NASHVILLE, Tenn. (WTVF) — Judge Eli Richardson has denied a motion for a mistrial in the federal corruption case against former House Speaker Glen Casada and his one-time aide Cade Cothren.
RELATED: Jury sent home, attorneys request a mistrial in Casada, Cothren federal corruption trial
Casada and Cothren are on trial for setting up a company, Phoenix Solutions, and using fake names to get lawmakers to use the company for legislative mail work.
Last Friday, the prosecution inadvertently played the wrong version of an FBI interview with Casada in which he talks about current Tennessee House Speaker Cameron Sexton not being a fan of Cothren and how that may have impacted their business.
In the interview, he claims if Sexton had known Cothren was actually behind Phoenix Solutions, he wouldn't have approved the state contract.
All of the attorneys had agreed not to play that for the jury before the trial and prosecutors told the judge it was an accident.
Cynthia Sherwood, an attorney for Cade Cothren, formally requested a mistrial in the case Tuesday, claiming the statement from Casada could be considered prejudicial against her client and that it violated the Bruton federal ruling, that states a co-defendant can't say anything incriminating about their fellow co-defendant.
On Wednesday, the judge denied the motion.
Judge Richardson took nearly an hour to explain his decision.
"I don't find the statement to be powerfully incriminating," he said.
In fact, Richardson said it was entirely possible that the jury didn't even notice. Initially, the attorneys didn't notice the error either. It wasn't until Tuesday that the defense even realized the wrong clip was played for the jury.
Later, Richardson added "Problematic as it was, it wasn't intentional."
When the jury was brought back in, Judge Richardson explained about the wrong clip being played and instructed them to disregard the entire interview. Instead, the right version of the interview will be supplied to them in the jury room for them to review as needed.
Moving on
With the trial continuing, the jury heard from one of the agents present back in January 2021 when the FBI raided Glen Casada's condo.
Ed Yarbrough, Casada's attorney, tried to allege the FBI may have been investigating Casada for a different reason. He asked Deputy Austin Barger, working as a task force agent for the FBI, if they were actually raiding Casada's condo to learn more information about the controversial razor-thin 2019 voucher vote.
That vote — to establish a school voucher program exclusively in Davidson and Shelby Counties — passed by just one vote after the board was left open for an extended amount of time. There have been allegations that jobs and political favors were promised to those who were willing to change their vote.
Deputy Barger claimed they were primarily there at Casada's condo to learn more about Phoenix Solutions.
'The Government Rests'
After 10 days of testimony and evidence, Taylor Phillips, the lead prosecutor for the United States, told the judge that they were resting their case. At that point, Judge Richardson dismissed the jury for the day so that the court could take up some administrative matters without the jury present.
Among those administrative tasks — allowing the defense to ask for certain charges to be acquitted and to construct the proper instructions to the jury for when the trial is bound over to those twelve men and women.
No Sexton — yet
It took many people in the gallery of the courtroom by surprise that current Tennessee House Speaker Cameron Sexton was not called by the government in this case, despite being on the witness list.
Since the beginning of the trial, Sexton's communications director Connor Grady was attending the trial and taking notes.
The prosecution never explicitly said why they didn't call Sexton, but one potential reason why could be that much of Casada's defense is centered around the allegation that Sexton encouraged the FBI to investigate Glen Casada.
In opening statements, Ed Yarbrough called Sexton and Casada old bitter political rivals, dating back to when Sexton first ran for office and Casada backed his primary opponent.
Notably, Sexton could still be called as a witness by the defense.
What comes next
The jury will return Thursday at 10 a.m. That's when we'll learn whether the defense will call any witnesses in this trial. If that list remains short, we could get to closing arguments relatively quickly.
If they have an extensive witness list, the trial could slowly march on.
Do you have more information about this story? You can email me at chris.davis@newschannel5.com
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