JACKSON - The U.S. attorney's office "has gone from prosecution to persecution" in unsealing a tax evasion indictment against state Supreme Court Justice Oliver Diaz Jr. only a few days after he was acquitted of bribery, Diaz's attorney says.
"After three months of trial and untold expense, the government failed to obtain a conviction despite its best efforts," Robert McDuff said Tuesday. "Now, they have rummaged around and conjured up tax charges in what appears to be an unceasing crusade to convict an innocent man."
U.S. District Judge Henry T. Wingate on Monday unsealed the March 22 tax evasion indictment against Diaz.
In a motion to have the indictment sealed when it was issued, Assistant U.S. Attorney Donald Burkhalter said releasing it at the time would have "undue and potentially prejudicial impact on the jury pool" in the trial of Diaz, Gulf Coast attorney Paul Minor and two former trial judges.
Diaz, former Circuit Judge John Whitfield and former Chancery Judge Wes Teel had been accused of taking bribes from Minor. All four men were tried together. Diaz was acquitted of all counts Friday. Minor, Whitfield and Teel were not convicted on any counts, but jurors couldn't reach a verdict on several counts against them.
The tax evasion indictment accuses Diaz and his former wife, Jennifer, of filing misleading tax returns. The indictment says in 1999, the couple underreported their income by more than $25,000, and in the next two years they failed to pay more than $42,000 in taxes on income they disguised as "loan repayments."
The indictment does not say whether that income was related to the alleged bribes, and Burkhalter did not immediately return calls for comment.
Jennifer Diaz also had been a defendant in the bribery trial but pleaded guilty to a single tax count and agreed to cooperate with prosecutors. She was listed as a government witness, but did not take the stand during the three-month trial.
Jennifer Diaz's sentencing is scheduled for Sept. 13 in U.S. District Court in Gulfport.
Even if prosecutors obtain a tax-evasion conviction against Oliver Diaz, state law says the conviction would not remove him from office.
Most felony convictions would be grounds for removal from public office in Mississippi. But, state law says a few felonies are not cause for removal - manslaughter, federal tax-code violations, corruption or embezzlement in office or gambling with money that comes into an official's hands because of his office.
Because of Diaz's acquittal, Brant Brantley, executive director of the Commission on Judicial Performance, had said Monday that he expected a special tribunal to consider a recommendation to reinstate Diaz to the high court.
Brantley made that statement before learning of the unsealing of the indictment. He said Tuesday he could not speculate "what action, if any, the commission might take in light of this new development."
After the verdict was returned last week, Diaz had told reporters outside the Jackson courthouse that he was looking forward to returning to the bench.
A tribunal - seven judges selected by the secretary of state - had suspended Diaz with pay on Dec. 16, 2003, not long after the bribery indictment was handed up. Diaz and the other judges were accused of accepting cash, loans and gifts from Minor in exchange for favorable rulings in Minor's cases.
Diaz was appointed to the high court by Gov. Ronnie Musgrove in 2000 to fill a vacancy. The next year, Diaz was elected to an eight-year term.
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