Former Jacksonville City Council member Reggie Brown is asking a federal judge to find him innocent of the conspiracy and fraud crimes that a jury said last week he committed.
A motion that Brown’s attorney filed Thursday argues that U.S. District Judge Marcia Morales Howard should have made that ruling during the fraud trial because prosecutors simply hadn’t proved their case.
“There was not sufficient evidence for the jury to find beyond a reasonable doubt that Mr. Brown ... conspired with others to commit mail and wire fraud,” attorney Thomas Bell wrote, noting he requested acquittal during Reggie Brown’s trial with fellow former council member Katrina Brown.
“The evidence at trial established that Katrina Brown concocted a scheme to defraud her lenders and the city of Jacksonville,” Bell added, “Only by stacking inferences from the mailing and cashing of checks could the jury conclude that the jury knew of and willfully joined the scheme.”
The former council members were charged with collecting about a quarter-million dollars through phony invoices submitted to a lender handling a federally backed $2.65 million loan for Katrina Brown’s family to build a barbecue sauce factory on Commonwealth Avenue.
Those invoices were part of a package of documentation the lender sent City Hall to get it to release a $210,000 grant for the factory project.
The jury found Reggie Brown innocent of a mail fraud charge involving the city grant but said he was guilty of a total of 33 charges involving fraud and conspiracy.
Brown was also convicted of not filing a 2014 income tax return, and Bell’s motion doesn’t request any change on that count.
Katrina Brown was convicted of all 37 charges against her.
Bell also asked the judge to order a new trial if she wouldn’t acquit his client, saying that was another option she had if the weight of evidence didn’t support a conviction.
Howard didn’t immediately act on the motion. Reggie Brown and Katrina Brown are scheduled to be sentenced in January.
Steve Patterson: (904) 359-4263