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IN THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT

NORTHERN DISTRICT OF ILLINOIS

EASTERN DIVISION

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,

Plaintiff,

vs.

ABIDEMI AJAYI,

Defendant.

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Docket No. 12 CR 190

Chicago, Illinois

November 20, 2013

10:47 a.m.

TRANSCRIPT OF PROCEEDINGS -

Final Pretrial Conference

BEFORE THE HONORABLE REBECCA R. PALLMEYER

APPEARANCES:

For the Plaintiff: HON. ZACHARY T. FARDON

UNITED STATES ATTORNEY

BY: MS. YASMIN N BEST

/ MS. NICOLE M. KIM

219 South Dearborn, 5th Floor

Chicago, Illinois 60604

For the Defendant: LAW OFFICES OF DAMON M. CHERONIS

BY: MR. DAMON M. CHERONIS

53 West Jackson Boulevard, Suite 1750

Chicago, Illinois 60604

Court Reporter: FRANCES WARD, CSR, RPR, RMR, FCRR

Official Court Reporter

219 S. Dearborn Street, Suite 2144A

Chicago, Illinois 60604

(312) 435-5561

frances_ward@ilnd.uscourts.gov

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THE CLERK: 12 CR 190, United States versus Abidemi

Ajayi for pretrial conference.

MS. BEST: Good morning, your Honor.

Yasmin Best and Nicole Kim on behalf of the United

States.

THE COURT: Good morning.

MR. CHERONIS: Good morning, your Honor.

Damon Cheronis on behalf of Mr. Ajayi.

I do apologize for being late. It was out of my --

out of my hands.

THE COURT: No problem. I know you were in another

courtroom.

We are here for the final pretrial conference for

the trial set to start December 2nd.

I have seen the government's motions in limine, and

I also took a moment to prepare a draft questionnaire and

letter that I will want you to look at and comment on. I

think my assistant is printing that out right now.

Mr. Cheronis, have you had a chance to review the

proposed -- the government's motions in limine?

MR. CHERONIS: I have, your Honor. I believe they

are the routine motions. I normally don't have any

objections to those, other than the jury nullification

instruction, which I am not even being serious about.

I have no objection to any of those, your Honor.

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THE COURT: Well --

MR. CHERONIS: There is a motion that won't allow

me to argue for jury nullification.

THE COURT: All right. Well, we've got -- we've

got -- one of the things I wanted to ask is how long -- first

of all, you are right, Mr. Cheronis. These are standard

motions, and they will be granted. I'll enter a brief order

on those as well.

About how long do you expect this will go?

MS. BEST: Your Honor, we are drafting some

proposed stipulations, which I think are the only thing that

will really impact it.

I told Mr. Cheronis yesterday, I think we have

between one and six witnesses, realistically, and several of

those are related to the FDIC and whether the victim -- the

banks that are involved operated in interstate commerce.

Assuming we get stipulations regarding that, we are

realistically looking at four or five witnesses, and I don't

anticipate it will go longer than Wednesday.

MR. CHERONIS: I agree with that.

THE COURT: That's great. Okay. Fine.

Then we will plan to pick the jury on that Monday,

and I would assume I can hear your openings and maybe the

first witness, even, Monday, if that works out.

Will there be witnesses from the financial

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institutions, or is that what you are expecting to be the

subject of stipulations?

MS. BEST: We do anticipate having one witness from

JPMorgan Chase to testify, really, about -- one, to be a

records custodian regarding bank statements and the check and

how it was deposited, as well as video stills that were taken

of the defendant at the time of a number of the transactions

that are charged in the indictment.

There is a potential that we would have a witness

from Bank of America. That really goes to the interstate

commerce issue. And then someone from the FDIC.

But, realistically, if we get the stips, then I --

then I anticipate it will just be one witness from the

financial institution.

THE COURT: And what -- just out of curiosity, what

is the investigating agency? Was it the FBI?

MS. BEST: No. It's postal inspection service.

THE COURT: Postal Service. Okay. I usually

mention that in the questionnaire and ask if they have any

problems with it. So I will change the language from FBI.

But I'll want you to look at the questionnaire

anyway, and just tell me whether you have changes that you

want or additional questions. This is relatively brief, so

we could add questions.

The only thing that I really kind of insist on is

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it be two sides of one page. So, you know, I don't want it

to be any longer than that. But the version I have got is

usually fine.

Let me just make sure -- let's find out whether she

has got that ready.

(Brief pause.)

THE COURT: My deputy reminds me. Actually this is

not going to work out as smoothly as I had hoped.

I can certainly pick the jury on Monday, but

probably will have to leave by middle of the afternoon. And

then we have to recess -- I'm sorry; I had forgotten about

this -- for a meeting that I have that was scheduled

relatively recently.

And right now, I am trying to remember. I think I

get back on Wednesday. So it may be -- I apologize for this.

I should have -- I should have brought it up right away. It

may be that we will pick the jury on Monday, and then resume

the trial on Thursday and then finish maybe early the

following week, if it takes more than the two days.

MS. BEST: So no court on Tuesday or Wednesday?

THE COURT: You know, let me make sure I am right

about that. Again, the meeting was scheduled relatively

recently, and I'm not on top of this.

(Brief pause.)

THE COURT: Let's do this. Let's start -- let's do

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the jury selection starting right at 9:00 o'clock on Monday.

And given how brief the trial is, I'm confident

that all we need is the 14 jurors. I mean, we may not even

need that many, but 14 will really do it.

And then, why don't I -- why don't I ask, given the

recess that I am going to require you to take, that we just

break after jury selection, and you can do your openings

Thursday.

And I apologize. I had forgotten all about this

conflict.

And we'll say that your openings would be on

Thursday. I am going to move things around and have you

start at 9:30.

So when we pick the jury, I will give them these

instructions: That we are picking the jury today. We are

going to hear evidence on Thursday and Friday. And if, for

whatever reason, we are not finished, it would push into the

following Monday.

MS. BEST: Your Honor, how late in the day do you

typically go?

THE COURT: I typically go until 5:00 o'clock. I

think 4:00 o'clock on Thursday is the day that Judge Ellis is

being sworn in. So I would probably want to the get there

for at least part of her ceremony. But we could go up until

4. Maybe until 4:30.

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Why don't you just give me a moment, and I am going

to get those questionnaires. I am not sure what the delay

is. I will be right back.

(A brief recess was taken at 10:55 a.m.)

THE COURT: What I will want you to focus on is the

language that I have inserted in the front, first paragraph

describing the case. You may want to use different language

there.

(Document tendered.)

THE COURT: And then there is a questionnaire that

I am very much open to your suggestions about what additions

or subtractions you think are appropriate.

I'll also change the language in the first

paragraph regarding the schedule.

(Brief pause.)

THE COURT: And, you know, you're not required to

make decisions about that right now. If you want to let us

know by e-mail.

MS. BEST: We will do so, your Honor. We'll send

an e-mail, I guess, to your proposed order e-mail address?

THE COURT: You know, actually, the best thing to

do is send your suggestions on the letter or questionnaire to

my assistant. Here is her card.

(Document tendered.)

THE COURT: All right. Any other issues?

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Again, apart from the scheduling problem -- I

apologize for that -- are there any other issues regarding

our trial?

MR. CHERONIS: Your Honor, there is none that I can

think of right now. There may be a potential issue, a motion

in limine I may have to file down the road, but I have spoken

to the government regarding that, and I don't think it's

really ripe right now.

If they turn over some more evidence and I deem it

necessary, I will certainly file that. It has to do with

potential prior convictions. Mr. Ajayi has some sort of

disposition in Belgium. I don't have any documents regarding

that. I don't think the government is going to proceed with

that unless they have some sort of documents to substantiate

that.

If they were to turn those over and I reviewed

them, I very well may make a motion to bar them from using

that to impeach him if he testifies.

But that's the only issue I can really see right

now.

MS. BEST: That's correct, your Honor.

Mr. Cheronis and I have talked about that.

The only other issues are that we are turning over

charts and summaries as those are prepared.

And the last issue that I mentioned to

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Mr. Cheronis, just earlier, was that back in June, your Honor

entered an order regarding tax returns for Mr. Ajayi and his

business.

Because of the time it takes for the IRS to produce

that and in light of the shutdown, I still don't have those

documents. I anticipate getting them this week.

If we do need to do an order to disclose them to

Mr. Cheronis, we will do so. I just haven't received them

from IRS yet, and I understand that it took them a while with

the shutdown and then ramping back up to finalize those.

So that's the only other thing I anticipate: Just

a potential order to disclose those in case the government

decides to use it either in its case-in-chief or during

rebuttal.

MR. CHERONIS: I may file a motion based on that as

well, but I don't think it will be anything too complicated.

THE COURT: All right. That's fine. If you do,

let us know if we need to have you in again between now and

the 2nd.

MS. BEST: Your Honor, the only other question I

had is regarding proposed jury instructions and what your

preference is for those.

We've gone ahead and at least started our draft of

our proposed jury instructions. I haven't tendered them to

Mr. Cheronis yet, so I don't know whether he agrees with

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them, whether he would have any objections. But just in

terms of timing, I wasn't sure what your -- what your

preference is for those.

THE COURT: What I'd like is if you could get me a

set of them by -- well, let's see. If we start on -- if you

can get me a set even, you know, the Friday before -- I think

that's, unfortunately, the Friday after Thanksgiving. But

I only need a couple of days to look at them before jury

selection is my point.

And then what we'll do is take a -- you know,

we'll look at them. Usually I do that at the conclusion of

testimony one afternoon if there are any objections.

Sometimes there aren't any. Sometimes one side or another

wants to tender, you know, a few more. We can talk about

that.

So I have an instructions conference, in other

words, during the trial, typically after testimony one

afternoon. In a short trial, such as this, I would probably

do it maybe even that Thursday.

But you'll know. I mean, as long as we have had a

chance to look at them, Mr. Cheronis will know whether he has

got any concerns or whether he wants to propose any.

It takes -- it doesn't take a terribly long amount of time,

as long as we have had a chance to look at them before the

trial starts.

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MR. CHERONIS: Thank you.

And Ian Barney from my office is going to be trying

the case with me. He is elsewhere today.

THE COURT: Great.

And Mr. Ajayi is not in custody?

MR. CHERONIS: He is not. He is working in

Madison, which is why he couldn't be here today for his

pretrial conference.

THE COURT: That's fine. Thank you.

MR. CHERONIS: Thank you.

MS. BEST: Thank you, your Honor.

(An adjournment was taken at 11:00 a.m.)

* * * * *

I certify that the foregoing is a correct transcript from the

record of proceedings in the above-entitled matter.

/s/ Frances Ward______________________September 17, 2014.

Official Court Reporter

F/t

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