Despite guilty plea by ex-Lake City prosecutor, defense lawyer stands trial on extortion

Federal prosecutors told a jury in Jacksonville Monday that a “culture of favors” involving Lake City’s former top prosecutor led to a defense attorney collecting payoffs from clients for lighter punishment in court.

Attorney Marion Michael O’Steen from Dixie County “crossed a line from advocacy to bribery and extortion,” Assistant U.S. Attorney David Mesrobian argued at the start of a trial for the man indicted last year with former 3rd Judicial Circuit State Attorney Jeff Siegmeister.

Siegmeister pleaded guilty in February to charges involving conspiracy, extortion, wire fraud and tax crime and is scheduled to testify for prosecutors this week.

Previously: Ex-Lake City State Attorney Jeff Siegmeister takes plea in corruption case

Initial indictment: North Florida ex-State Attorney Siegmeister indicted in federal extortion, bribery case

O’Steen has maintained his innocence, however, and his attorney argued Monday the experienced lawyer was simply trying to get a good deal for his client, who turned out to be a federal informant.

O’Steen “was walking into a hornet’s nest” when he agreed to represent the owner of a Lake City business charged with running an illegal gabling house, defense attorney Mitchell Stone told juror who’ll decide whether O’Steen committed four separate but related crimes.

Opening arguments focused on O’Steen’s work representing Andy Tong, the operator of a gaming business who last year sued both O’Steen and Siegmeister, arguing Siegmeister used his position as state attorney “to solicit, accept and agree to accept a bribe in return for a favorable disposition.”

Siegmeister filed a pre-trial diversion agreement after Tong paid O’Steen $60,000 to handle charges involving him and two other people from his business.

But Stone said the money wasn’t a bribe, simply a realistic fee for preparing to try a case that would have lasted weeks and was only resolved when it was time for trial. He said O’Steen had been preparing carefully for the trial, saying records showed he had scheduled a Vietnamese translator for court because one of Tong’s co-defendants didn’t speak English.

But prosecutors said Tong’s case wasn’t isolated, and said another O’Steen client had paid to get a an attempted murder charge involving arson dropped down to a lesser count, and that another client’s case was resolved after a bull on Siegmeister’s farm was bought at an inflated price.

This article originally appeared on Florida Times-Union: Lawyer on trial in extortion case involving ex-Lake City prosecutor