Attorneys for Davidson and Sasha Charlemagne and the U.S. Justice Department sparred in District Court Thursday over the testimony of a key witness in the government’s case against the couple accused of perpetrating a multimillion-dollar disaster recovery fraud.
Judge Wilma Lewis told the defendants Thursday to file under seal the types of questions they intend to put to the witness, Morris Anselmi, and to explain why the questions are relevant. She then told Assistant U.S. Attorney Denise George and Anselmi’s attorney, Nahra Nadler, to file any objections they had to the questions and gave the parties one week to state their cases. Lewis explained Thursday that she wanted to see each point of disagreement before ruling.
“The idea here is to get the ruling in advance,” she said at one point, so that the deposition can move forward.
The Charlemagnes — whom the government accused last year of carrying out a “$4 million scheme to defraud taxpayers” while mismanaging vast quantities of lumber meant for disaster recovery projects — have not yet gone to trial, but attorneys for the defendants began deposing Anselmi, an unindicted, alleged coconspirator, in April. The government granted Anselmi immunity for cooperating with prosecutors in the woodpile case but not for a separate case in which Anselmi and his former business partner, Kimberly McCollum, were charged with pocketing half a million dollars in federal Paycheck Protection Program funds. Anselmi has yet to be arraigned because medical problems have prevented his returning to the territory.
Anselmi’s testimony is critical because he will almost certainly be unavailable for questioning if or when the Charlemagnes do go to trial, making the deposition the defendants’ only opportunity to cross-examine him.
During an April 8 deposition, Anselmi acknowledged to Davidson Charlemagne’s attorney, David Cattie, that he was cooperating with the government in hopes of receiving benefits in his own criminal trial. A second session on April 28 ended abruptly when Anselmi’s attorney, Nahra Nadler, instructed him not to answer questions about the Paycheck Protection Program case on Fifth Amendment grounds, which protects defendants against self-incrimination.
George called for an expedited status conference to determine whether such questions are allowed. In response, Sasha Charlemagne’s lawyer, Pamela Colon, said the questioning was valid because it “sought to elicit evidence of Mr. Anselmi’s bias, prejudice, interest and motivation to testify.”
“He has a pending criminal case and is also a potential defendant in the instant case,” she wrote. “Counsel for Mr. Charlemagne inquired, initially without objection, as to what the witness hoped to obtain by testifying for the Government in this case.”
Colon stated that she intended to explore the same issue.
Parties filed their arguments for or against the line of questioning under seal last week. Exhibits submitted by the defendants included transcripts of Anselmi’s deposition so far, a memorandum of interview and a copy of his immunity agreement. Thursday’s hearing on the issue was public, but attorneys made only oblique references to the documents because they remain under seal provisionally.
Lewis indicated that she’ll decide whether to unseal them after settling the issue of Anselmi’s deposition.
The Charlemagnes were first indicted in June 2024. They were charged with government program fraud, wire fraud and money laundering conspiracy. The government added eight counts of making false claims upon the United States in October and a charge of wire fraud against Sasha Charlemagne in December.
The husband and wife were initially charged alongside former V.I. Housing Finance Authority executive Darin Richardson, but a judge agreed to sever Richardson’s case in September. Richardson’s case went to trial in February, and in March he was convicted on charges of making material false statements to a federal agent, criminal conflict of interest, bank fraud, money laundering and making false statements on a loan application.
