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Home > Blogs > Butler County News and Issues > Archives > 2009 > August > 17 > Entry
Closing arguments: Rogers, Smith “bamboozled’ Dynus owner, others
“There’s a lot of smoke,” defense attorney Martin Pinales said about the charges against his client in federal court, “but there is no fire.
The prosecution fell short, Pinales said in his closing argument today, Aug. 17, in proving that former Dynus owner Orlando Carter was involved in schemes to defraud banks to get a home loan and $6.5 million in illicit loans in Butler County’s name.
So who was behind it? “Kay Rogers and Jim Smith got together and concocted something,” Pinales said.
Rogers, former county auditor, and Smith, former Dynus president, both pleaded guilty to bank fraud for their roles in the loans.
“Kay Rogers, an integral part of this case, was not brought in in this courtroom,” Pinales said. “If Kay Rogers had anything bad to say about Orlando Carter…if she corroborated, if she agreed with and told the same story that Jim Smith told, she would have been right there talking to you.”
In earlier testimony, Smith said Carter was intimately aware of the loans.
Pinales argued that the prosecution is making connections that don’t exist, then pumping the courtroom full of smoke — focusing on the grandeur of Carter’s house, the anger of a respected civic leader — to obscure the facts.
He portrayed Carter as yet another victim of Smith, along with banks that relied on his misrepresentations of business he brought into the company. It was Smith who forged a contract with West Chester Twp.; Smith who lied to county leaders about the existence of the loan; Smith who said he bribed Rogers.
“The missing in action Kay Rogers and Jim Smith the liar put this together and bamboozled the fifth largest financial institution in the nation (National City),” he said. “And Kay Rogers and Jim Smith bamboozled Orlando Carter.”
Because Carter believed the Butler County deal was legitimate — and so did others — he continued borrowing money from Fifth Third Bank that the bank lost when the company collapsed in October. 2005, Pinales said.
As for the phony home loan documents, Pinales said he instructed others to fill out the paperwork for him, and wasn’t aware they couldn’t be trusted to follow the law.
There is nothing, Pinales said, directly implicating Carter in any of the 11 charges against him that he pleaded not guilty to.
“That is why they brought in all of these other things to try to turn you against Orlando Carter, in an effort to cover up a lack of evidence,” Pinales said. “It is clear that the government has failed to prove their case beyond a reasonable doubt, and you must return a verdict of not guilty.”
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Comments
By Cassie
August 18, 2009 8:06 AM | Link to this
Carter might just be innocent, after all Kay Rogers and Scott Owens “bamboozled” a majority of Butler County voters into re-electing her while she stood chin deep in this mess. Now don’t you folks feel you and Mr. Carter may have something in common as you stood together in the dark?