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Federal prosecutors okay subpoena of texts in Cothren, Casada case – Tennessee Lookout [1]

['Holly Mccall', 'More From Author', '- June']

Date: 2023-06

Prosecutors on Thursday approved a request by attorneys for Cade Cothren, former chief of staff to former Tennessee House Speaker Glen Casada, to subpoena records between Cothren and a potential witness in the upcoming trial of Casada and Cothren on federal bribery, theft and kickback charges.

The agreement allows Cothren’s defense team to request phone and text records from Verizon Wireless and Confide, Inc. — the latter is an encrypted message service — for the one-year period between January 2019 and January 2020.

Cothren has claimed the records will show numerous communications between him and current House Speaker Cameron Sexton, alleging he helped Sexton win the speakership before going on to form a shadowy consulting firm that earned more than $252,000 from the House Republican Caucus and its members. According to Cothren, Sexton was aware of his involvement with the firm, Phoenix Solutions.

“While Speaker Sexton may insist now, publicly, that he would not have approved Mr. Cothren as a vendor, and that Mr. Cothren was somehow aware of Speaker Sexton’s subjective opinion on the matter, the Verizon records and Confide messaging records – in addition to the text messages Mr. Cothren already has in his possession – will establish otherwise,” an earlier court filing states.

Sexton became House Speaker after Casada resigned amid a racist and sexist texting scandal and a vote on no confidence from his caucus just months after assuming the role.

Both Cothren and Casada are set to go on trial in the corruption case on Oct. 3.

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[1] Url: https://tennesseelookout.com/briefs/federal-prosecutors-okay-subpoena-of-texts-in-cothren-casada-case/

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