After successfully lobbying Augusta leaders to shell out $150,000 in taxpayers’ funds for improvement at his local community center, most of the money ended up passing through Sammie Sias’ personal bank account, a prosecutor told the jury in her opening statement Tuesday, July 26.
Although at its core the government’s case centers on those tax dollars, Sias is accused of the federal crimes of destroying documents material to a federal investigation and lying to a federal agent.
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Sias has pleaded not guilty to the federal charges lodged against him in a 2021 indictment. His trial continues today.
Tuesday, Assistant U.S. Attorney Patricia Rhodes outlined the government’s case for the jury, beginning in March 2014 when a formal agreement provided $150,000 in Special Purpose Local Option Sales Tax funds for improving the Jamestown Community Center.
Sias was president of the Sandridge Community Association that operated the Jamestown Community Center, which is owned by the city, for over a decade.
Sias held the purse strings for the community center, he wrote checks on the community center’s bank accounts, he has a personal office at the center, and he has the keys to the public building, Rhodes said.
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Between 2014 and 2016, all of the $150,000 in SPLOST money was spent. When the FBI began investigating a complaint that Sias had mishandled that money, agents discovered $137,000 passed through Sias’ personal bank account and that Sias wrote checks for cash totally $5,300.
But federal agents couldn’t properly trace all of the SPLOST funds because within two hours of receiving a subpoena for all of the Jamestown Community Center’s records accounting for the $150,000 in SPLOST funds, Sias had deleted thousands of documents on his personal computer, Rhodes told the jury Tuesday.
Agents did find an invoice described as $2,000 for a washer and dryer, but bank records put the cost of the washer and dryer for the community center at $600, Rhodes said. Another improvement project, speed bumps at the community center, was reported as costing $5,000, but the vendor’s receipt was for less than $3,000.
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The FBI learned Sias had deleted the Jamestown related documents because of a forensic examination of Sias’s computer. Although the files were deleted, special software revealed the files with such titles as “SPLOST 6” and “Jamestown” and “Sandridge” were deleted.
The indictment accuses Sias of destroying evidence on Aug. 6, 2019 and lying about it to FBI Special Agent Charles McKee on Aug. 8, 2019.
Sias was serving as District 4 commissioner until the governor suspended him after his July 2021 indictment.
Tuesday his defense team chose to defer making an opening statement to the jury.
Sandy Hodson is a staff reporter covering courts for The Augusta Press. Reach her at sandy@theaugustapress.com.
