[Baltimore Sun] Stephen Snyder asked associate to delete notes of meeting at center of extortion case, attorney testifies
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After malpractice attorney Stephen L. Snyder learned he was under investigation in 2018 for potential extortion, Snyder asked his associate into a conference room at his law firm.
The associate, attorney Kevin D. Stern, had been with Snyder at the June 22, 2018 meeting, when Snyder first asked the University of Maryland Medical System to pay him $25 million, in addition to the settlement of a client’s case, in exchange for withholding disparaging information about its organ transplant department.
Stern typed notes as Snyder spoke at the meeting, documenting hospital officials’ dismayed reactions to Snyder’s plans to launch what prosecutors later described as a media blitz alleging the hospital system was transplanting diseased organs into patients without their knowledge.
“He asked me to delete them,” Stern said of his notes during his testimony Monday at Snyder’s federal trial.
Indicted in 2020, Snyder is charged with one count of attempted extortion and seven violations of the federal Travel Act, which forbids the use of the U.S. mail, or interstate or foreign travel, to engage in extortion among other criminal acts.
Stern never deleted the notes. In fact, he testified, he made several copies after consulting with an ethics lawyer about what to do in response to Snyder’s request.
“I didn’t know if that was OK. … I was concerned about the request to delete them,” Stern testified.
In opening statements last week, prosecutors listed Snyder’s request to delete the notes as one factor that showed he acted as an extortionist, rather than a tough litigator.
“This case is about extortion,” Assistant U.S. Attorney Matt Phelps told jurors. “Pay me $25 million or I will destroy you. That’s what Mr. Snyder did to the University of Maryland Medical System.”
Snyder, 77, is representing himself. He maintains that a client whose husband died after a kidney transplant demanded he strike a consultancy with the hospital, to prevent similar deaths.
The amount of $25 million first came up at an April 2018 settlement conference with the hospital system about that client’s case. Originally, Snyder proposed $25 million to settle her claim.
It wasn’t until the June 22 meeting that Snyder proposed to the hospital system to pay him $25 million in addition to settling his client’s claim.
“Mr. Snyder saw dollar signs for himself,” Phelps had told jurors.
Stern’s testimony also presented a behind-the-scenes look at how Snyder operated. Stern, who now runs his own law firm, testified that Snyder dictated a script ahead of every meeting with the hospital system and then had one of his staff transcribe. Stern said Snyder went by the script at meetings with the hospital.
If Snyder went on his media campaign, he wrote ahead of the June 22, 2018 meeting, “it will have a devastating effect on the hospital.”
“You are playing with fire and we are asking only for $25 million and you get rid of me and my client,” Snyder’s dictated script said. He added later in the notes, “The only way that you will get confidentiality is if the whole deal is effectuated.”
Prosecutors asked Stern if the $25 million payout to Snyder was “news to you” until that point.
“Yes,” Stern responded.
Stern wrote in his notes that Susan Kinter, vice president of claims, litigation and risk management at Maryland Medicine Comprehensive Insurance Program, the hospital system’s insurance provider, “is saying she is very uncomfortable and feels like she’s being threatened.”
Snyder, Stern wrote, “plans on having a press conference, article in the front page, national article, creating commercials.” That was in reference to what prosecutors later described as Snyder’s plan to launch a media blitz alleging the hospital system was transplanting diseased organs into patients without their knowledge.
Stunned UMMS officials contacted former Baltimore State’s Attorney Gregg Bernstein after the June meeting. With Bernstein’s assistance, they contacted federal law enforcement.
The FBI recorded several calls from Kinter to Snyder and were present at their next meeting, Aug. 23, 2018, secretly watching and recording. At that meeting, Snyder said the point of the consulting agreement was to prevent Snyder from being able to bring additional claims against the hospital system, according to a video of it played at trial.
“You want me not to go forward. The question is: How do we do it?” Snyder said at the meeting.
“If I’m them, I’m thinking, ‘God, this sounds like extortion,’” responded Dr. DePriest Whye, CEO of the hospital system’s insurance provider, referring to hospital board members.
“I wanted to make sure it is not perceived as extortion,” Snyder answered.
Whye, Kinter and Alicia Reynolds, senior director of claims with the hospital’s insurance provider, all testified the hospital system didn’t want to hire Snyder.
Snyder claims he was entrapped because they continued discussing the consulting agreement despite not having any intention of entering into it. He also says he relied on several attorneys who advised him such an agreement could be ethical, under certain circumstances.
His lawyers previously testified they believed he could enter a consulting agreement if he kept his client informed about it and if the hospital system wanted the deal, too.
Both lawyers said they were unaware of Snyder’s threat of a disparaging media blitz.
Without knowing he was under investigation, Snyder kept preparing as if the deal was going forward. He dictated a script for a presentation he hoped to give to UMMS’s board of directors, explaining the basis for the consulting agreement.
“You may use my services as much or as little as you see fit,” Snyder said into a dictation machine. “It’s done all the time.”
He added that if the hospital system officials “impose impediments,” he would go forward with his public relations plan.
“In no way, shape or form should it be considered as a fee to keep me quiet, i.e. hush money,” Snyder planned to tell the board.
The hospital system canceled its next meeting with Snyder, which was scheduled for September, at the advice of federal authorities.
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