A visiting judge has denied a request from accused embezzler Stephen Decatur’s daughter to appoint an outside firm at Geauga County’s expense to help her review discovery in the case.
Decatur, Geauga County’s former IT director, and his 36-year-old daughter, Stephanie Stewart, are alleged to have orchestrated a scheme to steal more than $1.8 million in public funds from the county auditor’ office over an eight-year period, from Feb. 1, 2010, through Oct. 25, 2017.
On Monday, Stewart and her attorney, Kimberly Kendall Corral, appeared in Geauga County Common Pleas Court to ask visiting Judge Robert J. Brown to provide them with county-funded discovery support to review the “insurmountable volume” of discovery.
Corral told Brown the prosecution provided her with a hard drive containing 80,794 separate files.
“In a way to try and illustrate to the court how much this is,” she said, “if I spent 15 minutes on each file . . . and this was the only case I ever worked on, and I worked on it five or six days a week all day long, it would take me 504 weeks to have opened every file and spent 15 minutes with it, which, of course, we know more than that is required in preparing a defense.”
She added, “So 504 weeks, if I started the day we received discovery, it puts us into the year 2028 just on this case alone.”
Corral argued she is being place in a difficult position as defense counsel because she can either proceed to trial without having reviewed the discovery or, if the court set a trial date after 2028, she would have to withdraw as counsel because Stewart could not financially support a defense that would take 40 hours per week for the next 10 years.
“The only other resolution I can fathom is that we retain, at the state’s expense, a discovery review service in which they develop software to determine relevancy and . . . to review everything and reduce the volume of relevant and useful material to something that’s manageable,” she argued. “Otherwise, I’d have to put on record that I’m proceeding in this case without having reviewed the vast majority of discovery.”
Corral also said Stewart has either spent or leveraged all of her assets to retain legal counsel and, therefore, does not have assets to pay for any experts.
Geauga County Prosecutor Jim Flaiz said his office has retained a forensic accountant to review the voluminous financial records and turn that into something manageable.
“It was very expensive for the forensic accountant to take this massive amount of information, in the form of bank records, cashier’s checks and all these financial transactions, and they put that together into a number of spreadsheets and a number of summaries,” he explained.
“The state did turn that over to defense counsel in an effort to level the playing field on this issue,” Flaiz told Brown, adding both Corral and Decatur’s lawyer also accepted an “unprecedented offer” to meet with the forensic accountant and discuss his findings.
“I even offered if they wanted to meet in private with the forensic accountant to ask him questions, and for him not to reveal to me what was said at the meeting, I would also be agreeable to that,” Flaiz said.
Based on the feedback the forensic accountant received from defense counsel, Flaiz said the accountant prepared a binder and a summary “better laying out the roadmap of all the money transfers and summarizing this voluminous amount of bank records” into a one-page document.
“So, they have exactly what I have. We’re on a level playing field,” he said, claiming it would be a duplication of efforts if the court appointed a state-funded firm to review the same information.
‘Tens of Thousands of Dollars’
Brown said he understood the amount of information is overwhelming, but found prosecutors have acted in good faith to ensure information they intend to rely on has been shared with defense counsel.
“I’m not hearing anything from defense counsel suggesting that this forensic expert is biased,” Brown said, noting prosecutors have even agreed to let defense counsel meet with the accountant privately.
The judge also noted Corral had told the court prior to the hearing that she had spoken to several people who might be able to provide the expertise she was seeking for “tens of thousands of dollars.”
“Some wouldn’t even give you an estimate because of the volume of work that you may need done,” he added.
Corral said she was capable of examining the accountant’s report and understanding the information, but “without putting this case down a decade from now,” she cannot review all the discovery to identify what information has been provided let alone assess whether the information has been reviewed appropriately and accurately summarized.
“The state had the benefit of experts, technology, computer limiting programs to go through this and I believe the defendant should be entitled to the same,” she argued. “It’s her liberty that’s at stake.”
Brown told Corral he was denying her request, but said he would revisit the matter if she found an “issue” with the forensic accountant’s work.
“In light of the state’s willingness to share the report, the expertise of the expert, the fact that you could question him alone, until you can establish a particularized need for the county to spend tens of thousands of dollars on what might be a very redundant exercise, I cannot agree at this point to grant your motion,” he said.
Other Rulings
In other rulings, Brown granted defense counsel Laurence Turbow’s request to withdraw as Decatur’s legal counsel.
Turbow said there were issues between him and Decatur, which he could not disclose due to confidentiality, that could not be overcome.
Decatur, 59, told Brown he intended to retain other private counsel to represent him in his case.
As such, Brown said he would defer hearing a motion prosecutors filed to combine Decatur and Stewart’s cases until new counsel is retained.
Another motion Corral filed to combine a separate lawsuit filed against ITERSource Corporation — the main contractor — and two of its officers for conspiring to defraud the county in the Stewart case was not ripe for consideration, Brown ruled.
That case is pending before Geauga County Common Pleas Court Judge Forrest Burt, so Brown said Corral’s motion first needs to be brought to Burt’s attention to determine how he intended to proceed. Then, Brown said he could address the issue.
Finally, Brown ruled the Geauga County Auditor’s Office did not have to produce certain records Corral subpoenaed. She was seeking records showing Decatur or Stewart had logged into the county auditor’s office website to perform work.
“The whole nature of the state’s case is that she (Stewart) was paid for work she didn’t do,” Corral said, arguing the material would show Stewart not only had access to the county’s system, but also was logging into it to perform work.
Flaiz noted Stewart did not have her own login credentials into the county’s system. So, if she were utilizing internal login credentials as an administrator of the website, he argued it would be impossible to determine if it were Stewart logging in or Decatur, or any authorized member of the auditor’s office staff, many of whom work irregular hours.
A status conference and hearing on all other pending motion was scheduled for Sept. 12.
