Calling the timing of new charges filed against Martha Shoffner last week “disappointing and unreasonable,” an attorney for the former state treasurer asked a federal judge Monday to sever them from her original 14 charges, allowing her to proceed to trial March 3 on the original charges alone.
On Thursday, with less than a month before Shoffner’s scheduled trial date, a federal grand jury returned a superseding indictment adding 10 counts of mail fraud to the charges Shoffner already faced from an indictment handed up in June: six counts of extortion, one count of attempted extortion and seven counts of accepting a bribe as an agent of state government.
Shoffner, a Democrat from Newport who is now 69, was in her sixth year as state treasurer when she was arrested in May 2013 in an FBI sting and was subsequently indicted. She resigned her public office May 21, the same day that a bond broker who is expected to be a key witness against Shoffner also resigned from his job. He hasn’t been charged with a crime, but a federal prosecutor revealed in court filings last week that one witness in the case has been given immunity from prosecution in return for cooperating with the government.
The original charges accuse her of accepting $36,000 in cash from an unnamed bond broker between 2009 and May 2013 and in return directing that the broker receive the lion’s share of the state’s bond business.
The latest of allegations focus on part of the same time period, defense attorney Charles “Chuck” Banks points out in his motion to divide the two groups of charges. The newest charges accuse her of using $9,800 in re-election campaign funds to make payments on a personal credit card between Nov. 5, 2010, and Oct. 9, 2011, to cover personal expenses including clothing and cosmetics.
The state laws that the mail-fraud charges accuse Shoffner of violating “have been well known to law enforcement officials for approximately three and a half years,” while she was being investigated by federal agents, he argued.
“The new indictment charges [Shoffner] with far different federal crimes than were originally alleged,”Banks wrote in the motion filed Monday. “While mail fraud is a federal crime, it unfairly expands the scope, length, and specifics of this trial. It adds a new element for the jury to consider.”
Banks also wrote that Shoffner “readily believes these allegations are now made at this point with intent to make handling of campaign money a different crime. … It also has the indirect purpose to invite a juror to make impermissible inferences” to conclude that if the former treasurer mishandled campaign money, she must be guilty of the other accusations as well.
He said if the court severs the new charges from the original ones and sets the newer charges to be tried separately at a later date, Shoffner can proceed to trial “as she fully intends to do on March 3.”
Meanwhile on Monday, U.S. District Judge Leon Holmes denied Shoffner’s motions to compel discovery and to make prosecutors turn over a “bill of particulars,” which would provide more details of the accusations against her.
Holmes cited Assistant U.S. Attorney Jana Harris’ written responses, in which she asserted that the government has provided Shoffner with the information in its possession and that Shoffner is free to subpoena any additional information she believes is in the possession of a third party.
In an amended motion to compel, Banks also asked that prosecutors be ordered to provide a transcript of a recorded conversation between an employee of the investment section of the treasurer’s office and a person identified in the indictment only as “ Confidential Human Source 1.”
He said the recording is about an hour long and contains unintelligible portions.
“Listening to the understandable portions of this conversation, it readily appears that exculpatory information is contained in it and will be important to [Shoffner’s] preparation of her defense. The recording clearly suggests that John Doe and CHS1 discussed [Shoffner’s] lack of understanding or knowledge of bond transactions and this counsel believes it will be extremely material to guilt or punishment.”
Banks said he is unable to properly transcribe the conversation.
In denying that request as well, Holmes said Monday that Banks “cites no authority for the proposition that the court can order the United States Attorney to transcribe the recording.” He added that “the recording, not the transcription, is the evidence, and it has been provided to Shoffner.”
If she wishes, the judge said, Shoffner can contact the employee on the recording, the treasurer’s office and the confidential source - if she knows the person’s identity - to “request their assistance in transcribing the recorded conversation.”
Holmes said that prosecutors won’t have to provide a bill of particulars, as Shoffner requested, because the indictment includes all the necessary information required to be provided, allowing her to fairly defend herself.
Arkansas, Pages 7 on 02/11/2014