A.G. Gancarski
House District 13 Rep. Reggie Fullwood, facing federal charges for 10 counts of wire fraud and four counts of failure to file federal tax returns, received the continuance he requested last week.
The court has deemed the time from the June to August trial calendar as “excludable time,” a move justified by “the ends of justice served by the granting of such continuance [outweighing] the best interests of the public and the defendant in a speedy trial.”
Fullwood’s motion for a bill of particulars from the prosecution hints at the Jacksonville Democrat’s defense. Fullwood believes that the infractions, if true, constitute “misdemeanor violations of Florida’s Election Laws,” and not “wire fraud.”
The document asserts the charges have been trumped up to a federal level because the electronic transfers from Fullwood’s campaign account to his personal account in the same bank involved a server for the bank that was based in New Jersey.
Fullwood also takes issue with the allegation that his money transfers were part of a “scheme to defraud,” as the indictment alleges.
“The Defendant has been made to understand the ‘another’ at issue is not the various contributors whose contributions may have been converted to Fullwood’s personal use. Thus, it is unclear from whom or what the funds were ’embezzled’,” the motion continues.
As Fullwood told FloridaPolitics.com, his plan is to prove that the “indictment is a misrepresentation of what really happened.”
The next date of note for this trial: a status conference July 18 at 3 p.m. at the United States Courthouse in Jacksonville.
