Judge: Renzi co-defendants won’t be tried together
by Arthur H. Rotstein on Jan. 15, 2009, under Local, Nation/World, SpecialTwo of former U.S. Rep. Rick Renzi’s co-defendants won’t have to stand trial together because they’re accused of unrelated crimes, a federal magistrate has ruled.
U.S. Magistrate Bernardo Velasco’s ruling found that James Sandlin doesn’t have to stand trial alongside Andrew Beardall.
Sandlin, a real estate investor and a one-time business associate of Renzi’s, whose term as a Republican congressman for Arizona has just ended, is charged with conspiring with Renzi in a land swap deal to benefit both men. Beardall, an attorney who was president and general counsel of an insurance company that Renzi owned, is accused of conspiring with Renzi to commit insurance fraud.
In the ruling issued last week, Velasco found that the insurance fraud counts were not related to the alleged land exchange offenses.
Only Renzi had a relationship to each of the co-defendants in the separate land swap and insurance fraud cases spelled out by government prosecutors. Velasco granted Sandlin’s motion to separate the co-defendants because Sandlin and Beardall weren’t working in concert and there was no indication that the co-defendants knew everything about both alleged conspiracies.
The ruling means the possibility of at least two trials — and potentially three or four — perhaps one for each defendant.
Renzi is named in all but one of 44 counts, on charges including conspiracy, wire fraud, money laundering, insurance fraud, extortion and racketeering.
A third co-defendant, Dwayne Lequire, an accountant at Renzi’s insurance company, was added when a superseding indictment was handed up in November.
That indictment will bring new motions and more arguments, including one over whether the racketeering count will enable the government to try multiple defendants.
Renzi, Beardall, Sandlin and Lequire all have pleaded not guilty.
Renzi, 50, initially was indicted last February. The charges came after months of speculation over his future after federal investigators began looking into the circumstances of a federal land swap that also involved the purchase of 480 acres near the San Pedro River in Cochise County owned by Sandlin. Renzi did not seek a fourth term last year.
Besides the land swap allegations, the indictment also alleged that he siphoned off funds from his family insurance firm to fund his first election campaign.
In last week’s ruling, Velasco wrote that it was “disingenuous for the government to argue that all of the offenses in the indictment are connected” through Renzi’s insurance company.
Velasco did not rule on Beardall’s request in the same motion to separate his trial from Renzi’s.
Beardall’s lawyers contended that a joint trial would cause Beardall “extreme prejudice,” unfairly tainting him because of a large volume of evidence concerning the alleged land exchange scheme that Beardall had no involvement with.
Velasco also must examine an attorney-client privilege issue concerning Beardall and Renzi. Beardall has claimed that if the two men were tried together, Renzi could claim an attorney-client relationship that would preclude Beardall from presenting evidence on his own behalf concerning his state of mind in making allegedly false statements.
Separating the two defendants, Velasco’s motion said, would be both appropriate and necessary “to resolve the conflict between Beardall’s right to present a defense and Renzi’s right not to have privileged communications introduced against him at trial.”
Several other issues remain, including whether to dismiss the insurance fraud counts and constitutional challenges Renzi has raised.
Lawyers for Renzi, who represented Arizona’s 1st Congressional District for three terms, argued in December before Velasco that the government’s investigation violated Renzi’s rights under the “speech or debate” clause of the U.S. Constitution granting members of Congress protection for their legislative acts.
Meanwhile, on Monday U.S. District Judge David Bury reset the trial’s start from March 24 to June 2.
