Attorney Stephen L. Snyder, alleging misconduct by federal prosecutors, asks for extortion charges against him to be thrown out
Prominent attorney
Snyder has secured more than
The extortion indictment, Snyder's attorneys argued in two lengthy motions to dismiss filed Tuesday, distorts Snyder's comments by taking them out of context, not including exculpatory comments, and clipping together statements that in one case occurred 89 pages apart in the transcript of a recorded conversation.
"The Indictment in this case must be dismissed with prejudice because the government has set forth a falsified version of the most important meeting in this case," the motion argues, citing an
Federal prosecutors also allegedly blocked Snyder's attempts to arrange a meeting with hospital officials and attorney
Snyder contends he wanted to bring Graham in to advise both sides on how to create a legal and ethical consulting agreement.
"I'll set up a meeting with Andy. If [the consulting deal] can't be done, I don't want to do it," Snyder had told a hospital executive, according to a transcript of one recorded call that was not included in the indictment but cited in Tuesday's filings. "You think I want to do something that's wrong . .. at this stage of my [career]? Absolutely not."
But prosecutors allegedly told hospital officials not to meet with Graham and continue to deal only with Snyder, whose attempts to extract millions of dollars in June of that year prompted hospital officials to go to federal authorities.
Snyder, 73, long one of the top plaintiffs attorneys in the state, was brought up on attorney disciplinary proceedings last summer after investigators alleged that he sought a sham consulting agreement from the hospital system in exchange for not publicizing problems with its organ transplant program. He told
The
The federal case is one of two pending criminal indictments against prominent
The
Snyder's motion reveals that the hospital system had paid Snyder and his clients more than
The indictment alleged that Snyder decided in the summer of 2018 to try to get additional millions from the hospital system that he would not have to share with his clients. He asked for
"You'll use me when you want me, if at all," Snyder told a hospital executive in one recorded call, according to prosecutors. "You know, when you need me, you know, you'll call me once a month or you'll have lunch with me once a month, and you'll get advice from me."
But federal authorities left out or distorted key portions of Snyder's dialogue, said his attorneys,
"Astonishingly, the government has gone way beyond any arguably proper omission of exculpatory statements to create its fictitious narrative," they wrote. "Here, the government has corrupted the Indictment by quoting statements or questions by UMMS representatives and following those statements with comments from Snyder, which it falsely presents as answers to those statements or questions. In actuality, and in each instance, Snyder's comments were made in response to altogether different statements by UMMS representatives, and, when put back into proper sequence, are entirely innocent."
Snyder's attorneys hired a legal writing expert to evaluate the indictment's text compared with the transcript of the conversation. According to Tuesday's filings, that expert,
That includes leaving out Snyder's attempts to include Graham in the talks, his attorneys wrote. Graham, of the law firm Kramon and Graham, often represents lawyers and judges facing ethics questions.
Investigators with the bar counsel, in their review a year later, asked Kinter why she objected to Graham's involvement.
"The Complainant [Kinter] explained that the USAO [
By preventing Graham from attending, Snyder's attorneys wrote, federal prosecutors changed the course of events.
"Whatever the constitutional consequences of the government's misconduct might have been in 2018, they certainly ripened into a full-fledged violation of Snyder's right to due process of law, guaranteed by the Fifth Amendment to the
Graham did not return messages seeking comment about his role in the negotiations with the university hospital system.
According to Kinter, Snyder's attorneys wrote, Assistant
But Assistant
"Instead of acknowledging that the newly acquired evidence reinforced the original decision of the
Snyder's attorneys wrote that the case against Avenatti, who was convicted of extorting Nike, set new guidance for what attorneys can and cannot do -- which federal prosecutors in
In that case, Avenatti was accused of using information obtained during the representation of his clients to seek money from Nike for himself and without his client's knowledge. The judge in the Avenatti case ruled that the attorney "had no right -- independent of his client to demand millions of dollars from Nike based on confidential information supplied by his client; without his client's knowledge; and to his client's detriment."
But unlike Avenatti, Snyder's attorneys wrote, Snyder's client told investigators from the
The motion also said that courts have found that an attorney's threats to take a case public or advertising for additional clients is not unlawful conduct.
"Threats to publicize a prospective defendant's actions are so ingrained in settlement negotiations as to be unexceptional," they wrote.
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