04042019 - News Article - Convicted Portage mayor continues plea for new trial

Convicted Portage mayor continues plea for new trial
Kokomo Perspective
April 04, 2019
http://kokomoperspective.com/politics/indiana/convicted-portage-mayor-continues-plea-for-new-trial/article_c79c9220-86cf-57da-a03b-1363d65d7e23.html

HAMMOND — Convicted former Portage Mayor James Snyder continues to plead his case for a new trial.

In a 12-page filing in U.S. District Court submitted late Wednesday, Snyder's defense team outlines reasons they believe there were errors and misconduct committed by federal prosecutors.

Snyder, who was in his second term as mayor, was convicted Feb. 14 on one count of bribery involving bids for city garbage trucks as well as one count of federal tax obstruction. He was acquitted on a second bribery count alleging a pay-for-tow scheme. He was removed from elected office upon his conviction.

He is scheduled to be sentenced May 24 but has filed motions asking that either the jury's verdict be overturned or he be granted a new trial. Federal prosecutors have until April 12 to answer Snyder's allegations.

In the newest filing, Snyder's defense team contends while "the government collected a colossal amount of information" during the investigation, less than 1% of the information had any relevance to the case. The amount of information, according to the defense team, forced them to focus on irrelevant matters.

They also contend much of the discovery was produced late, even into the middle of the trial, which hampered the defense's efforts to fully review the materials.

Snyder also contends the trial's length itself caused an inherent unfairness. Citing another court opinion which says trials lasting 20 days tend to confuse jurors and favor the prosecution, Snyder's attorneys assert prosecutors dragged on the trial using more witnesses than necessary. The filing compares Snyder's trial to that of former Lake County Sheriff John Buncich, saying the former sheriff was charged with 10 bribery counts instead of two, included a co-defendant and had more audio and video recordings, but the proceedings concluded in 14 days. Snyder's trial lasted 19 days.

The filing also contends prosecutors acted improperly by alleging a project on Willowcreek Road was involved in one of the bribery counts, but waited until the trial's end to strike the allegation; that the trial was unfair because a prosecutor inappropriately told jurors Snyder's former co-defendant John Cortina had pleaded the Fifth Amendment; that evidence was improperly introduced in one of the bribery charges; and that prosecutors misrepresented its proposed set of jury instructions to lead the defense team astray.

"Any one of the above errors or those mentioned in docket entries 262 and 263, standing alone, is sufficiently prejudicial to warrant a new trial. But even if these individual errors, in isolation, do not rise to the level of prejudice, the cumulative effect of the multiple errors unfairly prejudiced Mr. Snyder, and a new trial should be ordered," the filing concludes.