NEW ORLEANS, La. - A U.S. District Court judge held a hearing about account records from dating website Sugardaddie.com behind closed doors Tuesday in the case against former St Tammany Parish District Attorney Walter Reed and his son Steven Reed.
Over the objections of a media attorney who cited the public's 1st Amendment right to know, Judge Eldon Fallon cleared the courtroom for the hearing on a sealed motion to include records from the dating website as evidence in the trial.
"I don't place matters under seal willy nilly," Fallon said in court while publicly stating his reasons for sealing the hearing.
The judge said potential jurors for the trial, scheduled for April 18, will be coming to fill out questionnaires in the next few days, and he didn't want to keep the court from selecting an impartial jury and, in turn, from giving the Reeds a fair trial.
Fallon sealed a government motion to introduce Sugardaddie.com account records as business records for the username Mark2200 last week after questions from a WWL-TV reporter about the motion.
Reed and his son, Steven Reed, were indicted by a Federal Grand Jury on 19 counts for allegedly using campaign funds for both personal use and to bolster Walter’s private, personal injury law practice, filing false tax returns and mail fraud related to his work at St. Tammany Parish Hospital.
As reported in an Eyewitness Investigation, one of the counts against Walter Reed involved a Thanksgiving dinner in 2011 that he hosted at Dakota restaurant in Covington.
Reed’s campaign finance report from that year, filed with the Louisiana Board of Ethics, includes an expenditure of $1,885.36 at Dakota listed as a campaign function, on November 24, 2011, Thanksgiving Day.
In the indictment, prosecutors allege Reed not only took at least ten family members and friends to dinner that night, but he put an extra $500 dollars on the tab and got a gift card from Dakota for future dinners.
In trying to prove their sweeping case, prosecutors filed a motion last week to trying to use records from dating website Sugardaddie.com.
The web site says it features all kinds of dating including so-called “sugar daddy” dating and describes it this way: "It implies slightly older gentlemen of wealth, willing to enter in to a mutually beneficial relationship with younger attractive ladies for the purpose of showing them a more affluent lifestyle."
According to the government’s motion, Reed refused to stipulate the authenticity of records the feds received from sugardaddie.com, suggesting he may contest whether the documents are genuine.
See the full Eyewitness Investigation here: http://www.wwltv.com/news/local/investigations/prosecutors-look-to-dating-website-to-bolster-case-against-fmr-da-walter-reed-1/110862866
Tuesday, attorneys also argued over whether they can call a $25,000 payment Reed made to the Faith Tabernacle Church a "kickback" or a "referral fee" during the trial. The judge asked the lawyers to call it a $25,000 payment until their closing arguments.
"During closing arguments, you do what you've got to do," Judge Fallon said.
Walter Reed's attorney, Rick Simmons, also took issue with prosecutors' intent to include personal medical reimbursements Reed received from a the DA's discretionary fund as unreported income for the tax counts against Reed.
Simmons said he only found out about prosecutors' attempt to try and use the reimbursements as unreported income a few weeks ago, and that Simmons didn't have time to prepare a defense for it. Simmons said he would show that the discretionary fund, made up of court fines and forfeitures from criminal defendants, was not public money.
Reed used the funds to reimburse himself for medical costs, including prescription drug payments, that weren't covered by insurance. He extended the same benefit to a handful of his hand-picked employees, including his administrative assistant.
"It was an unapproved plan that Mr. Reed created for himself and his close friends and he got reimbursed for it," Assistant US Attorney Jordan Ginsburg continued in court, "That's something we would all love to have and he didn't report it."
The judge took all the pre-trial motions under advisement, with rulings on them expected in advance of trial.