Augusta’s convicted ex-commissioner may be one step closer to receiving a prison sentence.
Thursday, Assistant U.S. Attorneys Patricia Rhodes and Tara Lyons filed their response to Sammie Sias’ motion for a new trial, ahead of a Monday deadline.
Sias has been free on bond pending his appeal since his July 29, 2022 conviction in U.S. Southern District Court for destroying evidence and obstructing justice during an FBI probe of sales-tax spending at Jamestown Community Center.
With a new court-appointed attorney, Sias filed a motion for a new trial March 9. It asserted the criminal defense attorneys he’d paid at least $50,000 had been ineffective, and that he had given another lawyer a thumb drive that would have cleared him.
His appeal fell short, prosecutors wrote, because Sias had already lied and destroyed evidence at the time he presented the drive.
After a former lover informed Augusta authorities Sias had misappropriated sales tax funds and otherwise misused city resources at Jamestown, the FBI launched an investigation.
It began “sometime in 2019” and in July 2019, agents served Jacqueline Fason, whom Sias appointed to replace him as president of the Sandridge Community Association, with a subpoena for association records, the prosectors’ response said. The association had been the pass-through for hundreds of thousands of sales-tax dollars intended for renovations at Jamestown.
Then at 5:50 p.m. Aug. 5, 2019, FBI Special Agent Charles McKee served Sias with a subpoena for association bank records, as he testified at trial.
“Also on Aug. 5, 2019, beginning at 8:03 p.m., defendant began deleting files from the computer, which was seized from his house three days later,” when FBI and Georgia Bureau of Investigation agents executed a search warrant at his home.
The next day, McKee testified he went to Sias’ house and asked if he had turned over everything sought in the subpoena. Sias said he had, making no mention of deleting files.
McKee served Sias with another subpoena Sept. 10 for specific records, and Sias would provide in response, two thumb drives that did not contain the requested documents.
In his motion, Sias claimed he gave attorney Troy Clark another thumb drive May 6, 2020, responsive to the last subpoena that might have cleared his name. Sias faulted Clark for not turning the drive over to the FBI.
But it was too late.
“All the criminal conduct in this case pre-dates the Sept. 9, 2019 subpoena,” prosecutors wrote. “Even if the thumb drive alleged in defendant’s motion contained all of the deleted files, this does not change the fact that the defendant deleted those files on Aug. 5, 2019, at 8:03 p.m.”
“Providing a thumb drive in May 2020 to his lawyer does not negate the false statement made in August 2019. If anything, it corroborates he provided false information to the FBI agent,” they said.
In addition, Sias’ motion for a new trial based on ineffective counsel was improperly raised, the response said. Rather than in an appeal, he should have raised the issue at the district level, according to federal court procedures, they said.
Sias was suspended from office August 30, 2021, and his term officially ended in December. On May 2, the Augusta Commission voted to remove his name from a city street, Sammie Sias Lane.
