U.S. v. Fraser Verrusio: "Co-lead Counsel for Government" Reassigned

On July 16, 2010, the Justice Department filed an unopposed routine motion to extend a deadline in U.S. v. Fraser Verrusio. On that day, the government provided this reason for its extension request:

Co-lead counsel for the Government on this case has been re-assigned other matters and another attorney recently assigned to replace him. New counsel will requires [sic] a reasonable but brief period of time to familiarize himself with the case and effectively partner with the undersigned.

This seems like a legitimate reason to grant a seven day extension, and the defense did not object. U.S. Richard W. Roberts granted this extension, and the government must now file its opposition to Verrusio's Motion to Dismiss by July 29, 2010.

The ACR Blog isn't generally interested in the day-by-day scheduling matters of the Court. We're much more interested in the revelation that the "Co-lead counsel for the Government" has been re-assigned. DoJ prosecutor Peter C. Sprung's name appears at the bottom of the document, along with Justin V. Shur. The ACR Blog notices the absence of a name that previously appeared on documents in U.S. v. Fraser Verrusio: M. Kendall Day.

Has Mr. Day been removed from this case? Has Mr. Day been reassigned from any other public corruption case(s) in which he has been involved? The ACR Blog will continue to monitor the situation and report to our loyal readers whatever we learn...

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Skilling and Verrusio

We looked at the documents filed in U.S. v. Verrusio to see if we could figure out when Mr. Day was most recently identified as an attorney in this case. (We believe that Mr. Day was most recently named on this memorandum dated June 24, 2010. Recall that on June 14, 2010, Mr. Day advised U.S. District Judge Ellen S. Huvelle that he would be joining the Kevin Ring prosecution team. Mr. Day's name has not appeared on any filings in Ring since that date.)

During the course of that search, we came across this routine extension request. The defense wanted to extend a deadline by six days:

Mr. Verrusio requests this relief, in part, to allow Mr. Verrusio additional time to consider the impact that the Supreme Court’s recent decision in Skilling v. United States, No. 08-1394, will have on this case.

How would Skilling have any effect on Verrusio? The most notable impact of Skilling affects Honest Services Fraud (HSF) cases. Mr. Verrusio is not charged with HSF.

Changes to the HSF law may impact Verrusio indirectly since a couple of likely witnesses against Mr. Verrusio pleaded guilty to a single charge of HSF (Todd Boulanger and Jim Hirni). But there's no way a six day delay in a deadline that has already expired could resolve that issue.

The ACR Blog has discovered another bizarre assertion made by Mr. Verrusio's defense team. We promise to get to that this week.