07072020 - News Article - Lawyers set to argue if new trial's in the case for Snyder

Lawyers set to argue if new trial's in the case for Snyder

NWI Times

July 07, 2020

https://www.nwitimes.com/news/laywers-set-to-argue-if-new-trials-in-the-case-for-snyder/article_baba0bef-a56e-53b6-938f-41b188f487f2.html

HAMMOND — A federal judge has scheduled a hearing July 24 on whether former Portage Mayor James E. Snyder must go through a second trial on a bribery allegation.

U.S. District Court Judge Theresa L. Springmann set the matter for a hearing following a status hearing Monday in the nearly four-year-old case

Snyder’s defense team, led by Jackie M. Bennett Jr. of Indianapolis, argues the government should be barred from trying Snyder again under the U.S. Constitution’s prohibition against double jeopardy.

A federal grand jury indicted Snyder Nov. 17, 2016.

A federal court jury convicted Snyder last year of soliciting bribes from a Portage truck dealership in return for lucrative city business. Jurors also convicted him of federal tax violations.

However, U.S. District Court Judge Joseph Van Bokkelen, who presided over the first three years of the case, overturned the bribery verdict last November.

Van Bokkelen ruled trial strategies by federal prosecutors, which he called gamesmanship, resulted in the intimidation of essential defense witnesses — the truck dealership’s former owners.

The owners refused to take the witness stand, to testify on Snyder’s behalf, for fear they might be charged with criminal conduct.

Government prosecutors deny they committed any misconduct and demand Snyder face trial before a new jury.

The defense argues the prosecution’s impermissible gamesmanship requires a judicial order protecting Snyder from a new trial.

Judge Springmann took over the case seven months ago and will hear arguments from the defense and prosecution before ruling on whether a second trial would involve double jeopardy.