Former Portage mayor who was convicted of bribery challenges immunity of two witnesses in trial
Chicago Tribune
September 30, 2019
https://www.chicagotribune.com/suburbs/post-tribune/ct-ptb-snyder-clarification-motion-st-1001-20190930-ykuukl4heretfcte2wlop7dctq-story.html
The legal team for former Portage Mayor James Snyder, who was found guilty of bribery and obstructing the IRS, filed a motion Friday for clarification on the immunity status of two witnesses in his case.
In the motion, Snyder’s attorney, Jackie Bennett Jr., requests a clarification “regarding the status of the immunity” of the former owners of Great Lakes Peterbilt, Robert and Steve Buha, “in determining which witnesses to arrange for the upcoming Dec. 6, 2019, sentencing hearing.”
According to the motion, the Buhas “never had immunity to testify at trial, and only would have had immunity if the prosecutors had requested that their immunity be renewed.”
The brothers were granted immunity for their grand jury testimony.
“Since the Buhas received formal immunity, the immunity would have continued unless government counsel revoked it. It simply cannot simultaneously be true that they did not have immunity, but also that the prosecutor did not revoke their immunity,” Bennett wrote in the motion.
The motion seeks clarification regarding the discrepancies between the prosecutor’s in-court description of the mechanics of formal immunity and the Department of Justice policy, “which says the opposite," and between the in-trial statements of prosecutors that the Buhas did not have immunity.
A request was made for an order from the court ruling “that if the government does not reinstate the Buhas’ immunity, that the government cannot also seek enhancements to Mr. Snyder’s sentence on issues the Buhas could elucidate, since the government would also be depriving Mr. Snyder of witnesses useful if not necessary to rebutting those proposed enhancements," according to the motion.
Bennett could not be immediately reached for comment Monday.
In February, Snyder, 41, was convicted of taking a $13,000 bribe in exchange for contracts to sell five garbage trucks to the city, and using a shell company to hide income and assets from the IRS while owing back personal and business taxes. The jury acquitted Snyder of a third count that alleged he took a $12,000 bribe to get a company on Portage’s tow list.
Snyder has agreed to forfeit $13,000 to the federal governments, documents said.
The U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Northern District of Illinois, which oversaw the prosecution, said that Snyder could face up to 10 years in prison on the bribery charge, and up to three years in prison on the obstruction charge.
The U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Northern District of Indiana was recused from the case, absent two prosecutors, as U.S. Attorney Thomas Kirsch II previously represented Snyder.
Snyder, a Republican, was indicted in November 2016 and charged with allegedly violating a federal bribery statute and obstruction or impeding the IRS.
Prosecutors said that when Snyder ran for mayor in 2011, he told residents he planned to automate Portage’s trash pickup, but wound up steering contracts for $712,882.50 and another for $425,355 to Great Lakes Peterbilt.
Defense attorneys say that Snyder used his experience in offering health insurance to city employees through the Affordable Care Act, and making technology upgrades to advice Great Lakes Peterbilt about making similar changes.
A second count said that Snyder, while owing tens of thousands of dollars to the IRS, funneled income through a shell company, and failed to disclose any of those assets to the IRS.
In September, Snyder’s sentencing date had been pushed back a second time from Sept. 24 to two days in December “to allow time to rule on the pending post-trial motions,” according to court records.
On Dec. 6, the court will give the parties an opportunity to present evidence and any additional arguments regarding their objections to the pre-sentence report and sentencing factors, according to a court order.
On Dec. 17, the court will issue a ruling regarding the objections to the pre-sentence report and will announce Snyder’s sentence, according to the court order.
Following Snyder’s sentencing delay, John Cortina, who was indicted alongside the mayor, requested his sentencing be reset to Jan. 10.
Federal prosecutors said Snyder allegedly solicited money from Cortina, of Kustom Auto Body in Portage, and “Individual A” and gave them a towing contract for Portage.
Cortina, 80, in January pleaded guilty to a charge that he paid bribes to Snyder to get a spot on the tow list. Cortina did not testify during the trial, invoking his Fifth Amendment right to not incriminate himself, according to court documents.
Snyder has maintained his innocence during the more than two years since he was indicted.
Conclusion to Portage bribery case delayed again
NWI Times
September 23, 2019
https://www.nwitimes.com/news/local/porter/porter-newsletter/conclusion-to-portage-bribery-case-delayed-again/article_99915f6b-9008-5ef4-b379-7cfc80b99c0e.html
HAMMOND — An auto repair shop operator caught up in the Portage bribery scandal won’t be sentenced until early next year.
U.S. District Court Judge Joseph S. Van Bokkelen issued a notice last weekend that he will delay the sentencing of John Cortina of Kustom Auto Body in Portage from next Tuesday to Jan. 10, 2020.
Cortina pleaded guilty in January this year to a felony count alleging he paid a $12,000 bribe to former Portage Mayor James Snyder in early 2016 to obtain city towing business.
A federal grand jury indicted both Cortina and Snyder in late 2016 on bribery counts.
Snyder maintains his innocence, and a federal jury acquitted Snyder Feb. 14 this year of receiving a $12,000 bribe from Cortina.
Nevertheless, the same jurors did convict Snyder of accepting what prosecutors say was a $13,000 bribe in 2014 from the former ownership of Great Lakes Peterbilt, a truck sales firm in Portage.
Prosecutors say Snyder steered $1.125 million in city contracts to Great Lakes in return for that bribe.
Those jurors also found Snyder guilty of a separate government charge that he obstructed the Internal Revenue Service’s efforts to collect business payroll taxes and personal income taxes Snyder owed.
Seven months later, Cortina and Snyder have yet to be sentenced because Snyder’s defense team has asked the judge to overturn his guilty verdicts.
They have filed voluminous objections and legal briefs with the court that has prompted the judge to put off a conclusion to the case.
Snyder’s defense attorneys most recently asked the judge to delay Snyder’s sentencing, which had been set for Tuesday.
And government prosecutors asked the judge last week to put off Cortina's sentencing until after Snyder’s sentencing.
The judge recently agreed to reschedule Snyder’s sentencing on two dates in December.
The judge will hold a hearing Dec. 6 to give both the defense and prosecution the opportunity to present evidence and additional argument on how to calculate a sentence.
The judge will then hold another hearing Dec. 17 to issue his rulings and announce Snyder’s sentence.
The defense has asked the judge to order the former mayor’s acquittal or grant him a new trial.
The defense argues there was insufficient evidence to support the guilty verdicts. They argue federal prosecutors misled jurors, with a large volume of irrelevant circumstances, into inappropriate speculation in arriving at Snyder’s guilt.
The defense also argues that prosecutors misstated the law to the jury and silenced witnesses who might have cleared Snyder with threats of prosecuting the witnesses along with Snyder.
Federal prosecutors retort the evidence of Snyder’s guilt was overwhelming and they did nothing improper against Snyder.
Will ‘shocking acts of violence’ by unions go unpunished?
Washington Examiner
September 23, 2019
https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/op-eds/will-shocking-acts-of-violence-by-unions-go-unpunished
Nearly four years ago, two officers of Iron Workers Local 395 allegedly led a savage assault on tradesmen employed at a church-owned construction site in northwestern Indiana. Their aim was to convert the union-free project into a union-only one.
During the assault, union goons allegedly threw to the ground Scott Kudingo, an employee of the Cary, Illinois-based firm D5 Iron Works Inc. They then began “clubbing, kicking, and punching” him “in the face, arms, back, and body.”
Kudingo’s jaw was “shattered in part” and broken in “two other places.” At least some of the union toughs who kicked him in the face and back are believed to have been wearing “steel-toe boots.”
Evidence gathered by the police immediately after the incident in January 2016, in Dyer, Indiana, shows that top officers of Local 395, based in Portage, Indiana, participated in the attack. Witnesses identified union President Jeffrey Veach, union business agent Thomas Williams and roughly 10 accomplices as those who attacked D5 Iron Works tradesmen.
Moreover, prosecutors plan to present evidence placing the union defendants at the scene of the attack based on their own cell phone location records, via the testimony of an expert witness.
Within the next few weeks, Veach and Williamson are expected to be tried in U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Indiana, Hammond Division, on charges of conspiracy to commit extortion and attempted extortion.
It seems like an open-and-shut case. But unfortunately, even if a unanimous jury concludes Veach and Williamson led the assault near the Dyer Baptist Church — after which Kudingo had to be hospitalized and have his jaw wired shut for roughly three months — the lawless Local 395 bosses and their goons may never be held fully accountable for their crimes.
The obstacle to justice in the federal criminal case against Veach and Williamson is the U.S. Supreme Court’s controversial, 46-year-old decision in United States v. Enmons.
In 1973, a 5-4 majority of the justices who heard Enmons exempted threats, vandalism, and violence perpetrated to secure “legitimate” union goals from prosecution under the federal Hobbs Act, which otherwise prohibits the use of extortionate threats and violence in interstate commerce. The legal loophole created in Enmons makes it extraordinarily difficult to prosecute union thugs.
Not surprisingly, the criminal lawyers defending Veach and Williamson have already repeatedly invoked Enmons in their attempts to get their Big Labor clients off the hook.
In a joint motion filed this March, for example, the union lawyers contended that the charges against Veach and Williamson “should be dismissed because the facts alleged” describe “'legitimate union objectives,’ which were specifically exempted from the reach” of the Hobbs Act by Enmons.
Fortunately, this strategy has not been successful so far. In an opinion and order issued in June, U.S. District Judge Theresa L. Springmann, who is currently presiding over the case, acknowledged that union thugs who target non-striking employees or the property of a unionized business don’t have to follow the law. But she added that Enmons doesn’t protect Veach and Williamson because their targets were a non-union business owner and his employees.
Thanks to Springmann’s order, Veach and Williamson won’t be able to invoke Enmons at trial as the reason why they shouldn’t be punished for committing, in the prosecution’s words, “shocking acts of violence against ordinary workers.” But if they are convicted, their attorneys will almost certainly appeal the verdict on the grounds that Springmann interpreted the Enmons precedent too narrowly.
It’s simply intolerable that Veach and Williamson could get away with leading this brutal assault because of a misbegotten Supreme Court ruling nearly half a century old.
That’s why, last week, I introduced on Capitol Hill a common-sense reform known as the Freedom from Union Violence Act. This measure would overturn Enmons and hold union bosses who orchestrate and/or commit threats and violence accountable under the Hobbs Act.
Because Enmons was a matter of statutory, not constitutional, interpretation, Congress retains power to reverse it legislatively. Who can seriously defend a status quo in which one small group of citizens, union officials and their militant followers, are largely exempt from obeying a federal statute all other citizens must unconditionally obey?
Ex-northwestern Indiana mayor fighting federal convictions
The Republic
September 21, 2019
http://www.therepublic.com/2019/09/21/in-indiana-bribery-charges/
HAMMOND, Ind. (AP) — A former northwestern Indiana mayor is continuing to fight the bribery and tax obstruction convictions that forced him from office earlier this year.
A federal judge has set a December court hearing for arguments on claims by Republican former Portage Mayor James Snyder that his convictions should be overturned because of prosecutorial misconduct and insufficient evidence. The judge will later decide whether to acquit Snyder, grant him a new trial or announce his sentence.
Jurors convicted Snyder in February of accepting $13,000 from a Portage company after it received contracts worth more than $1.25 million for garbage trucks. The tax charge stems from a mortgage company he once managed and back personal income taxes.
Snyder won mayoral elections in 2011 and 2015. He has maintained his innocence.
Sentencing for man indicted along with former Portage mayor moved to early 2020
Chicago Tribune
September 20, 2019
https://www.chicagotribune.com/suburbs/post-tribune/ct-ptb-cortina-sentencing-moved-st-0921-20190920-qxmdjghuojdvbdrwfxq7n5enae-story.html
Sentencing for John Cortina, who was indicted alongside former Portage Mayor James Snyder in a bribery scheme in 2016, has been rescheduled to early next year, following Snyder’s sentencing.
In February, Snyder, 41, was convicted of taking a $13,000 bribe in exchange for contracts to sell five garbage trucks to the city, and using a shell company to hide income and assets from the IRS while owing back personal and business taxes. The jury acquitted Snyder of a third count that alleged he took a $12,000 bribe to get a company on Portage’s tow list.
Cortina, 80, in January pleaded guilty to a charge that he paid bribes to Snyder to get a spot on the city’s tow list. Cortina did not testify during the trial, invoking his Fifth Amendment right to not incriminate himself, according to court documents.
Snyder’s sentencing was recently moved from Sept. 24 to two days in December “to allow time to rule on the pending post-trial motions,” according to court records.
On Dec. 6, the court will give the parties an opportunity to present evidence and any additional arguments regarding their objections to the pre-sentence report and sentencing factors, according to a Sept. 13 court order.
On Dec. 17, the court will issue a ruling regarding the objections to the pre-sentence report and will announce Snyder’s sentence, according to the court order.
Cortina’s sentencing had been scheduled for Oct. 1, but with the shift in Snyder’s sentencing, Cortina’s attorney requested that his client’s sentencing be reset to Jan. 10, 2020, according to court records.
Both prosecutors and defense attorneys in Cortina’s case “request to continue Mr. Cortina’s sentencing hearing until shortly after the sentencing of James Snyder is complete,” according to court records.
Snyder, a Republican, was indicted in November 2016 and charged with allegedly violating a federal bribery statute and obstructing or impeding the IRS.
Prosecutors said that when Snyder ran for mayor in 2011, he told residents he planned to automate Portage’s trash pickup, but wound up steering contracts for $712,882.50 and another for $425,355 to Great Lakes Peterbilt, which was then owned by Robert and Steve Buha.
Defense attorneys say that Snyder used his experience in offering health insurance to city employees through the Affordable Care Act, and making technology upgrades to advice Great Lakes Peterbilt about making similar changes.
A second count said that Snyder, while owing tens of thousands of dollars to the IRS, funneled income through a shell company, and failed to disclose any of those assets to the IRS.
Snyder was cleared of taking a bribe in an alleged pay-to-play towing scheme.
Federal prosecutors said the mayor allegedly solicited money from Cortina, of Kustom Auto Body in Portage, and “Individual A” and gave them a towing contract for Portage.
Snyder’s defense said during the trial that prosecutors presented no evidence that Snyder knowingly accepted any money that was purported to be a bribe. The defense said that Snyder considered the money a loan from Cortina, a friend and political supporter, to help cover his legal fees.
The U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Northern District of Illinois, which oversaw the prosecution, said that Snyder could face up to 10 years in prison on the bribery charge, and up to three years in prison on the obstruction charge.
The U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Northern District of Indiana was recused from the case, absent two prosecutors, as U.S. Attorney Thomas Kirsch II previously represented Snyder.
Former Lake County Sheriff John Buncich, a Democrat, was indicted the same day as Snyder in a similar towing scheme. Buncich was found guilty and began serving a 15-year 8-month sentence in January 2018.
Snyder sentencing pushed back to December
NWI Times
September 17, 2019
https://www.nwitimes.com/news/snyder-sentencing-pushed-back-to-december/article_6dcbba58-89c7-535c-98ca-3f4ff846698e.html
HAMMOND — A federal judge is delaying for another three months a decision on whether to exonerate former Portage Mayor James E. Snyder or sentence him to prison.
A federal jury convicted Snyder of two felony counts of bribery and tax evasion Feb. 14 following a 19-day trial.
Snyder’s sentencing has been postponed for the second time because Snyder’s legal team argues the verdicts should be overturned on grounds of prosecutorial misconduct and insufficient evidence to support any conviction.
Federal prosecutors have responded the evidence of Snyder’s guilt was overwhelming and nothing in their conduct of the case warrants a new trial or his acquittal.
U.S. District Court Judge Joseph S. Van Bokkelen issued an order saying he will give the prosecution and defense until Dec. 6 to make their final arguments and then he will rule Dec. 17 on whether to acquit Snyder, grant him a new trial or “announce the defendant's sentence.”
Voters first elected Snyder, a Republican businessman, in 2011 as mayor of Portage, the third largest city in Northwest Indiana .
Federal authorities say they began investigating hints of public corruption three years later. A federal grand jury indicted Snyder in 2016, during his second four-year term in office.
Snyder pleaded not guilty and demanded a trial which commenced early this year.
Federal prosecutors presented evidence and argued Snyder accepted a $13,000 bribe in 2014 in return for steering a $1.125 million public works contract.
They said Snyder actively sought to award those contracts to Great Lakes Peterbilt, a truck sales firm in Portage, by rigging the specifications for garbage trucks the city was buying to give Great Lakes an unfair advantage.
Prosecutors said Great Lakes gave Snyder $13,000 within weeks of Great Lakes winning the contracts. It came as a check made out to SRC Consulting, which prosecutors said was a nonexistent company. They said the money eventually found its way to Snyder’s personal bank account.
The government also argued and presented evidence Snyder obstructed the Internal Revenue Service’s efforts to collect unpaid business and personal taxes he owed by hiding his taxable income.
Sentencing for former Portage mayor convicted of bribery, obstructing IRS moved to December
Chicago Tribune
September 16, 2019
https://www.chicagotribune.com/suburbs/post-tribune/ct-ptb-snyder-sentencing-moved-st-0917-20190916-z3prynfi3refbca2rwtzk7lw7i-story.html
Sentencing for former Portage Mayor James Snyder, who was found guilty of bribery and obstructing the IRS, has been rescheduled to two days in December.
In February, Snyder, 41, was convicted of taking a $13,000 bribe in exchange for contracts to sell five garbage trucks to the city, and using a shell company to hide income and assets from the IRS while owing back personal and business taxes. The jury acquitted Snyder of a third count that alleged he took a $12,000 bribe to get a company on Portage’s tow list.
Snyder has agreed to forfeit $13,000 to the federal government.
“It’s been a really long road,” Snyder said, after the verdict was announced.
“Today, we were able to knock one of the charges out. Thankfully the jury can see through that one,” Snyder said previously. “The journey is still ongoing. We have two more counts to deal with.”
Snyder declined to comment Monday on his sentencing being pushed to December. His attorney, Jackie Bennett Jr., did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
The sentencing date had been pushed back from the original May 24 date to Sept. 24 “to allow time to rule on the pending post-trial motions,” according to court records.
“Mr. Snyder and his counsel need to decide whether to present evidence --- additional documentation, live witness testimony, etc. -- in support of Mr. Snyder’s sentencing position. Counsel cannot prepare such a presentation, or determine whether such a presentation would be necessary (or the scope of such a presentation) while motions remain pending," according to court records.
Snyder’s sentencing will take place over two days, according to a Sept. 13 court order signed by Judge Joseph Van Bokkelen.
On Dec. 6, the court will give the parties an opportunity to present evidence and any additional arguments regarding their objections to the pre-sentence report and sentencing factors, according to the court order.
On Dec. 17, the court will issue a ruling regarding the objections to the pre-sentence report and will announce Snyder’s sentence, according to the court order.
Both parties have submitted “voluminous briefs” regarding a motion by Snyder’s attorney for acquittal or a new trial, and “just recently” the probation department filed the pre-sentence report that “contains numerous objections that need to be sorted out by the court,” according to the court order.
“For the benefit of everyone involved and to be able to give adequate attention to the issues before it, the court grants defendant’s unopposed motion to continue the sentencing hearing,” according to the court order.
The U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Northern District of Illinois, which oversaw the prosecution, said that Snyder could face up to 10 years in prison on the bribery charge, and up to three years in prison on the obstruction charge.
The U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Northern District of Indiana was recused from the case, absent two prosecutors, as U.S. Attorney Thomas Kirsch II previously represented Snyder.
Snyder, a Republican, was indicted in November 2016 and charged with allegedly violating a federal bribery statute and obstructing or impeding the IRS.
Prosecutors said that when Snyder ran for mayor in 2011, he told residents he planned to automate Portage’s trash pickup, but wound up steering contracts for $712,882.50 and another for $425,355 to Great Lakes Peterbilt, which was then owned by Robert and Steve Buha.
Defense attorneys say that Snyder used his experience in offering health insurance to city employees through the Affordable Care Act, and making technology upgrades to advice Great Lakes Peterbilt about making similar changes.
A second count said that Snyder, while owing tens of thousands of dollars to the IRS, funneled income through a shell company, and failed to disclose any of those assets to the IRS.
Snyder was cleared of taking a bribe in an alleged pay-to-play towing scheme.
Federal prosecutors said the mayor allegedly solicited money from John Cortina, of Kustom Auto Body in Portage, and “Individual A” and gave them a towing contract for Portage.
Former Lake County Sheriff John Buncich, a Democrat, was indicted the same day as Snyder in a similar towing scheme. Buncich was found guilty and began serving a 15-year 8-month sentence in January 2018.
Cortina, 80, who was indicted alongside the mayor, in January pleaded guilty to a charge that he paid bribes to Snyder to get a spot on the tow list. Cortina did not testify during the trial, invoking his Fifth Amendment right to not incriminate himself, according to court documents.
Snyder’s defense said during the trail that prosecutors presented no evidence that Snyder knowingly accepted any money that was purported to be a bribe. The defense said that Snyder considered the money a loan from Cortina, a friend and political supporter, to help cover his legal fees.
Snyder has maintained his innocence during the more than two years since he was indicted.
Convicted of bribery, obstruction, former Portage mayor asks to delay sentencing
Chicago Tribune
September 04, 2019
https://www.chicagotribune.com/suburbs/post-tribune/ct-ptb-snyder-sentencing-delay-st-0905-20190904-zen5mk7sz5bf5guhf7nwhqrtbi-story.html
A former Portage mayor is making another request to delay sentencing after a jury convicted him in February of bribery and obstructing the IRS.
James E. Snyder’s sentencing date was originally set for May 24, but was set back four months, to Sept. 24, to give Judge Joseph Van Bokkelen of the U.S. District Court in Hammond time to review motions made by the defense after he was convicted.
The same logic is being applied again, according to court documents from Indianapolis-based defense attorney, Jackie Bennett.
“The routine procedure...is to allow time to resolve post-trial motions" before going through with sentencing, the document states.
Prosecuting attorney Jill Koster, an assistant U.S. attorney in Hammond, seemed to agree, acknowledging “the Defendant (Snyder) cannot be sentenced until the pending post-trial motions are ruled upon,” according to a Wednesday release. It is ultimately up to the court, however, to fulfill Snyder’s request.
The post-trial motions in question are various attempts on behalf of Snyder’s lawyers to get a new trial or an acquittal of his convictions. The defense has argued that evidence presented in court was “circumstantial,” and that such evidence only infers but does not prove Snyder’s guilt.
Snyder’s attorneys have also argued that the convictions should be thrown out because two men who could have given a fuller telling of events did not testify.
Prosecutors say that when Snyder, 38, ran for mayor in 2011, he told residents he planned to automate Portage’s trash pickup, but wound up steering contracts for $712,882.50 and another for $425,355 to Great Lakes Peterbilt, which was then owned by Robert and Steve Buha.
In his 19-day February trial, Snyder was convicted of taking a $13,000 bribe in exchange for contracts to sell five garbage trucks to the city. Defense attorneys said the money was payment for Snyder’s consulting services to Great Lakes Peterbilt regarding heath care and information technology. But testimony from witnesses said the consulting was about phones, payroll or tax attorneys.
Along with the timing of the payment and the absence of any contract for it, the different explanations for such “consulting” indicated Snyder’s guilt, according to one juror who was interviewed after the case ended.
Snyder was also convicted on a charge of obstructing the IRS, after he used a shell company called SRC to hide income and assets from the IRS at the same time as he owed personal and business back taxes.
Taken together, the convictions could put Snyder in prison for up to 13 years, a number that might have been larger if Snyder were not acquitted of the third charge against him in February.
That charge related to bribery in a towing scheme, alleging Snyder took $12,000 to get a company on Portage’s tow list. A man indicted alongside Snyder, John Cortina, 79, pleaded guilty to paying bribes to Snyder in that instance, but jurors agreed with defense attorneys’ arguments that Snyder considered the money to be a loan.
Cortina is expected to be sentenced in October.
