Sam Sutter as Boss Hogg
Defense attorney Kevin Reddington used a few pop culture references during the course of the trial. He was reprimanded by Judge Douglas Woodlock for referencing the mob movie, Goodfellas, while cross examining alleged co-conspirator Tony Costa. And when questioning the tax preparer from Liberty Tax Services, he suggested they were the ones with the Liberty, Liberty, Lib-erty jingle (they aren t that s Liberty Mutual insurance).
Still, the image of former District Attorney Sam Sutter, who served an abbreviated term as Fall River mayor after the recall of Will Flanagan, as Boss Hogg, the gluttonous character from the Dukes of Hazzard TV show, was particularly striking.
FALL RIVER Cliff Ponte is a busy guy.
He runs a local real estate group, is president of the Fall River City Council and is about to open a sandwich and coffee shop in the city.
But during the past week and a half Ponte has managed, via Zoom, to tune into portions of the federal corruption trial in Boston of former Fall River mayor Jasiel F. Correia II.
“I do it in between phone calls and meetings,” he said.
“I multitask,” Ponte said. “I turn the volume up and down to listen.”
The District of Massachusetts U.S. Attorney’s Office has charged Correia, who at age 23 in 2015 was voted in as the youngest mayor in city history, with 24 counts that include extortion, wire fraud and filing false tax returns.
FALL RIVER In the first week of the Jasiel Correia trial, jurors heard from 20 witnesses, so far focused solely on the charges related to his former app company SnoOwl.
Starting Monday, the government will begin presenting its case against Correia on the government corruption charges that’s the part related to his alleged shakedown of marijuana vendors looking to do business in Fall River.
But in the testimony so far much of it very technical and related to accounting methods and financial records there have been a number of head-scratching moments for those of us watching from home (and there are many of us each day this week, anywhere from 250 to 300 people were logged in to view the trial remotely).
IRS: Former Fall River mayor spent investor funds on Mercedes, personal trainer, and more
By Shelley Murphy Globe Staff,Updated April 30, 2021, 8:26 p.m.
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Former Fall River mayor Jasiel F. Correia II arrived at the courthouse last week.Craig F. Walker/Globe Staff
In 2013, former Fall River mayor Jasiel F. Correia II and two partners opened a bank account for their new startup, SnoOwl, and deposited a $50,000 check from a Fall River orthodontist, the first investor in the smartphone app company, court records show.
A month later, Correia bought a 2011 Mercedes-Benz after withdrawing $10,000 in cash from SnoOwlâs account at Citizens Bank and depositing it into his personal account, IRS Special Agent Sandra Lemanski told jurors Friday during the fifth day of testimony in Correiaâs federal corruption trial in Boston.