During a Monday hearing in a pending federal bribery case, a lawyer representing former director of the Office of Management and Budget Jenifer O’Neal said he might ask the court to separate his client from her codefendant, former Police Commissioner Ray Martinez.
With four months to go to the start of a scheduled trial, a U.S. Magistrate Judge Alan Teague called on the prosecutor and defense attorneys to report Monday on their pretrial preparations.
O’Neal, along with Martinez, is accused of accepting unauthorized payments from a vendor providing cybersecurity services to government agencies, including the Virgin Islands Police Department. Jury selection for a trial where they are expected to appear as co-defendants is scheduled to begin Dec. 3.
Parties in the case appeared by way of livestream video in an open courtroom at the Ron deLugo Federal Building. Teague said he expected the trial to take about two-and-a-half weeks and that it was important for the legal teams to complete the discovery process on time. During discovery, the defense and the prosecution exchange evidence produced over the course of building their respective cases.
Attorney Dale Lionel Smith raised the prospect of filing a motion for severance as Monday’s hearing was drawing to an end. O’Neal’s lawyer raised concerns about information in the prosecutor’s possession that may prove favorable for Martinez. Specifically, Smith suggested the former police commissioner may have given a proffer statement to officials at the U.S. Attorney’s Office.
A proffer statement is one in which a defendant demonstrates knowledge about an alleged criminal activity; in some cases such a statement may help the individual gain a more favorable legal stance. It could also help the government challenge or refute statements made by other witnesses at trial.
Federal trial attorney Alexandre Dempsey did not dispute Smith’s claim about a proffer interview involving Martinez, and said the government had turned over all the required material. But he refuted a suggestion that prosecutors were withholding material that should have been turned over.
“The court does not require that handwritten notes are subject to discovery,” Dempsey said, adding that no such notes existed.
The magistrate commended the legal teams for working together cooperatively. At the same time, Teague raised concerns over how long it was taking to produce exchangeable documents containing statements by Martinez from a computer hard drive where they are stored.
“Why is it that it took a month for your office to get the documents into a readily accessible format?” Teague asked.
Martinez’s lawyer assured the court that he would return to the office within the next few days and personally supervise the production of documents.
Lawyers for both O’Neal and Martinez said they were doing their best to review large amounts of evidence as part of their trial preparations. “We are on our way to being prepared, judge. We have no choice but to be prepared for December 3,” Smith said.
Teague concluded the hearing by saying he did not expect lawyers to be ready by August for a December trial, but it was his duty to check on their progress.
If needed, he said, he would schedule another status hearing on Aug. 29. If not needed, he said, the next pretrial hearing would take place in October.
St. Croix Source
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