Former med-mal attorney Stephen Snyder appeals conviction

Stephen Snyder, the prominent former medical malpractice lawyer, says he was not competent to represent himself at his criminal trial last fall because of a combined diagnosis of Parkinson’s disease and dementia.

The former attorney, who was convicted of felony attempted extortion of the University of Maryland Medical System, argued in his recently-filed opening appeal brief that a judge should have revoked his ability to represent himself and appointed an attorney for him.

He received a “fundamentally unfair trial,” his lawyers, Justin Brown and Lylian Romero, wrote in their opening appeal brief, filed Aug. 25.

“His symptoms — disordered thinking, short-term memory loss, and cognitive impairment — permeated the trial, making it impossible for him to remember (and follow) the court’s rulings, follow the rules of procedure and evidence, properly examine witnesses, and maintain the decorum of the court,” the brief states.

“Although it seems that the district court was trying to protect Snyder’s right to self-representation, it was obvious that he was not up to the task,” it says. “Under these circumstances, appointing counsel was the only way to ensure the fairness and integrity of the proceedings, and the court should have revoked Snyder’s pro se status.”

The case was the downfall of one of Maryland’s most successful and prominent lawyers, who practiced for more than half a century and became well-known through his bombastic TV ads and billboards. He took only a handful of “catastrophic” medical malpractice cases each year, frequently winning settlements worth millions of dollars. Snyder said several times at trial that the stress of the case severely worsened his health.

Last November, a jury convicted him of trying in 2018 to extort UMMS for $25 million. Snyder demanded a 10-year consulting agreement or else he would go on a media smear campaign alleging systemic profit-motivated negligence in the UMMS transplant program. Under the agreement, which was never finalized, Snyder would have been conflicted out of bringing malpractice cases against UMMS and could provide advice about avoiding claims.

Prosecutors called the proposed agreement a “sham,” arguing it wouldn’t require Snyder to do any work and that the primary value to UMMS would be that Snyder would not attempt to destroy its reputation.

Throughout the trial, Snyder failed to follow the rules of evidence, questioned witnesses improperly, struggled to stay on topic and was rude to witnesses, prosecutors and U.S. District Judge Deborah Boardman.

Boardman ultimately found Snyder in criminal contempt of court and ordered him jailed for one night after closing arguments. The jury returned to deliberate the next morning and found him guilty of one count of Hobbs Act attempted extortion and seven related counts under the Travel Act.

Due to his declining health, Snyder was not sentenced to prison time. He received three years of probation with six months of home confinement. Before he was sentenced in April, his children wrote letters to Boardman pleading for leniency, saying his recliner at home was like a prison. Prosecutors asked for a three-year prison sentence.

Snyder represented himself from December 2023 through his conviction. He had spent at least $2.5 million on his legal team, his brief states, and his lawyer eventually quit. Snyder waived his right to counsel despite repeated warnings and insisted he could represent himself. The court appointed Baltimore defense attorney Gerald Ruter as standby counsel.

Ruter detailed Snyder’s decline in a court filing in December, and was removed as standby counsel because what he wrote may require him to testify. Brown was appointed as standby counsel; Snyder was apparently allowed to revoke his pro se status and hire him as lead counsel.

The appeal brief raises several arguments for vacating the conviction in addition to the assertion that Snyder’s pro se status should have been revoked.

The brief also repeats a point Snyder was prohibited from mentioning at trial — that the Department of Justice and the Maryland Attorney Grievance Commission initially declined to charge or discipline him in 2018. He was charged in 2020.

One of the arguments is that Boardman improperly denied an instruction to the jury that may have led to a favorable outcome. That is a “defense of counsel” instruction, in which the judge advises the jury that a defendant facing an extortion charge may prove they had been acting in good faith, and had no criminal intent, if they sought a lawyer’s advice.

Snyder hired prominent local ethics lawyer Andrew Graham, co-founder of the firm Kramon & Graham, among others, to advise on the consultancy; Snyder’s lawyers say Graham was “firmly in the loop,” but prosecutors argued those lawyers were kept in the dark about key incriminating details about the agreement.

Snyder also argues Boardman should have freed a key witness from a non-disclosure agreement with UMMS and allowed her to speak more freely. That witness was Michele Sanders, whose husband, Jeffrey Sanders, died about a year after a kidney transplant at UMMS. Snyder represented them and won a $5 million settlement.

The appeal brief does not mention that Sanders appeared not to understand the consulting agreement. She said she wanted him to pursue an agreement in which he would reform the hospital’s transplant program, but did not know that such a deal meant he would be conflicted out of bringing malpractice claims and would be working for “their side.”

Furthermore, Snyder says he should have been allowed to interview jurors about their possible exposure to news coverage of his contempt finding.