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.
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