JACKSONVILLE, Fla. – Recently-filed court documents in the federal case against two former JEA executives accused of creating a lucrative bonus plan that could pay out millions if the utility were sold give new insight into the strategy behind their legal defense.
Former JEA CEO Aaron Zahn and his CFO Ryan Wannemacher are accused of conspiracy and wire fraud connected to the potential sale of JEA.
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Both Zahn and Wannemacher’s lawyers are claiming that their interviews with city attorneys, and testimony one gave at a city council hearing, can’t be used by prosecutors because of immunity protections. A former federal prosecutor said the defense strategy is rare, and ultimately may not work.
“You don’t get immunized testimony. In any case, very often, it’s very rare,” said former federal prosecutor Curtis Fallgater.
One part of that is the interviews city attorneys conducted with Zahn and Wannemacher in January 2020 as they were investigating whether Zahn could be fired with cause. Because they were compelled to talk as part of their job those statements are protected.
“That was a legitimate Garrity issue,” Fallgater said.
But Fallgatter said in another 2019 meeting with City Council members Rory Diamond and Ron Salem the same rules do not apply to statements made by Wannemacher.
″The problem with that defense for him is they’re not his employer. He’s trying to make it look like he was required to do it because Mr. Zahn told him he should go there. Well, that didn’t require him to testify,” Fallgatter said.
In both meetings, prosecutors say Zahn and Wannemacher lied about their knowledge of a bonus plan, built around the sale of the public utility JEA, which would have secretly extracted tens of millions of dollars from the city-owned utility’s sale. Fallgatter said he’s convinced the prosecution has established that it built a strong case, outside of the potentially protected statements, saying the lies both men are alleged to have told, could come back to haunt them.
“Well, that’s an interesting thing, because when you lie about a matter, that’s called false exculpatory evidence and that is tantamount to a confession. So really, that could be used by the government to prove their guilty knowledge. If you’re lying about a bonus plan, and you know about it. That’s proof that you know that that is a crooked plan,” Fallgatter said.
In the government’s response to one of the defense’s briefings, prosecutors argue that there’s no reason for Wannemacher’s statements to city council members to be protected because they didn’t say anything the prosecution plans to use in court.
A judge is expected to rule on these questions about evidence sometime this fall.
The trial is set for next February.