The jury condemns the former president of the House of Representatives and his assistant in the legislative mail scheme

The former Republican representative Glen Casada was convicted of the 19 positions, while his then chief of personnel, Cade Cothren, was declared guilty of 17 of 19 positions in a public corruption trial that began in the late April.

The current president of the House of Representatives, Cameron Sexton, helped the authorities in the case against his predecessor since he took the job in 2019, he said. Sexton was among the legislators and employees who testified to the Grand Jury.

But Sexton was remarkably absent as a witness after prosecutors said they planned to testify. The defense sought to attract attention to a political rivalry between Casada and Sexton. Finally, the defense refused to call any witness. Neither married nor Cothren testified. And defense attempts to discuss the jurors if the judge closed Sexton a cable.

Casada resigned as a speaker of the House of Representatives in August 2019 after a vote without confidence of the Republicans of the House of Representatives due to the spinning scandals, including the revelations that exchanged sexually explicit text messages on women years ago with Cothren. Not long before that, Cothren also left his position on those racist texts and texts, along with an admission that he used cocaine inside a legislative office building when he had a previous job.

The criminal charges focus on an era after the political political fall, while Casada was still a legislator. The charges claim that Cothren launched Phoenix Solutions with the knowledge and support of Smith and Married. The trio said that the company was directed by a “Matthew Phoenix”, such as Phoenix Solutions and Companies controlled by Casada and then Rep. Robin Smith received approximately $ 52,000 in 2020 from the State in payments associated with the mail program funded by taxpayers for legislators. A “Matthew Phoenix” firm ended in an IRS tax document.

Married and Cothren were accused in August 2022 after Smith resigned and declared himself guilty of a position in the Phoenix solutions scheme. Smith testified prosecutors for several days.

Via News

The defense lawyers indicated that the State obtained the emails for which it paid. They tried to paint Smith as unreliable and promoted by the hopes of an indulgent sentence under his plea agreement.

Smith testified that the objective was to keep the current president of the House of Representatives, the director of the Legislative Administration and the public without realizing who was behind Phoenix Solutions due to the “radioactive” scandal that pushed Casada and Cothren out of power. The emails financed by taxpayers for the Republicans of the House of Representatives were a way to expand later to campaign work, he said.

Smith told other legislators that Phoenix Solutions was led by professionals with an outstanding political consulting firm who was tired of doing a work related to Washington. Matthew Phoenix’s associate, Candice, was played by the then married girlfriend, prosecutors said.

In a recorded call play for the jury, a republican partner, the representative Ron Gant, pretended interest in becoming a client and stimulated Smith to repeat lies about Phoenix Solutions. Smith said he didn’t know he was being recorded.

In January 2021, FBI agents registered the houses, legislative offices or both, married, Cothren, Smith and other statehouse figures. Smith left a voice email with his lawyer when they arrived. But by the time the lawyer called again to tell him not to speak, he had already lied about the scheme to the agents, Smith testified.

The fate of the trial became unstable when the prosecutors did not reduce a part of the FBI interview with Casada that was then played for the jury. But the judge failed against a defense motion for a null trial, saying that there was another evidence that he echoed the comments of married not erroneously written: that Sexton would have rejected the use of Phoenix solutions if he knew that Cothren was involved.