we are entering into contracts unlawfully all of us should pause and seek correction," Cannon said in a written statement.
"My request to Council President Oprisko is to get us new legal counsel that is not financially or ethically conflicted in this matter. The entire council is confused when Clerk-Treasurer Stidham, who is also an attorney at Rhame and Elwood, speaks on the matter. Neither Stidham nor Ken Elwood have written us an opinion for review despite repeated requests. It has been 90 days since the mayor informed us of this problem," Cannon said, adding he hopes this can be resolved outside of the courtroom.
"It is a sad day for Portage when one branch of government is suing the other two. This is a loss to the city of Portage, which will be paying for the legal fees," said Stidham, adding he could not comment on the specifics of the lawsuit, but called the action "bizarre" in that Snyder had signed both the ordinances to change the composition of the USB and for the use of the impervious surface fee system.
Oprisko, the council's president, declined comment.
Indicted Portage Mayor James Snyder claims constitutional rights violated in federal corruption case
NWI Times
Mar 1, 2018
http://www.nwitimes.com/news/local/porter/indicted-portage-mayor-james-snyder-claims-constitutional-rights-violated-in/article_8087d7d7-a47b-530e-a3b9-158804abe7c0.html
HAMMOND — Portage Mayor James Snyder is claiming his Sixth Amendment rights have been violated in his federal corruption case.
The remedy, according to a motion filed Wednesday, would be to either disqualify the entire federal prosecution team or dismiss the indictment entirely. He is asking for an emergency status conference to determine the validity of the alleged improprieties and for the court to consider a remedy.
Department of Justice spokesman Ryan Holmes said department policy would not allow him to comment on pending litigation. Attorneys for Snyder did not immediately return requests for comment.
Snyder's defense team, headed up by Indianapolis-based Jackie M. Bennett Jr., is claiming federal prosecutors have unfairly gained access to a number of "privileged and confidential attorney-client communications" in the form of email accounts seized prior to his indictment.
The 9-page motion claims that when Snyder was represented by Thomas Kirsch II, now U.S. attorney for the Northern District of Indiana, a number of emails were seized from Snyder's city and private email accounts. Kirsch resigned as Snyder's attorney last fall when he was tapped as the new district attorney.
The motion claims those emails contained several confidential communications between Snyder and Kirsch. A practice known as a "taint team," made up of prosecutors and law enforcement agents, was put in place to screen the communications to protect Snyder's rights and determine which of the documents should not be viewed by the prosecution.
However, according to the motion, the taint review process failed and allowed the trial team, including federal investigative agents, to have free access to the communications regarding trial strategy between Snyder and his former attorney.
"This amounts to an 'intrusion into the defense camp' and a violation of Snyder's sixth amendment rights," according to the motion.
In addition, according to the motion, Assistant U.S. Attorney Jill Koster, who is listed as a lead prosecuting attorney on the case, allegedly acknowledged she and others had reviewed the documents and had taken a "narrow view" of what would be considered privileged.
This, according to the motion, allowed the government to "infiltrate the defense camp."
The defense raised the issue on Feb. 1 with the assistant U.S. attorneys, but no action has yet been determined, according to the filing, causing Snyder to seek the court's intervention. The motion also contends that with a final pretrial conference set for May 18 and trial on June 4, Snyder has not received all discovery previously promised by the federal prosecutors.
Indicted Portage mayor wants to remove federal prosecutors handling his corruption case
Chicago Tribune
March 01, 2018
http://www.chicagotribune.com/suburbs/post-tribune/news/ct-ptb-snyder-motion-prosecutors-emails-st-0302-20180301-story.html
Indicted Portage Mayor James Snyder is asking a federal judge to remove the prosecutors handling his corruption case.
Snyder, through his attorney Jackie Bennett, filed a motion asking a judge to disqualify two federal prosecutors from handling his case saying the two reviewed privileged attorney-client material seized from an email account, an alleged infringement on the mayor's Sixth Amendment rights. Bennett has asked a judge to set an emergency hearing on the matter.
"… For more than two years its entire trial team has had access to and made impermissible use of a number of privileged and confidential attorney-client communications that were seized from Snyder's email accounts before the indictment of this case," Bennett wrote in the motion.
Snyder and John Cortina, of Kustom Auto Body in Portage, were charged in November 2016 with allegedly violating a federal bribery statue. Federal prosecutors said the mayor allegedly solicited money from Cortina and "Individual A" and gave them a towing contract for Portage.
Snyder received an additional bribery indictment for alleged accepting $13,000 in connection with a Board of Works Contract, and allegedly obstructing internal revenue laws.
Snyder and Cortina both pleaded not guilty to the charges last year, according to court documents.
The trial for Snyder and Cortina is tentatively set to start in June, according to court documents.
The allegations against the prosecutors say email communications between Snyder, defense attorney Thomas Dogan, and Thomas Kirsch II, who was then the mayor's defense attorney before being appointed as U.S. attorney, were seized in 2015, according to court documents.
Kirsch has recused himself from Snyder's case, according to court documents, and U.S. attorney for the Northern District of Indiana would oversee and manage local prosecutors handling the case.
During the discovery process for Snyder's trial, Bennett said it was found that documents reviewed by the prosecutors contained confidential attorney-client material, according to court documents. Bennett said federal investigators used a "taint team" to review the email communication seized, according to court documents, but that review failed to shield all privileged communications from the trial team.
"Quite clearly, the taint review process employed by the government in this case failed," Bennett wrote. "Any competent review of the documents seized pursuant to the September 2015 search warrants would have identified and embargoed from the trial team all communications between Snyder and his lawyers."
Bennett said in conversations with the prosecutors, no remedy to the review of the privileged material has been proposed.
"Where the taint team procedures fail, and therefore the prosecution grants itself access to attorney-client privileged communications, the prejudice experienced by the defendant is extreme," Bennett wrote.
Bennett said Snyder and his attorneys had cooperated with government investigators, according to court documents, and other methods to obtain the communications could have been used besides the 2015 search warrant.
"If the government had requested Snyder's emails through less intrusive investigative methods rather than via a search warrant, he and his lawyers still would have produced such documents – but only after first conducting a privilege review," Bennett wrote.
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