Trial of malpractice attorney Stephen Snyder begins with doctor’s testimony: ‘God, this sounds like extortion’

Alex Mann, Baltimore SunBaltimore Sun

Prominent medical malpractice attorney Stephen L. Snyder told University of Maryland Medical System representatives that giving him a $25 million consulting deal would mean he couldn’t bring more cases against them because he’d have a conflict of interest.

“You want me not to go forward. The question is: How do we do it?” Snyder said in an August 23, 2018, meeting that was recorded by federal agents.

“If I’m them, I’m thinking, ‘God, this sounds like extortion,’” responded Dr. DePriest Whye, CEO of the Maryland Medicine Comprehensive Insurance Program, the hospital system’s insurance provider, referring to hospital board members.

“I wanted to make sure it is not perceived as extortion,” Snyder answered.

Prosecutors said at the outset of Snyder’s long-anticipated federal trial Wednesday that his proposal did amount to extortion because Snyder threatened to launch an aggressive media campaign accusing the hospital system of transplanting diseased organs into patients without their knowledge. In exchange for keeping quiet, prosecutors said, he demanded the hospital system pay him $25 million under the guise of a consulting deal.

Snyder was indicted in 2020 on one count of attempted extortion and seven counts of violating the federal Travel Act.

With their first witness, Whye, on the stand four years later, prosecutors played snippets of the recorded 2018 meeting that they said supported an attempted extortion conviction.

In 25 years with the hospital system and its insurance provider, Whye testified, he never had a lawyer try to strike a consulting deal or a payment separate from his client’s case.

“We felt like we were being pressured, being blackmailed,” Whye said in court.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Matt Phelps told jurors about elements of the scheme he believed supported a guilty verdict on attempted extortion: the unusually large sum of money requested, the sham consulting arrangement proposed along with it, that Snyder didn’t want conversations about it recorded or written down. Phelps said that Snyder asked a colleague to delete notes they took about one of the meetings where the consulting deal was discussed.

“This case is about extortion,” Phelps said. “Pay me, or else. Pay me $25 million or I will destroy you. That’s what Mr. Snyder did to the University of Maryland Medical System.”

Snyder also ignored advice from his lawyers and came off as threatening, Phelps said.

“The University of Maryland didn’t want Mr. Snyder to be a consultant,” Phelps said. “They didn’t want to be blackmailed.”

Snyder, 77, who is representing himself with an attorney on stand-by to assist him, described himself as the victim of a malicious prosecution in his opening statement. He repeatedly referred to what was once his catch: “Don’t just sue them, Snyder them,” in his comments to the jury.

“The government has really turned around and Snyder’d me. And they Snyder’d me in a dishonest way,” he said.

Snyder spent a substantial portion of his hourlong opening discussing his accolades as an attorney and various philanthropic endeavors, such as spending millions to build a facility for the treatment of Cerebral Palsy and donations to his alma mater, the University of Baltimore School of Law. At one point, he said he’d prepared 70-some versions of his opening statement but ultimately chose to speak off the cuff.

“I’ve never been accused of dishonesty. … I was envied by almost every single lawyer in the state,” Snyder said.

Before proposing the $25 million consulting deal, Snyder was representing the widow of a man who died after receiving a kidney transplant at the hospital system’s transplant clinic within its flagship facility in Baltimore, the University of Maryland Medical Center. Under Snyder’s representation, the hospital system settled with the woman for $5 million.

Snyder claimed his client demanded he also strike a consulting deal with the hospital system to prevent more people from dying like the woman’s husband.

Doctors had transplanted a high-risk kidney, Snyder said. It was “very egregious conduct” for which he and his client wanted to sanction the system.

Snyder first proposed the consulting agreement at an April 30, 2018, settlement conference related to the woman who lost her husband to complications with a kidney transplant, according to prosecutors.

“He appeared confident,” Whye testified. “He appeared somewhat aggressive. Forceful.”

Whye said Snyder pledged to launch a media blitz, alleging doctors were tricking patients into taking bad kidneys, that included a front-page article in The Baltimore Sun, press conferences, advertisements and the release of a video related to the transplant gone wrong in his client’s husband. Snyder showed attendees the video he threatened to release at the April meeting.

Prosecutors played the footage, which showed graphic images of his client’s husband after having limbs amputated, along with an interview of the client in which she described everything she believed doctors had done wrong and dissuaded people from getting care at the Maryland hospital system.

“I was disturbed, very troubled,” Whye testified. “I was concerned because the video had some inaccuracies, some falsehoods.”

After a second meeting in June, the hospital system contacted federal law enforcement. Then, they scheduled another meeting. FBI agents watched the meeting unfold on video from a separate room. Snyder elaborated on his pitch.

“You hire me to do certain, set-out things to keep the hospital on the straight and narrow,” Snyder said. “You can’t pay someone off to not take cases, so you’re hiring me.”

He added that he didn’t care if the consulting agreement meant the hospital system didn’t see him for another 10 years. Phelps told jurors Snyder quipped about being put on the payroll as a janitor for $25 million.

When it was his turn to question Whye, Snyder repeatedly probed the doctor about his reputation as a malpractice lawyer.

“Are you aware of the magnitude of the amount of cases I settled with Maryland?” Snyder asked.

Whye said he couldn’t answer without consulting hospital system records.

Prosecutors objected when Snyder asked if he was the hospital system’s greatest adversary. Referring to himself in the third person as “Snyder,” he followed up with a similar question.

“Was I a worthy adversary?” Snyder asked.

“I think you’re competent,” Whye responded.

Snyder often seemed like he was arguing his case to the jury rather than asking questions of the witness, at times drawing a scolding from U.S. District Judge Deborah L. Boardman.

“You’re testifying or you’re speaking,” Boardman would say. “Please ask a question.”

Snyder then tried asking Whye about different legal standards of proof and what government lies would mean to a person facing criminal charges. Prosecutors interjected.

“Mr. Snyder, move on,” Boardman said. “This line of questioning is going nowhere.”

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