Ted Suhl, a Warm Springs man who was indicted in December on accusations of funneling $10,000 to $20,000 in bribes to a state official, is asking a federal judge to throw out the indictment because the government waited too long to pursue it.
Suhl, 50, is charged with conspiracy to commit bribery and honest-services fraud, three counts of honest services fraud, one count of federal funds bribery and one count of interstate travel in aid of bribery. His jury trial is scheduled for July 12.
Federal prosecutors say Suhl funneled bribes to Steven B. Jones, a former deputy director of the state Department of Human Services, in return for official acts that benefited Suhl and his two mental-health companies. Jones, of Marion, who was also a former state representative, was sentenced Feb. 18 to 21/2 years in prison.
In a motion asking U.S. District Judge Billy Roy Wilson to dismiss the indictment, attorneys Robert M. Cary of Washington, D.C., and Charles A. "Chuck" Banks of Little Rock argue that by the time prosecutors got around to indicting Suhl, "the most important witness in the case" was dead.
That witness was Pastor John Bennett of the 15th Street Church of God in Christ in West Memphis, the attorneys said.
They say Bennett was the unnamed pastor who was never charged but who has been discussed in the indictment and other court documents as a participant in the bribery scheme by helping pass bribes from Suhl to Jones.
"Had the indictment been timely brought, Pastor Bennett would have testified at trial that the few thousand dollars in alleged bribes were not bribes at all, but were charitable donations to his church that were a drop in the bucket (less than two percent) of regular donations by Suhl and his family that exceeded $240,000 over nearly ten years," the attorneys argued.
They said Bennett was recorded making those statements to a cooperating government witness.
The attorneys cited FBI documents in saying, "In 2012, the government said that it anticipated indictment of Suhl that year. By that time, the government had obtained all the so-called evidence that it has now. The government was also aware in 2012 that Pastor Bennett would provide testimony that Ted Suhl was innocent. And it knew that Pastor Bennett was critically ill. Armed with that knowledge, the government decided not to seek an indictment in 2012 after all, but waited until 2015, after Pastor Bennett died in 2014."
Phillip Carter, a former West Memphis city councilman and Crittenden County juvenile probation officer who is also from Marion is serving two years in prison for helping pass along bribes Jones said he accepted from Suhl.
Metro on 04/12/2016