11262018 - News Article - Snyder asks judge to revisit email communications ruling

Snyder asks judge to revisit email communications ruling
Chicago Tribune
November 26, 2018
https://www.chicagotribune.com/suburbs/post-tribune/news/ct-ptb-snyder-communication-reconsideration-st-1127-story.html

Attorneys for indicted Portage Mayor James Snyder want a federal judge to reconsider a ruling that found federal investigators did not illegally access and use attorney-client email communication.

Jackie Bennett Jr., one of Snyder’s defense attorneys, is asking that Judge Joseph Van Bokkelen reconsider a September order that affirmed a screening process used by federal investigators to review seized email communications, which found that prosecutors did not err in reviewing potentially privileged materials.

Bennett said the court should reconsider the motion now instead of during an appeal, should one be needed.

“If allowed to stand, it will make it practically impossible for white collar defense attorneys, or any defense attorneys, to practice in this district,” Bennett wrote. “Until the order is reconsidered or withdrawn, no one practicing defense work should or could feel safe communicating with their client via email – the predominant form of communication today.”

Bennett said Van Bokkelen’s order used an incorrect interpretation of work product to view the case, and how the order characterized the government’s ability to seize and use attorney-client material.

“The validity of the order depends on erasing what the work product doctrine has meant since its inception, and requires that court to be the first in the nation to find no Sixth Amendment implications in a pre-indictment attack on an attorney-client relationship with a defense attorney,” Bennett wrote in his motion.

For much of 2018, Snyder’s defense attorneys sought to establish that emails communications seized by federal investigators were mishandled and used by prosecutors to gain an advantage over the mayor’s preparations against charges filed in November 2016.

Snyder’s defense attorneys said the charges should be dismissed or trial attorney disqualified if those email communications were accessed. Defense attorneys have argued that emails seized in 2015 were put through a faulty screening process, according to court documents, and the trial team accessed and used privileged communications.

Federal prosecutors said Snyder has not presented any evidence that shows his email communications were used in any improper way during the investigation, according to court documents, and that a judge should not disqualify the prosecutors on the case or dismiss any charges against the Portage mayor.

Van Bokkelen declined to remove the trial team or dismiss any of the charges.

“The court finds that, as carried out in this case, the filter process worked sufficiently, even if the process itself has inherent flaws (it has a semblance of the fox guarding the hen house),” Van Bokkelen said, in his order.

Snyder and Cortina 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 Portage Board of Works contract, and allegedly obstructing Internal Revenue Service laws.

Snyder and Cortina both pleaded not guilty to the charges, according to court documents.