Former Management and Budget Director Jenifer O’Neal is asking a federal judge for an acquittal and new trial, weeks after she and former V.I. Police Commissioner Ray Martinez were found guilty of bribery, wire fraud and money laundering.
O’Neal’s attorney, Dale Lionel Smith, argued in a motion filed this week in U.S. District Court that the evidence presented over the course of the weeklong trial was insufficient to sustain a conviction. Smith made similar arguments at trial and claimed that O’Neal was unaware of a fraudulent scheme between Martinez and the government’s cooperating witness, David Whitaker, to pay kickbacks through inflated invoices tied to a federally funded contract awarded to Whitaker’s company.
“Clearly, she was unduly prejudiced by the overwhelming evidence of a long-running and unrelated conspiracy between Whitaker and Martinez of which she was never made aware,” Smith argued in the recent filing. “As a result, she was deprived of her constitutional right to a fair trial, which could have only been provided to her by a trial separate and apart from Martinez.”
Smith further argued that prosecutors abandoned a theory that O’Neal pressured an OMB employee to approve one of the inflated invoices and asked the court to examine the grand jury proceedings, which led to her and Martinez’s indictment nearly one year ago.
“The grand jury witness was asked a series of leading questions about feeling pressure,” Smith wrote. “A grand juror later asked her about the invoice vetting process and another question about whether she was made aware of any fraudulent invoices to which she replied no. That O’Neal neither pressured the employee nor asked her to do anything fraudulent permit the inference that she would not have been charged but for the false and specious assertion that she pressured the witness as part of the official act required for the commission of the crimes charged.”
At trial, Smith attempted to put distance between his client and Martinez. He pointed out during an opening statement that Martinez alone had been charged with two counts of obstructing justice, claiming that Martinez and Whitaker never brought O’Neal in on their plan to skim thousands of dollars in American Rescue Plan Act funds.
“As you hear them covering the crime, you won’t hear them say, ‘let’s get Jenifer to cover up this crime,’” Smith said. “Because she didn’t commit any crime.”
Prosecutors presented jurors with a wealth of evidence, which included phone and in-person conversations recorded by Whitaker and a Jan. 20, 2024, text exchange between Whitaker and O’Neal in which the former director asked if a $216,000 invoice had been processed.
“Ray may never speak to us again if we leave before he gets the 70k for his food shop,” Whitaker texted, adding that Martinez would be even more mad if he found out about “Encore” and “the game” — an apparent reference to the Encore Boston Harbor luxury resort where Whitaker and Martinez stayed during three trips to Boston.
“lol,” O’Neal replied. “I’ll check with my staff.”
The prosecution also showed jurors a text O’Neal subsequently sent to OMB’s federal grants manager, Jamie Gaston.
“If you guys have ARPA payments pending to be processed, please get them entered so they can make Tuesday’s check run,” O’Neal allegedly wrote.
Her sentencing date was scheduled for June 11, 2026. Martinez is slated to be sentenced on June 9 and must surrender himself to the court in February.
