WHERE WE STAND - The Government’s Request for Supplemental Briefing Further Demonstrates MRT’s Conviction on Shaky Ground

In yet another sign of the strength of Mark Ridley-Thomas’s appeal, government prosecutors are seeking permission from the Ninth Circuit “to file supplemental briefing regarding Snyder.”  In other words, the USAO wants another bite at the apple.

The Snyder decision is the Supreme Court ruling handed down earlier this month that exposes attempts to expand prosecutorial power and clarified ambiguity in the federal bribery statutes that exempt “gratuities”— a clarification that undermines MRT’s conviction. Snyder’s holding “bears on [Dr. Ridley-Thomas’s] challenge to his conviction for violating § 666.”

 In its April Answering Brief, the government plainly stated “Defendant’s assertion that the court was required to instruct the jury that a gratuity is not a bribe rests on the faulty premise that federal program bribery requires a quid pro quo and does not cover gratuities.  That premise is incorrect.” 

 A quid pro quo is at the heart of the government’s “monetization” theory which held that MRT exchanged official acts for things of value, like tuition, graduate school admission and a paid professorship for his son, Sebastian. MRT was acquitted on these honest services fraud charges, leaving only USC’s transfer of a $100k sponsorship using funds that originated from MRT himself. Neither MRT nor Sebastian received any personal enrichment or financial benefit.  Moreover, according to MRT’s appeal, the government’s “monetization” theory “was legally invalid as to § 666 and the jury instructions on § 666 erroneously omitted a quid pro quo element.” That is, because Dr. Ridley-Thomas had agreed to support the Telehealth amendment months before there was even any discussion of the $100K sponsorship, there was no quid pro quo and the government’s § 666 conviction cannot stand after Snyder. As we wrote in an earlier WHERE WE STAND, MRT was convicted of bribing himself. How absurd is that?  

 “The question this Court must resolve on appeal is whether those errors were harmless.”  According to MRT’s appellate team, the government’s July 10 filing “conceded, as it must, that Snyder held” that the relevant bribery statute he was charged with violating, § 666 “does not make it a crime for local officials to accept gratuities.” 

The appellate team reminded the Ninth Circuit that “the government took the very position that Snyder rejected—namely, that § 666 extends to gratuities and does not require proof of a quid pro quo.”  (GAB-92 ().)  

“Snyder established that the government, not Dr. Ridley-Thomas, is incorrect: §666 covers only bribery.”

Further briefing on Snyder is not required according to his appellate counsel. The government’s “monetization” theory was legally invalid on all counts because Snyder clarified that § 666, like 18 U.S.C. § 1346 (the honest services fraud statute), requires a quid pro quo and does not extend to the acceptance of gratuities and because, as the government concedes, “§ 666 does not make it a crime for local officials to accept gratuities.” Apparently, the USAO is finding it difficult to accept SCOTUS’s ruling which underscores their abuse of prosecutorial discretion.

“The question this Court must resolve on appeal is whether those errors were harmless.”

At the time of publication the Ninth Circuit had not ruled on the government’s motion. However, the request for additional briefing signals yet another concession that the conviction is on shaky ground.