05102018 - News Article - Hearing on Portage mayor's email status held in closed federal court

Hearing on Portage mayor's email status held in closed federal court
NWI Times
May 10, 2018
http://www.nwitimes.com/news/local/crime-and-courts/hearing-on-portage-mayor-s-email-status-held-in-closed/article_7d792654-d8e0-5603-ace3-ca82d8396c42.html

HAMMOND — Six hours of closed-door testimony and arguments over indicted Portage Mayor James Snyder's emails ended without an answer Thursday.

Just after the hearing began in U.S. District Court, federal Judge Joseph Van Bokkelen agreed to shut the doors on the hearing.

U.S. Assistant District Attorney Phil Benson told the judge that he and Snyder's defense attorney Jackie M. Bennett, of Indianapolis, agreed people who have not seen the emails in question should not be present in the hearing. That included Benson himself, the media and others who had gathered to hear the arguments.

"A decision to close the courtroom is very serious," Van Bokkelen said. "I am not a big fan of closing courts. The public has the right to know what is going on."

However, there are cases in which the courtroom should be closed, including this one, "out of an abundance of caution," he said.

At issue is the contention that federal prosecutors may have violated Snyder's Sixth Amendment rights to a fair trial by having read emails and work product that were considered attorney/client privilege.

If they had viewed the emails, which included the discussion of legal strategy, Snyder's defense believes his case has been prejudiced. Snyder has asked that the three-count indictment against him be dropped, or that the current prosecution team be dismissed.

Those who had seen at least some of the emails in question, including attorneys and investigators, were allowed to remain. The hearing continued for nearly six hours with only two short breaks. There was no resolution nor a date set for a continuance.

In addition, Bennett filed a motion to continue the trial to Oct. 1, or later, this year. The trial had been set to begin June 4. The motion, filed late Wednesday, cites the lack of resolution in the email issue and a large amount of discovery just turned over last month.

"In short, a trial on the merits cannot occur until the propriety of the government’s email seizure is decided — this inquiry is necessarily complex, as neither the propriety of email account seizures nor the use of tainted teams as applied by government agents in this investigation, have been settled by the Seventh Circuit," the latest motion reads.

"But even if the government shows that it did nothing wrong, a continuance is still necessary because of the time it will take to review and organize the mass of financial information, the number of witnesses, and the complexity of the issues involved in this matter. Those complexities also necessitate an adjustment to the Court’s current schedule for pretrial disclosures," the motion continues.