A federal court judge has postponed the next long-standing trial in the Atlanta City Hall corruption investigation until next year.
Former Atlanta Chief Financial Officer Jim Beard received an eight-count indictment from a federal grand jury in 2020, for allegedly cheating on his taxes and using public money to cover tens of thousands of dollars in personal expenses — including buying two machine guns that are typically illegal for civilians to purchase.
Beard was initially set to appear in court in November 2022, but the trial date was delayed twice. Beard’s trial was rescheduled for next month, but court records show that District Judge Steve C. Jones has ordered a continuance until Feb. 12, 2024.
Court records show that Beard’s attorney, Scott Grubman, asked for the delay to give him time to review the federal government’s disclosure of more than nine million additional documents in the discovery phase of the case. Grubman did not respond to requests for comment.
Credit: Ben Gray
Credit: Ben Gray
Grubman also asked the court to force the government to review and identify the new material. According to the continuance filed by Grubman, the government declined to produce those documents for Beard’s counsel, and they instead said Beard’s counsel has to physically review the documents under the FBI’s supervision at the FBI offices.
“Counsel for Mr. Beard simply cannot process — let alone review — 9 million pages of discovery in less than 60 days, especially under the restrictive conditions that the government offers,” according to Grubman’s June 29 continuance request.
Court documents from July 10 show that the federal prosecutors accepted Grubman’s continuance request. But the prosecutors asked the court to deny Grubman’s identification request of the material.
The prosecution said in their court documents that “the United States first advised Beard on October 6, 2020 of the existence of materials related” to the Atlanta cases and investigations.
The government also acknowledged in court records that the other city records have been reviewed thoroughly “but not exhaustively,” and that those records are actually available for electronic review at the U.S. Attorney’s Office in a private room with no supervision.
Additionally, the government’s court records show that the feds sent Beard three more letters between 2020 and 2022 asking Beard to request any additional records from the government if he believes the United States has not disclosed all the records the former CFO is entitled to.
“Beard never asked for an index or to what the other City of Atlanta records relate,” the prosecution’s court records said. “Upon request, the United States will provide Beard with indexes of the other City of Atlanta materials.”
Court documents show Jones OK’d the continuance. But Jones denied the material identification request because the court agreed with the government’s argument.
“‘As a general rule,’ the Government does not have an affirmative duty to identify ‘exculpatory evidence within a larger mass of disclosed evidence,’” according to the court’s response.
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