ST. CROIX — Former Office of Management and Budget Director Jenifer O’Neal filed a motion on Christmas Eve for a judgment of acquittal and new trial following her conviction earlier this month in a government corruption case involving bribery on the grounds that the evidence presented at trial was insufficient to sustain a conviction.
O’Neal’s attorney, Dale Lionel Smith, requested that the court, pursuant to Rule 29 (c) of the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure, enter a judgment of acquittal of each offense as the government’s evidence presented at trial was insufficient to establish the essential elements of the crimes charged beyond a reasonable doubt.
O’Neal and former Police Commissioner Ray Martinez were found guilty on December 11 of honest services wire fraud, federal program bribery, and conspiracy to commit money laundering. Additionally, Martinez was found guilty of obstruction of justice. Their convictions were in connection to a bribery scheme involving David Whitaker, a cooperating government witness who owned a cybersecurity company called Mon Ethos Pro Support.
Smith, in the motion, wrote that the government failed to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that O’Neal possessed the required state of mind for committing any of the crimes charged because of the undisputed evidence that O’Neal had been informed by both Whitaker (in his capacity as a government agent) and Martinez that the money for the security deposit was being provided to her by Martinez without her also being made aware by anyone that Martinez was involved in a conspiracy.
Additionally, the motion states that Whitaker’s isolated and ambiguous assertion of increasing an invoice standing alone, especially in light of the government’s abandonment of its pressuring of an employee theory as the official act charged in the indictment and specified in its trial memorandum, is insufficient to establish beyond a reasonable doubt the essential elements and the interrelationships of those elements to each other. In short, Smith stated that increasing an invoice standing alone is insufficient to prove the exchange of something of value for an official act or the quid pro quo essential elements.
Moreover, Smith wrote that in light of the government’s abandonment of its pressuring theory at trial after counsel’s objection to the false assertion that O’Neal “pressured” an employee, the court should examine the record of proceedings before the grand jury, including the legal instructions to the grand jury to determine whether there was misconduct mandating a dismissal of the charges against O’Neal.
Smith wrote that O’Neal 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. As a result, he stated that O’Neal 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.
During the trial, Smith made an oral Rule 29 motion for acquittal on similar grounds to Judge Mark Kearney. In that oral motion, he argued that because his client was unaware of the conspiracy between Martinez and Whitaker, she could not be found guilty on the charges as she was not a conspirator. Kearney denied the oral motion during trial, as well as the Rule 29 motion entered by Martinez.
Martinez, who accepted nearly $100,000 in bribe payments from Whitaker, used his authority to approve invoices and award Whitaker a $1.4 million federally funded contract. O’Neal approved a $70,000 inflated invoice under that same contract and later accepted a $17,730 lease payment for her coffee shop using federal funds from the inflated invoice.
In the same filing, Smith requested that the court grant a new trial if the interest of justice so requires. He requested the court set the date for filing the memorandum of law in support of the motions a minimum of 45 days after receipt of the trial transcript, as well as allow a reasonable period to file a reply to any response the government may file. In the alternative, Smith requested his motion filed Wednesday be deemed a motion to extend the 14-day period for filing a motion for judgment of acquittal and new trial.
O’Neal’s sentencing is scheduled for 9 a.m. June 11, 2026. Martinez is scheduled to be sentenced at 9 a.m. on June 9, 2026. Both sentencings will be in District Court on St. Thomas.
