JACKSONVILLE, Fla. — Pre-trial hearings continued in the case against two former JEA executives Wednesday.
Aaron Zahn, the former CEO of JEA and Ryan Wannemacher, the former CFO of JEA, are accused of devising a plan that would result in hundreds of millions of dollars in payouts from the proposed sale of JEA.
The government called nine witnesses during Wednesday's pre-trial hearing, most of the witnesses were from out of state and were called to guarantee that their testimony would fit with their schedules.
One key piece of testimony came from a lawyer named Steven Amder, who was actually roommates with Aaron Zahn at Yale. Amder works at a law firm that was going to be involved in the sale of JEA and said he had a phone call with Zahn, who told him former Jacksonville mayor Lenny Curry supported Zahn receiving a bonus of up to $40 million if JEA was sold. Amder said Zahn told him the mayor was also supportive of other JEA executives receiving bonuses of up to $10 million.
First Coast News reached out to Curry for a comment on that testimony. He responded with, "That did not happen."
The first witness who was called Wednesday was was Elizabeth Columbo, who is a lawyer for the law firm Nixon Peabody in New York City. She said that she was asked by Zahn and Wannemacher to draft a bonus plan for JEA amployees in 2019. However she said she was not comfortable doing so based on conflicts like legal hurdles and the plan being implemented by the people who would benefit, those people specifically being Zahn and Wannemacher.
Another one of the witnesses was former JEA board member Reverend Fred Newbill, who said that the board was presented with a bonus plan for executives. Newbill said that the board was originally presented with a bonus plan that called for $8 million but the final bonus plan was $340 million. Newbill said he never would have approved that bonus scenario if he knew the eventual numbers when it was first submitted.
The government said that they had 4 extra out of town witnesses to call before the trial begins in February, but they would bring up their testimony during jury selection.