Jenifer O'Neal, Calvert White, and Ray Martinez appeared in court on Friday, January 10, 2025, for their initial and arraignment hearings. Photo Credit: V.I. CONSORTIUM
As anticipated by many, the trial date for the three former government officials accused of fraud and bribery, initially set for next month, has been rescheduled. Presiding judge Mark Kearney made the order to begin the trial of Jenifer O'Neal and Ray Martinez on March 17, while the trial for Calvert White and Benjamin Hendricks is set for the following day. Judge Kearney also set various deadlines and made parties aware of the policies and procedures to be followed in his courtroom.
Although prosecutors have already declared their intention to request that the court designate the cases as complex, Judge Kearney has granted until January 16 to make their formal motions to that effect. The parties must also agree on how to organize pretrial disclosures by the end of January. After that date, additional discovery material that comes to light or becomes available must be turned over to the defense within five days.
A series of deadlines for expert witness reports, pre-trial motions related to the submission/suppression of evidence, and jury examination questions are also established, culminating with the final pre-trial conference, scheduled for March 13.
Even this new trial date is likely to slip further, as the legal experts the Consortium consulted concurred. The volume and complexity of discovery material to be handed over in the two cases would require considerable resources to dissect, analyze, and inform any defense strategies that attorneys for the accused may be assembling.
“To call discovery voluminous is a grotesque understatement,” a government lawyer remarked last Friday as prosecutors moved to have the cases designated as complex. Mr. Martinez’s case reportedly includes over 6 million pages of evidence and several terabytes of data, while Ms. O’Neal’s case involves approximately 2.5 million pages. Similarly, the cases of Mr. White and Mr. Hendricks each encompass millions of pages and terabytes of material, underscoring the massive scope of discovery.
These intertwined cases center on convicted felon David Whitaker, who admitted to bribing public officials to secure lucrative contracts for his company. Prosecutors are pursuing the matters through two separate indictments: one involving Mr. Martinez and Ms. O’Neal as co-defendants, and the other naming Mr. White and Mr. Hendricks.
