The prosecution and defense rested their cases yesterday in the trial of former Fall River Mayor Jasiel Correia, and now the case goes to the jurors. GBH Morning Edition host Joe Mathieu spoke with Northeastern University law professor and GBH News legal analyst Daniel Medwed about the trial and what he expects could happen next. The transcript below has been edited for clarity.
Joe Mathieu: We talked about this a few weeks ago when this all was just starting. How about we begin this morning with the lay of the land, the baseline — what the charges are all about?
Daniel Medwed: He's facing a whole raft of charges — 24 in total — and they range from extortion to bribery to filing a false income tax return. And I think they could be put into two different categories. First, a large number of them pre-date his position as mayor, and they revolve principally around allegations that he defrauded investors in a now-defunct phone app called SnoOwl that he was sponsoring. Second, the other batch really concerns his stint as mayor and allegations that he essentially extorted money from prospective business owners who wanted to set up legalized marijuana shops within Fall River City limits. You need what's called a non-opposition letter from City Hall in order to get a license in the Commonwealth to conduct a marijuana business. And apparently, there was a pay-to-play scheme going on where you basically had to give money to Correia to get that letter.
Mathieu: Prosecutors called him "a mayor of old-school corruption," Daniel. More than 20 charges, and as you pointed out, extending over a pretty long period of time. How did prosecutors do [in] proving their case?
Medwed: I think they did a great job in dotting their I's and crossing their T's, Joe. They put forward 33 witnesses over nine days. And in excruciating, painstaking detail, they set forth the nature of Correia's dealings. For instance, there was an IRS special agent who recounted how Correia would extract money from the SnoOwl business account and then almost immediately buy a lavish gift, like a Mercedes Benz, gifts for his ex-girlfriend or even just pay off his monthly fitness trainer fee. There were also lots of witnesses from the Fall River business community who talked about how this pay-to-play scheme worked, how they would have to give money to him or to an intermediary in order to get one of those non-opposition letters. So I think the prosecution did a nice job.
WATCH: Daniel Medwed on the defense's strategy
Mathieu: So there is a strategy. But does that type of approach work in a case with so many witnesses, so many different charges?
Medwed: That's the big question, Joe. In a weak case that's more of a house of cards, it can work because you just tap at one of the cards and the whole thing comes crumbling down. But in a case like this, which is much sturdier, it's a stronger case presented by the prosecution. I'm not sure there's going to be a spillover effect. If you try to impeach the credibility of witness A, [you're] not sure there's going to be any ripple effect on witness B.
Mathieu: Jury gets the case just this morning, right? The judge had them wait till this morning. Are we looking at days?
Medwed: I think days, Joe. I don't think this is going to be a matter of hours simply because the charges are pretty nuanced and complicated — there are 24 of them. It's going to take some time for them to go through it. But I would ultimately be shocked if he were acquitted on all of them. It seems like a pretty strong case.
