A federal judge warned that former U.S. Rep. Mel Reynolds could be charged with intimidating a witness after prosecutors Monday accused him of mouthing an obscenity at a onetime top aide as he testified for the government last week at Reynolds’ federal fraud trial.
The witness, Stephen Perencevich, who was Reynolds’ legislative director for a few months in 1995, told prosecutors that Reynolds mouthed the words, “You son of a bitch,” as he sat on the witness stand Thursday while lawyers and the judge conferred.
Perencevich testified last week that he saw Reynolds shred four or five campaign checks in the congressman’s Washington office in February 1995 and quoted Reynolds as saying that the government “had no need to see these.” The checks had been subpoenaed by investigators in the federal probe, he said.
Prosecutors didn’t alert the presiding judge to the incident until Monday afternoon, moments after Reynolds admitted he let out an audible, “Oh, geez,” in reaction to the testimony of a bank official on the stand.
“I didn’t mean to have it audible,” a chagrined Reynolds told the judge after jurors were excused from the courtroom.
“That is a commentary on the evidence,” said U.S. District Judge Charles Norgle Sr., who is presiding over the case. “You are not to do it again.”
Assistant U.S. Atty. Jerome Krulewitch then informed the judge of Reynolds’ alleged comment Thursday to Perencevich.
“That is a serious allegation,” Norgle said. “If it is true, it could be perceived as intimidation to the witness” and could result in an additional criminal charge against Reynolds or a contempt citation, the judge said.
With Reynolds looking on incredulously, Norgle ordered prosecutors to return Perencevich to court from his Maryland home.
As testimony in Reynolds’ trial on bank and campaign fraud charges started its second week, an FBI handwriting expert said Reynolds’ wife, Marisol, forged the signature on a 1994 document purporting that she was a consultant to Reynolds’ campaign and made $3,000 a month in pay.
The document was submitted to several banks by the couple as they tried to line up a mortgage to buy a $310,000 house in Dolton.
The expert, FBI Special Agent Richard Williams, testified that his analysis of Marisol Reynolds’ handwriting indicated she had signed “Ella Stanton” to the letter.
Reynolds’ wife was indicted with him, but she pleaded guilty and may testify against her estranged husband.
Stanton was identified in the letter as the campaign’s executive campaign manager.
But Stanton testified Monday that she was a campaign volunteer who worked out of Reynolds’ Homewood office during the 1994 campaign, answering the telephone and handling other chores.
She denied signing that document as well as another campaign letter claiming that Reynolds’ debts at two banks were the responsibility of the campaign.
Several bank officials have said the debts owed to Ashland State and Amalgamated Banks were, in fact, Reynolds’ and not the campaign’s.
Williams said he wasn’t sure if Stanton’s signature on the letter concerning the bank debt was Marisol Reynolds’, too, because of possible erasure marks.
In other testimony, a former loan officer for the Beverly Bank said Reynolds was “quite upset” after she told him the bank would not lend him the money to buy the Dolton home.
Ashmon-Logan testified that Reynolds first indicated he had $30,000 for a down payment in the Riverdale Bank. But when she sought documentation, he indicated he actually would be wiring the funds from a Washington bank.
When she demanded proof of that, Reynolds announced that his wife’s father was going to put up the money for the down payment.
“The tune has changed,” Ashmon-Logan wrote in a bank memo at the time.
