Attorneys for former V.I. Police commissioner Ray Martinez and former Office of Management and Budget director Jenifer O’Neal said during a final pre-trial conference Monday that they are ready to proceed to trial Dec. 3 on federal wire fraud and bribery charges, though issues remain to be resolved, including what evidence may be introduced about the extensive criminal background of the government’s key witness.
V.I. District Court Judge Mark Kearney said he would take the last-minute motion to introduce David Whitaker’s long felony history, filed Friday by Martinez’s attorneys, under advisement but admonished them for missing the Nov. 4 deadline for all final pretrial motions — including to admit or preclude evidence.
“Why the delay? This is pretty well-known stuff. … I mean, it takes about half a second on a Google search to find out about Mr. Whitaker,” he said. “Is the answer that ‘I’m a busy guy’? Is that the answer? ‘I didn’t get to this’?” Kearney asked Miguel Oppenheimer, who is Martinez’s court-appointed attorney along with Juan F. Matos de Juan, both of Puerto Rico.
While Whitaker’s criminal background has been widely reported, including by the Source, Oppenheimer said his office only realized the extent of it as they began preparing for trial in earnest two weeks ago. Once an FBI background check confirmed the information they were finding online, they filed the motion to admit Whitaker’s prior convictions beyond the usual 10-year time limit.
Claiming that “your investigator just found out is not good cause. Give me a better reason,” Kearney said, especially as the issue was addressed in the recent federal bribery trial of former Sports, Parks and Recreation commissioner Calvert White, where Whitaker was a key government witness, and in the U.S. Justice Department’s trial memorandum of Oct. 15, which outlined the case against Martinez and O’Neal and estimated Whitaker will testify for eight to 10 hours.
A jury found White and Hendricks guilty of honest services wire fraud and bribery in late July after a weeklong trial in the U.S. District Court on St. Thomas. Sentencing is set for Jan. 22.
The government filed its opposition to Martinez’s motion Sunday, calling it untimely and noting that convictions “more than 10 years old are presumptively inadmissible to impeach a testifying witness. For the conviction to be admissible, the court must decide that the probative value ‘substantially outweighs its prejudicial effect.’”
Moreover, “the government has no intention of presenting the cooperating witness, Whitaker, ‘as a man who should be trusted,’” it said. “In fact, the government has charged the witness for the same crimes charged in this case, along with two additional, unrelated fraud schemes.”
Martinez and O’Neal are each charged with five counts of honest services wire fraud, which each carry a maximum penalty of 20 years in prison; one count of federal program bribery, which carries a maximum penalty of 10 years; and one count of money laundering conspiracy, which carries a maximum penalty of 20 years, according to the U.S. Justice Department. Martinez is also charged with two counts of obstruction of justice, which each carry a maximum penalty of 20 years in prison.
An indictment unsealed in January alleges the pair accepted bribes from then-government contractor turned FBI informant Whitaker, who subsequently admitted to two counts of wire fraud and one count of bribery concerning programs receiving federal funds in a plea deal with prosecutors unsealed in September 2024. His sentencing is currently scheduled for June 10, 2026.
In January, Martinez filed a civil suit against Whitaker in V.I. Superior Court, alleging entrapment, which raised another question at Monday’s conference: Whether Martinez intends to pursue that as a defense.
“My understanding of entrapment means that you’re admitting that you’ve committed the offense,” but it was due to the government’s actions, said O’Neal’s attorney, Dale Smith. “If that is the case, then we don’t have antagonistic effects.”
However, if that is not what he is claiming, O’Neal’s defense could be antagonistic to Martinez, in which case she should go first at trial, even though Martinez is named first on the indictment, said Smith. That way Martinez will have an opportunity “to answer some of the things that I am going to argue on behalf of my client,” he said.
“If I take a position about the evidence in the case and what it means, that adversely impacts the co-defendant, if he has gone first he won’t be able to address it if I go second,” Smith told the judge.
Oppenheimer said that while he did not have an immediate position on Smith’s request, he added that he prefers to go first at trial.
“I’m not going to rule on that today. This is something the lawyers should be able to work out. Whatever happens, it’s going to be the same way throughout [the trial]. We’re not switching it up. You’re not saying, O’Neal will go first today, Martinez will go first tomorrow. It’s going to be the same way all along. So, you can certainly let me know and file a notice if you wish,” Kearney told Smith.
The trial is set to begin at 8:30 a.m. Dec. 3 in District Court on St. Thomas with jury selection and opening arguments and will resume at 8:30 a.m. Dec. 4 when the government will call its first witness. U.S. Justice Department trial attorney Alexandre Dempsey said Monday that the government expects to wrap up its case by Dec. 10, not Dec. 16 as was previously estimated.
St. Croix Source
Local news, News, Police & Courts
