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As a subscriber you can listen to articles at work, in the car, or while you work out. Subscribe NowA federal judge has denied former Countrymark CEO David Swanson’s request that she vacate or reduce his 12-year prison sentence stemming from his 2002 conviction for wire fraud, money laundering and tax evasion.
The 68-year-old former financial executive argued during a March hearing that the government had failed to disclose evidence favorable to him and that he was denied his Sixth Amendment right to effective counsel.
But, in a 44-page ruling issued May 25, Judge Sarah Evans Barker picked apart Swanson’s arguments, including that his attorneys—James Voyles and Jennifer Lukemeyer—were derelict in not seeking a mistrial after the government presented its case.
“We hold that Swanson was not prejudiced by his trial counsel’s failure to seek a mistrial because such a request would have been denied as lacking any legal authority,” Barker wrote.
Swanson, an inmate at a Duluth, Minn., federal prison, was sentenced in March 2003 for stealing $2.7 million from the Indianapolis-based agricultural cooperative in the 1990s.
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