11th Circuit shoots down J.T. Burnette appeal in City Hall bribery case

A three-judge panel of the 11th Circuit Court of Appeal affirmed the bribery conviction of businessman John "J.T." Burnette in an opinion released Tuesday.

Burnette, a wealthy businessman and one-time prodigious political donor, was convicted in 2021 for his role in a pay-to-play scheme involving former Tallahassee Mayor and City Commissioner Scott Maddox and his aide, Paige Carter-Smith. He was sentenced to three years in federal prison after a lengthy trial.

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Burnette's appellate lawyers asked the 11th Circuit in September to vacate his conviction and remand the case back to the District Court for a new trial or judgment of acquittal.

They argued that U.S. District Judge Robert Hinkle made several errors in the trial, including giving faulty jury instructions about bribery, allowing an FBI agent to testify about Burnette’s credibility and keeping out evidence about the agent’s alleged misconduct during the bureau's undercover investigation. They also said evidence was insufficient that Burnette lied to the FBI.

But the 11th Circuit rejected those arguments point by point.

“The evidence presented at trial was sufficient to permit the jury to conclude that Burnette assisted in bribing Maddox in connection with a ... qualifying ‘official act,’ ” the appeals judges concluded.

The judges wrote that it didn’t have to decide whether the district court erred in jury instructions because Burnette’s trial lawyers invited one of the errors and didn’t object to another. They also found that Hinkle didn’t abuse his discretion in excluding evidence about Agent Sweet and that any possible error involving his testimony about Burnette’s truthfulness was “harmless.”

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During oral arguments before the 11th Circuit, Amy Mason Saharia, a Washington, D.C., lawyer representing Burnette, said Hinkle should have allowed evidence involving a 2016 trip to Las Vegas in which FBI agents wined and dined Burnette and Maddox.

Jurors were allowed to hear evidence about Sweet buying Maddox a lap dance during a night of partying that included a trip to the Hustler Club. But they weren’t allowed to hear defense allegations that Sweet “paid for prostitution” and later lied about it.

The 11th Circuit wrote that shortly before Burnette’s trial began, the government disclosed to the defense that Maddox had informed prosecutors that Sweet bought him “a private dance and oral sex” at the strip club.

Sweet denied that until he was given an audio recording to refresh his memory. He then admitted to buying the lap dance but denied paying for him to receive oral sex, according to the 11th Circuit’s opinion.

The defense wanted to introduce the evidence to “undercut Sweet’s credibility as a supposedly unbiased witness” in the case. However, the appeals court, noting Hinkle’s concern that the issue would turn into it’s own “sideshow mini-trial,” found that he didn’t abuse his “considerable discretion” in keeping the evidence out.

Contact Jeff Burlew at jburlew@tallahassee.com and follow @JeffBurlew on Twitter.

This article originally appeared on Tallahassee Democrat: 11th Circuit shoots down J.T. Burnette appeal in City Hall bribery case