Legal professionals for Bob Brockman say his cognitive functioning has deteriorated after a latest sickness and the previous Reynolds and Reynolds Co. CEO shouldn’t be competent to face trial on federal costs of tax evasion and wire fraud.
Brockman, 80, contracted COVID-19 in December and was hospitalized a month later with acute prostatitis and poisonous metabolic encephalopathy, in keeping with a court docket submitting Wednesday. The medical situations brought about his cognitive decline — the results of dementia, “most certainly attributable to Parkinson’s illness and Alzheimer’s illness” — to worsen, his attorneys wrote.
Observe-up visits together with his major care physician, the neurologist treating him for Parkinson’s illness and Dr. Thomas Wisniewski, a neurologist at New York College who served as an expert witness for the defense at a competency listening to in November, “affirm that Mr. Brockman’s cognitive operate has declined, and supply additional help that he’s incompetent to face trial,” his legal professionals wrote within the submitting.
“Within the various, on the very least, these newest occasions counsel in favor of an impartial competency examination by impartial specialists to evaluate Mr. Brockman’s current cognitive potential,” they wrote within the submitting.
Brockman was indicted in October 2020 on 39 federal counts, including tax evasion, wire fraud, money laundering and evidence tampering, and pleaded not responsible. He stepped down from his role as chairman and CEO of dealership administration system big Reynolds in November 2020.
A competency hearing was held after his attorneys stated he has dementia that’s progressive and incurable, and has made it tough for him to retain and course of data. Prosecutors, in the meantime, contend he has faked his signs to keep away from prosecution.
Medical specialists for each prosecutors and protection attorneys usually agreed of their testimony in the course of the competency listening to that Brockman doubtless has Parkinson’s illness, although they differed on the extent of Brockman’s cognitive impairment.
U.S. District Choose George Hanks Jr. has not but dominated on Brockman’s competency. The problem solely addresses whether or not Brockman can perceive the case and help together with his protection to proceed to trial, not whether or not he was competent on the time of the alleged offenses.
Prosecutors had not filed a response to Brockman’s legal professionals’ court docket submitting as of Thursday morning. A message in search of remark was despatched to the Justice Division.
Brockman’s legal professionals included a letter from Wisniewski in Wednesday’s court docket submitting. Wisniewski examined Brockman by videoconference this month. He stated Brockman didn’t acknowledge him and couldn’t provide particulars about his medical situation, and confirmed “extreme impairment of reminiscence and cognition,” in keeping with his letter.
He added that Brockman’s “dementia has considerably progressed” since Wisniewski’s final analysis in October 2021, earlier than the competency listening to, including that “there isn’t any expectation that he’ll get well cognitively.”
Individually, Brockman’s legal professionals requested Hanks in a March 29 letter to schedule a time for oral argument in a civil case they introduced towards the federal government difficult the IRS’ jeopardy evaluation associated to what the agency says is $1.4 billion owed in taxes and penalties.
Brockman’s legal professionals stated within the letter that “the IRS is actively seizing and inserting liens on property belonging to Mr. Brockman, in addition to assets belonging solely to his wife and different third events” and that he’s not shifting to place his property out of the federal government’s attain, regardless of its claims.
Authorities legal professionals have referred to as the IRS’ actions “affordable and acceptable” in its personal filings, citing allegations that Brockman has used offshore entities to hide property.
Hanks has not but dominated within the civil case.