Councilman alleges a fed smear campaign
Federal prosecutors CINCINNATI — cherry-picked misleading quotes and shared false information in the November news conference where they announced bribery and extortion charges against suspended City Councilman P.G. Sittenfeld, his attorneys wrote in a motion filed Wednesday morning.
The result, Sittenfeld’s defense alleges, is a poisoned jury pool and misinformation circulating as far as the New York Times.
Sittenfeld, a Democrat, is accused of accepting eight checks in 2018 and 2019 while promising to “deliver the votes” in regard to a Downtown development project. Officials said Sittenfeld “corruptly solicited” the payments — worth a total of $40,000 — and received them in a PAC (a political action fund) he controlled.
At the time the charges were announced, prosecutors described Sittenfeld’s control of the PAC as secret. Media outlets including the New York Times repeated that characterization, but Sittenfeld’s defense argues his ownership has always been public, lawful and disclosed to the Federal Election
Commission.
The defense’s Wednesday motion requests that Sittenfeld and his defense team be given greater access to the prosecution’s secret recordings of his conversations with undercover FBI agents and Bengal-turned-developer Chinedum Ndukwe.
Partial quotes from those recordings, which include Sittenfeld promising he can secure votes for the development project and instructing agents on how to give to his PAC, were heavily featured in the federal indictment and news conference announcing the charges against him.
“Numerous quotes of Mr. Sittenfeld in the indictment were selectively chosen and unfairly taken out of context to fit the government’s chosen narrative,” the motion alleges. “Some of the quotes are incomplete and quoted only in part. In some instances, the selected quotes cut off Mr. Sittenfeld mid-sentence, effectively removing the exculpatory context and meaning of his statement.”
The motion also alleges Sittenfeld’s defense has been unfairly prevented from accessing these recordings.
Sittenfeld’s defense wants the current protection order amended.