Disputes about the aborted sale of JEA are returning to Jacksonville’s federal courthouse as lawyers for former utility CEO Aaron Zahn and the U.S. Justice Department offer oral arguments June 23 over Zahn’s appeal of his conviction on conspiracy and wire fraud charges.
U.S. District Judge Brian Davis sentenced Zahn to four years in prison in 2024, saying the executive had baked a “deceitful pie” at JEA through manipulative actions that jurors decided showed his guilt.
The judge ruled two years ago that the “focus of Zahn’s scheme was to secure tens of millions of dollars in bonus payouts for himself and those that were complicit with his deception” by fraudulently cashing in on an employee performance fund.
But Zahn’s lawyers have countered that prosecutors built a slipshod case riddled with legal holes, saying the actions criticized as fraud were never the felonies that prosecutors claimed.
“This case does not involve a federal crime. It involves the government criminalizing local politics after watching deliberations over private-sector ideas about asset sales and benefit plans at a public utility explode ‘in the newspaper’,” defense team lead Samuel Salario Jr. had argued in a November brief that set the stage for oral arguments.
A three-judge panel from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit in Atlanta has allotted each side 15 minutes to hit key points in their arguments and answer the panel’s inquiries.
There’s no timeline for the judge’s to decide whether Zahn’s appeal has merit.
Now at a prison camp in Edgefield, S.C., 48-year-old Zahn is scheduled for release in January, according to the federal Bureau of Prisons.
A separate jury at the same trial found former JEA Chief Financial Officer Ryan Wannemacher innocent.
Although JEA is commonly described as a city-owned power and water utility, Zahn’s team has argued that “legally, the City does not own JEA,” saying the utility was created by the state Florida Legislature and prosecutors never showed it belonged to the city, meaning the city couldn’t have been an intended victim.
“A document establishing ownership was essential for the jury to find the City ‘owned’ JEA,” Salario had argued in November. “Otherwise, the facts showed the City did not own JEA in any way property traditionally understands it. That leads the government to mischaracterize evidence and cut and paste out of context.”
This article originally appeared on Florida Times-Union: Lawyers revisit JEA ex-CEO Aaron Zahn’s guilt in Jacksonville appeal
Reporting by Steve Patterson, Jacksonville Florida Times-Union / Florida Times-Union
USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect
By Steve Patterson, Jacksonville Florida Times-Union | USA TODAY Network
