A federal judge agreed to delay Lake Station Mayor Keith Soderquist’s criminal trial until August but warned he wouldn’t do so again.
According to an order filed Monday in the U.S. District Court in Hammond, Soderquist’s criminal trial will now start Aug. 31, instead of April 27.
The trial has already been pushed back twice, and U.S. Magistrate John Martin said in his order that he would not grant any more requests for a delay.
Soderquist’s attorney, Scott King, filed a motion last week asking for the day, citing not only his own busy court schedule but the mayor’s schedule with the May primary coming up. Soderquist, who is running for re-election, faces competition from three challengers.
Soderquist and his wife, Deborah Soderquist, are charged in two separate criminal cases. The first indictment charges them with using money from his campaign election fund and money meant for the city’s food pantry to pay for gambling trips.
The second case also charges Deborah Soderquist’s daughter, Miranda Brakley, with stealing from the city when she worked there as a court clerk and then lying in her bankruptcy filing. The Soderquists are charged with acting as accessories after the fact and money structuring, which involves trying to hide banking activity of more than $10,000 from the federal government by splitting the money up into smaller deposits.
