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District Attorney Jason Williams acquitted on federal tax charges [1]
['Jillian Kramer', 'Staff Writer', 'Staff Photo David Grunfeld', 'Staff Photo Chris Granger']
Date: 2022-07
A jury on Thursday acquitted Orleans Parish District Attorney Jason Williams of the federal tax fraud charges against him, clearing away a dark cloud that had hung over him since before his 2020 election as New Orleans' top prosecutor.
The jury found Williams and his co-defendant, lawyer Nicole Burdett, not guilty of each of the 10 felony charges against them, which alleged the pair conspired to lower Williams' tax burden by more than $200,000 over five successive years.
Even so, the same jury found Burdett guilty of four counts of falsifying four years' worth of her own taxes, allegedly shaving nearly $130,000 off of her tax bill.
Williams bowed his head as the verdict was read count by count, and cried as the final "not guilty" was said aloud. His wife, Liz Marcell Williams, and a cousin, Clarence Williams, held one another in the front row of the gallery, sobbing.
Burdett cried, too. After the jury was dismissed, she held on to Williams and sobbed. She is scheduled to be sentenced on Nov. 30.
"We and Nicole respect the process and the jury’s verdict," Michael Magner, Burdett's defense attorney, said in a written statement following the verdict. "However, Nicole was collateral damage of a politically motivated and wrongheaded prosecution — one that resulted in not guilty verdicts on 10 counts. There is no way that Nicole ever would have been charged but for the government’s overreach."
In addition to the charges of conspiracy and aiding in the filing of false tax returns, Williams and Burdett had also been charged with failing to file the proper forms for cash payments of more than $10,000 on four occasions. The forms, created by the Internal Revenue Service, help law enforcement agents track the flow of cash and find financial crimes, such as money laundering.
A key witness for the government, Henry Timothy, faltered on the witness stand early in the more than weeklong trial. Timothy, who acted as the pair's tax preparer for the years in which they had been charged, has pleaded guilty to lying on his own taxes — a fact which defense attorneys highlighted multiple times.
While prosecutors strongly contended that Timothy only manipulated Williams and Burdett's taxes at their request, defense attorneys argued that Timothy — who had falsely held himself out as a certified public accountant — had acted without instruction, often filing the pair's returns before they had reviewed them.
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Timothy has yet to be sentenced in his own tax fraud case.
And while prosecutors pointed to multiple large cash payments given to Williams' law firm and argued that the attorneys knew they had to file certain government forms on the transactions, defense attorneys argued Williams and Burdett were unaware of the requirement. They also disputed the recipients of the cash, claiming that at least two of the sums were paid to another attorney at the firm.
The defense put on no case. After the verdict Thursday, Lisa Wayne, a defense attorney for Williams, said that the jury "heard his [Williams'] side. He pled not guilty."
From the steps of the Hale Boggs Federal Building, Wayne added, "This never should have even been here in the courthouse."
The verdict came after about 16 hours of deliberation. The jury, which included nine women and three men, four of whom were Black, was drawn from the 13-parish Eastern District of Louisiana.
U.S. District Court Judge Lance Africk, who presided over the trial, thanked the jury for its careful consideration of the case. "There’s no more solemn task than that," he said.
The U.S. attorney's office for the Eastern District recused itself from the case, so Western District prosecutors took it to trial.
More to come on this breaking news story.
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[1] Url:
https://www.nola.com/news/courts/article_ffc45a22-0cfa-11ed-bdc5-6f473c1732dd.html
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