Md. state senator to get separate trials on bribery, obstruction

State Sen. Nathaniel T. Oaks, D-Baltimore City, is accused of wire fraud, accepting illegal payments and accepting bribes in exchange for using is position to influence business matters. (The Daily Record / Maximilian Franz)

State Sen. Nathaniel T. Oaks will have a separate trial on an obstruction of justice charge after a federal judge ruled Friday that the count should be severed from nine counts of bribery- and fraud-related offenses he also faces.

Oaks, D-Baltimore City, is accused of wire fraud, accepting illegal payments and accepting bribes in exchange for using is position to influence business matters. A superseding indictment filed in November also claims Oaks agreed to work with the FBI once confronted but then tipped off the target of the new investigation.

Attorneys for Oaks moved to sever the obstruction charge, arguing it was not part of the same scheme and unconnected to the fraud allegations. U.S. District Judge Richard D. Bennett heard arguments Jan. 11.

A trial on the first nine counts of the indictment is scheduled to begin April 16, after the Maryland General Assembly session concludes. No trial date has been set for the obstruction charge.

Prosecutors argued Oaks’ charges all stem from a common scheme to use his official position, power and influence as a legislator to obtain money and benefits. But Bennett disagreed, ruling “the Defendant’s scheme to commit bribery and his scheme to obstruct justice are two distinct efforts that lack a shared objective.”

Bennett noted that Oaks himself is the only connection between the schemes and said the government defined the alleged overarching plan too broadly.

“The timeline of events in this case undoubtedly reveals a causal connection between the two investigations, but the alleged bribery conduct and the alleged obstruction conduct do not share a ‘common scheme or plan,'” Bennett wrote.

In September 2015, according to court documents, a cooperating individual introduced Oaks to a confidential informant who portrayed himself as an out-of-town businessman interested in obtaining contracts in Baltimore through a real business operated by a different cooperating individual. The developer created a fictitious plan to develop a property on Druid Lake Drive, which was outside of Oaks’ district.

In recorded phone calls and in-person conversations, Oaks allegedly accepted more than $15,000 in return for writing a letter to federal housing officials. He also sponsored legislation to secure state funding for the project that was filed last summer in advance of the 2017 General Assembly session.

Oaks allegedly confessed last January to accepting payments in exchange for using his influence when confronted by FBI agents in a Baltimore hotel room when he thought he was meeting the informant. He also allegedly confessed to accepting gifts from an unnamed person who was also the target of federal investigators and agreed to record conversations with that person in cooperation with the FBI.

But the November indictment claims Oaks approached the new target on multiple occasions and told him to “just say no” to a question Oaks would be asking him.

The case is United States of America v. Nathaniel Thomas Oaks, 1:17cr00288.