‘A dark cloud over the city’: After 4 years, Portage still awaits resolution in former mayor’s bribery case
Chicago Tribune
November 13, 2020
Four years ago, the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Hammond announced sweeping indictments of two prominent local officials and their associates.
In the catch were now former Lake County Sheriff John Buncich and James Snyder, Portage’s mayor at the time.
Buncich was convicted by a federal jury in August 2017 of bribery and other charges and was sentenced to more than 15 years in prison. According to the Federal Bureau of Prisons website, Buncich, 74, incarcerated at Oklahoma City Federal Transfer Center, has a scheduled release date of Oct. 4, 2028.
Snyder’s case, on the other hand, continues through the federal court system in a series of starts and stops.
A federal jury convicted Snyder in February 2019 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 from the IRS when he owed personal and business taxes. A jury acquitted Snyder on a third count, alleging he took a $12,000 bribe to get a company on the city’s tow list.
A federal judge has granted Snyder a new trial on the bribery charge, though the conviction involving the IRS still stands.
On Friday, U.S. District Court Chief Judge Theresa Springmann, who in recent days recused and then reinstated herself in the case, pushed Snyder’s trial back to late January because she has a family emergency.
The U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Northern District of Illinois, which oversaw the prosecution, has said that Snyder could face up to 10 years in prison on the bribery charge and up to three years for obstructing the IRS.
Current and former Portage officials, likely representing the feelings of others in the community and beyond, would like to see the case resolved in some fashion so everyone can move forward and said the case as it stands now has a lasting impact on the city, whether it’s quantifiable or not.
“I think it’s a dark cloud over the city,” said Mayor Sue Lynch, a City Councilwoman at the time of Snyder’s conviction who, as president of the council, served briefly as mayor before John Cannon, also on the council and, like Snyder, a Republican, was selected by caucus to finish Snyder’s term through the end of last year. Lynch, a Democrat, won election to the city’s top post against Cannon a year ago.
“People in general don’t trust elected public officials so things like this, no matter how it turns out, hurts us trying to do a good job,” she continued.
Snyder declined to comment for this story and his lead attorney, Jackie Bennett Jr. of Indianapolis, did not return a request for comment.
Cannon, however, blamed the federal government for the delays in the case and noted Snyder’s achievements during his two-plus terms in office.
“Even if he’s guilty, and I’m praying that’s not the case, the powers that be dragged this thing out,” he said. “If you look back nine years ago, the transformation that the city went through, it’s all positive.”
Those accomplishments, he said, include the development of Founders Square, including a splash pad and amphitheater; roadwork throughout the city, done in part through the passage of a controversial wheel tax; new police and fire stations; automation of the city’s garbage trucks, which brought down the city’s worker compensation costs; and an open-air pavilion at the lakefront, among other projects.
“All these things are the impact of James Snyder and me finishing his term,” Cannon said.
If the charges against Snyder are dropped or successfully appealed later, he added, the city will be responsible for paying Snyder’s attorney fees.
“That would impact the community and that’s nobody’s fault in Portage. It’s nobody’s fault in the community,” Cannon said, adding if Snyder is cleared of the charges, that fault falls on whoever called in federal authorities to investigate the mayor.
Snyder had relied heavily on his campaign fund from his run for mayor to offset his legal fees. The once-robust fund, which a 2017 campaign finance fund annual report showed had about $102,000 in contributions and expenditures, including $41,000 in legal fees, had dwindled to a balance of $233.41 at the start of this year.
Much of the activity in and out of the fund ceased around mid-February of 2019, when Snyder was convicted and forced out of office.
Expenditures included $5,000 for legal fees for Bennett, paid out March 5, 2019. They also include more than $4,400 in hotel expenses for legal meetings; $2,300 for additional legal work; and hundreds of dollars for restaurant bills for legal meetings, including a tab of almost $500 at Gino’s Steakhouse in Merrillville, paid in January of last year.
The campaign owed $8,949.29. Of that, $6,000 was owed to John Cortina, who pleaded guilty to a federal bribery charge involving Snyder and was sentenced to time served, a $12,000 fine and probation. The remainder of the debt was owed to Snyder.
Cortina pleaded guilty to the one charge the jury found Snyder not guilty on. The attorney in his case, Kevin Milner, declined to comment. A woman who answered the phone at Kustom Auto Body in Portage and identified herself as Cortina’s wife declined to put a Post-Tribune reporter in touch with him for this story.
“I don’t think he wants to get involved with this again,” she said before hanging up.
Other former city officials, though not ensnared in the federal investigation, suffered their own twist of fate.
Former Clerk-Treasurer Christopher Stidham was charged in February in Porter Superior Court with a felony for official misconduct, the same day a special audit conducted by the State Board of Accounts determined Stidham allegedly paid his then-girlfriend’s various businesses to perform bookkeeping services on contract with his office. The total was $58,416.16 for the two years in question.
He is scheduled for a change of plea hearing on Nov. 20 before Porter Superior Court Judge Jeffrey Clymer.
That case, like those in federal court, appears close to a resolution while Snyder’s case lingers, though Lynch said she and her administration continue to look and move forward.
“It’s very unfortunate that it’s still dragging on,” she said. “We’re just interested in seeing justice prevail here and it’s so slow moving. I just want to see for our city that dark cloud go away.”
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