CINCINNATI — Attorneys for former Cincinnati City Councilman P.G. Sittenfeld asked a three-judge panel of the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals to throw out his public corruption conviction at a hearing on Thursday.
Once a rising political star and favorite to be Cincinnati mayor, Sittenfeld is now serving a 16-month sentence for bribery and attempted extortion.
But Sittenfeld is looking for freedom and exoneration.
“I think this was a good day for Sittenfeld. I think the judges’ questions went much tougher on the prosecutor than on Sittenfeld’s lawyers,” said Ken Katkin, a Northern Kentucky University law professor who attended the 2022 trial and Thursday’s oral arguments at the appeals court.
Sittenfeld has maintained that he did nothing illegal by accepting $20,000 in campaign donations from undercover FBI agents who were posing as developers and championing their project to redevelop a blighted downtown property into a boutique hotel because he was a pro-development politician.
It is extremely rare for an appeals court to overturn a jury’s verdict in a criminal case; it only happens 10% of the time, said Katkin, who gave Sittenfeld a much higher chance of winning on appeal.
More than 75 people attended Thursday's hearing, mostly Sittenfeld’s friends, family and political supporters. Once every seat in the large courtroom had been filled, a court official directed the standing spectators to an overflow room where they could listen to the hearing.
Oral arguments are usually slated for 30 minutes. But the three-judge panel of appointees of former President Donald Trump asked repeated questions that pushed the hearing to 40 minutes. The judges were John Bush, John Nalbandian and Eric Murphy.
Sittenfeld’s attorney, Yaakov Roth, warned of the widespread implications on political fundraising if the appeals court let this conviction stand. Roth, a partner at the Washington D.C. law firm of Jones Day, helped to vindicate former Virginia Governor Bob McDonnell from corruption charges.
“There is a real danger of exposing every elected official in the nation to potential prosecution,” said Roth, who argued the government is illegally expanding corruption laws by targeting routine political behavior as somehow criminal.
But Assistant U.S. Attorney Matthew Singer, who prosecuted Sittenfeld during a three-week trial with colleagues Emily Glatfelter and Megan Gaffney Painter, reminded the court that the jury’s verdict must be respected.
“The jury does not assess any piece of evidence standing alone, the jury assesses all of the evidence in the full context and … the jury found Mr. Sittenfeld’s testimony not credible,” Singer said.
The jury rejected Sittenfeld’s explanations from the witness stand about his intent behind some very controversial recorded conversations that prosecutors used to convict him.
Lawyers on both sides focused on an October 2018 recorded call between Sittenfeld and Chinedum Ndukwe, who was cooperating with the FBI. Sittenfeld, who wanted to run for mayor, asked for campaign donations in the form of “rounding up LLCs” from Ndukwe, a former Cincinnati Bengal turned real estate developer: Sittenfeld can be heard saying, “You don’t want me to be like, hey Chin, love you but can’t.”
"Honestly, I can ... I can sit here and say I can deliver the votes," Sittenfeld told the undercover agent who is known as Rob, during a November 2018 meeting at a downtown condo.
Former prosecutor and ex-city councilman Steve Goodin said an appeals court isn't likely to contradict a jury’s findings.
“There is a jury who found there is actually an express deal to sell his vote. That is his biggest problem,” Goodin said.
But Sittenfeld’s case, despite its local nature, has captured the national spotlight especially among legal conservatives. Former attorneys general, White House counsels, law professors and former prosecutors filed amicus briefs on behalf of Sittenfeld and in opposition to criminalizing political fundraising.
“All of them were arguing … these were all lawful campaign contributions that were properly recorded to the Federal Election Commission, properly disclosed and not diverted, these funds were not spent on anything improper either,” Katkin said. “These kinds of prosecutions are extremely unusual bordering on almost never happening, where no money is diverted into a candidate’s pocket.”
The three judges asked repeated questions about the standard for sufficiency of evidence, yet seemed skeptical about throwing out the jury's verdict. They also picked up on technical issues at the trial such as amending the indictment and instructions to the jury.
“This issue of informal amending of an indictment ... what they’re really asking is did the prosecutors and the judge invite the jury to convict based on Sittenfeld’s conversation with Chin Ndukwe, even though he was only charged with taking a bribe from the developers, not Chin Ndukwe," Katkin said.
At the end of the hearing, Roth asked the judges to consider suspending the remainder of Sittenfeld’s sentence and releasing him from prison while the appeal was pending.
If that happened, Katkin said Sittenfeld could be released this week. But the final appeals court decision may not come for three months.
Sittenfeld was the third council member the FBI arrested in 2020 on public corruption charges stemming from a massive sting at Cincinnati City Hall involving at least three undercover FBI agents and multiple informants who secretly recorded numerous elected leaders over two years.
Former council member Tamaya Dennard pleaded guilty to honest services wire fraud for accepting $15,000 as part of a scheme to exchange her votes for money. A judge sentenced her to 18 months in prison and she was released in 2022.
Former council member Jeff Pastor also pleaded guilty to honest services wire fraud. Prosecutors said he took $55,000 in bribes in exchange for votes on development deals.
Pastor is serving his two-year sentence at the same federal prison as Sittenfeld, who was his former colleague at City Hall. Both are at the minimum-security prison and camp at Ashland in Eastern Kentucky.
