Convicted ex-Augusta commissioner Sammie Sias won’t get a new trial, a U.S. District judge has ruled.
In an order filed Wednesday, Chief Judge J. Randal Hall denied Sias’ motions claiming evidence was insufficient to convict and that his lawyers were ineffective.
The order moves the twice-elected Augusta commissioner closer to prison time for charges he obstructed justice and lied to an FBI agent, which carry a combined term of up to 20 years. There is no parole in the federal system. His sentencing is scheduled for June 20.
Ten months ago, a jury found Sias, 69, guilty of deleting files from a laptop immediately after agents served him a subpoena for records of sales tax spending at Jamestown Community Center, then telling the FBI he surrendered all relevant records.
Sias, a retired Army sergeant major, was suspended from office in 2021 and his commission salary stopped at the time of his conviction. But he’s yet to spend any time in custody.
Hall reviewed the evidence presented at trial – FBI Special Agent Charles McKee’s testimony that the laptop contained a large number of deleted files that could not be recovered without forensic tools – and determined it was sufficient to convict.
Hall also decided Sias’ claim he provided a thumb drive to his lawyer – which Sias said contained exonerating evidence – after multiple subpoenas and a raid of his home was not evidence of ineffective counsel, and showed only “the willfulness of defendant’s action” to deceive investigators.
The trial revealed the local government’s extreme lack of oversight of sales tax allocations and included testimony from Augusta Parks and Recreation Director Maurice McDowell that receipts were “not required” for reported purchases.
Sias used the funds in part to outfit a banquet-style kitchen at the center, which ex-mistress Willa Hilton, who turned him in, said he used as his personal clubhouse. During elections, it served as his campaign headquarters as well as a polling place.
Once a commission darling, Sias won Augusta Commission approval to rename the driveway into Jamestown as Sammie Sias Lane. When the commission voted last month to remove the moniker, Commissioner Bobby Williams said Sias had been the best policy-maker the city had.
As a neighborhood activist, Sias was lauded for reducing blight in Sandridge, a modest, largely military community just outside Gate 5. But as a commissioner, he came under fire for his abrasive style. Parents of children who attended camp at Jamestown accused him of child abuse. The Department of Children and Family Services did not publicly substantiate the claims.
Prosecutors never charged Sias with misusing public funds, only with obstructing an investigation of them. But Hall dismissed Sias’ argument that information about the underlying investigation was prejudicial to the jury.
“Evidence about SPLOST funds was inextricably intertwined with the facts of the case, due to the underlying federal investigation,” Hall said.
