A federal appeals court has rejected the appeal filed by former Augusta Commissioner Sammie Sias.
In an opinion filed Friday, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Southern District rejected Sias’ arguments that the district court committed errors by denying his motions for an acquittal or for a new trial.
Sias, 69, is serving a 30-month sentence at Federal Correctional Institute Williamsburg in South Carolina for destroying records and lying to the FBI. A jury found him guilty in 2022 after a weeklong trial. He was sentenced last August.
On appeal, Sias argued that the destroyed computer files could potentially be restored using forensic tools.
The court held that his actions satisfied the element of concealment because there was no likelihood the files would be found during a cursory examination.
FBI Agent Charles McKee found on Sias’ laptop a folder altered only 15 minutes after Sias was served with a subpoena for records related to sales tax spending, the opinion stated.
Agent Charles McStotts would discover 7,400 files had been deleted, leaving remnants of some 237 files with names seemingly related to the spending.
Sias also argued he didn’t lie to McKee about turning over all records related to the spending because some were potentially recoverable, but the appeals court disagreed with that as well.
Lastly, Sias argued his lawyer was ineffective for not turning over to the FBI a thumb drive of files Sias claimed would exonerate him.
But Sias never developed a factual basis for the claim, either at trial or in the appeal, the court ruled, declining to address it.
