Federal prosecutors advised a jury in Jacksonville Monday {that a} “tradition of favors” involving Lake Metropolis’s former high prosecutor led to a protection lawyer amassing payoffs from shoppers for lighter punishment in court docket.
Lawyer Marion Michael O’Steen from Dixie County “crossed a line from advocacy to bribery and extortion,” Assistant US Lawyer David Mesrobian argued in the beginning of a trial for the person indicted final 12 months with former third Judicial Circuit State Lawyer Jeff Siegmeister.
Siegmeister pleaded responsible in February to fees involving conspiracy, extortion, wire fraud and tax crime and is scheduled to testify for prosecutors this week.
Beforehand:Ex-Lake Metropolis State Lawyer Jeff Siegmeister takes plea in corruption case
Preliminary indication:North Florida ex-State Lawyer Siegmeister indicted in federal extortion, bribery case
O’Steen has maintained his innocence, nevertheless, and his lawyer argued Monday the skilled lawyer was merely making an attempt to get a superb deal for his consumer, who turned out to be a federal informant.
O’Steen “was strolling right into a hornet’s nest” when he agreed to symbolize the proprietor of a Lake Metropolis enterprise charged with working an unlawful gabling home, protection lawyer Mitchell Stone advised juror who’ll determine whether or not O’Steen dedicated 4 separate however associated crimes.
Opening arguments centered on O’Steen’s work representing Andy Tong, the operator of a gaming enterprise who final 12 months sued each O’Steen and Siegmeister, arguing Siegmeister used his place as a state lawyer “to solicit, settle for and agree to just accept a bribe in return for a positive disposition.”
Siegmeister filed a pre-trial diversion settlement after Tong paid O’Steen $60,000 to deal with fees involving him and two different individuals from his enterprise.
However Stone mentioned the cash wasn’t a bribe, merely a practical charge for making ready to attempt a case that might have lasted weeks and was solely resolved when it was time for trial. He mentioned O’Steen had been making ready rigorously for the trial, saying information confirmed he had scheduled a Vietnamese translator for court docket as a result of one in all Tong’s co-defendants did not converse English.
However prosecutors mentioned Tong’s case wasn’t remoted, and mentioned one other O’Steen consumer had paid to get an tried homicide cost involving arson dropped all the way down to a lesser rely, and that one other consumer’s case was resolved after a bull on Siegmeister’s farm was purchased at an inflated value.