Prosecutors say the multimillionaire, who was arrested in February, has turned the jail lineup room into an all-purpose war room for meetings with his attorneys in a tangle of bankruptcy proceedings and civil antitrust lawsuits, accountants and others who have nothing to do with the criminal case.
"That may all be fine, but the government should not have to pay for it," Assistant U.S. Attorney Matthew Segal said in a motion filed in federal court this week. "The overtime costs associated with the lineup room are running about $6,000 a month," the prosecutor noted, adding that "the defendant is not indigent," and Salyer should be required to foot part of the bill. "Half would be a fair amount," he suggested.
Malcolm Segal, lead criminal defense lawyer, recalled in an interview that prosecutors assured U.S. District Judge Lawrence K. Karlton that they would arrange for Salyer and his lawyers to be able to work together on the millions of pages of documents.
But then, Malcolm Segal said, "They demanded we pay all the overtime. Due process at a price. We said we thought the judge should review that demand, so they backed off. Now they say that, even though they don't know what's being discussed, they think it's something other than the criminal case. And they're wrong."
Malcolm Segal said he and other lawyers use interview booths for matters other than the criminal case.
The longtime defense lawyer and former federal prosecutor said he had never heard of the prosecution paying overtime to sheriff's deputies in order to keep a defendant locked up.
"It makes no sense," he said. If Salyer "were under electronically monitored house arrest, he would be paying for the equipment and its operation. He would have direct access to computers and the documents, with the same level of security and at no cost to the government."
The dispute over use of the room where he works with his defense team and who pays how much will be the subject of an Aug. 3 hearing before Karlton.