NEW YORK CITY – Devon Archer, who works for Jeffrey Cooper of Edwardsville and once worked with Hunter Biden, claims he hasn’t produced records of a $43 million fraud because he can’t pay the vendor who stored them.
Archer’s counsel Matthew Schwartz described the problem to U.S. Magistrate Ona Wang on May 27, in his portion of a status report.
Securities and Exchange Commission counsel Nancy Brown stated in her half of the report that Archer didn’t explain his failure to produce.
“If all a party has to do to escape his production obligation is turn his documents over to a vendor and then stop paying for those services, orders compelling production would seem far too easy to evade,” Brown wrote.
Wang had ordered production on April 28.
Grand jurors indicted Archer and others on fraud charges in 2016.
They charged that defendants arranged bond issues for a Sioux tribe but spent proceeds for their own purposes.
The events behind the indictments happened while Archer and Biden jointly managed investments, but the bond scandal didn’t touch Biden.
The Securities and Exchange Commission sued for recovery in civil court but the criminal action stayed the suits.
Jurors convicted all defendants in 2018, and Wang ordered Archer to produce thousands of documents to the commission.
Nine days later, District Judge Ronnie Abrams vacated his conviction and granted a second trial.
Wang stayed the production order.
Second Circuit judges reinstated the conviction in 2020, and Abrams sentenced Archer for a year this February.
He appealed his conviction and sentence but that didn’t deter Brown from moving to lift the stay from Wang’s production order.
Wang lifted it and 29 days passed without compliance.
Schwartz ’s status report stated that the vendor removed access to documents until Archer paid his outstanding balance.
He stated Archer paid down some debt, but that a substantial amount remained and he didn’t know when it would be fully paid.
He stated he’d endeavor to comply should the commission pay the bills or convince the vendor to provide access.
Brown’s status report stated she wasn’t aware that Archer ceased paying his vendor “until today.”
She argued that Schwartz didn’t call him “impecunious” or describe the size of his debt.
She claimed Archer didn’t produce 2,500 documents that former attorney Stephen Weiss sent to him in banker boxes.
She claimed he didn’t update a log of confidentiality assertions for those and that she couldn’t ascertain whether the log reflects producible documents.
She claimed it’s 281 pages and encompasses privilege claims of defunct entities.
“Questions also arise as to what Archer will do if his current Second Circuit appeal is successful and he is granted a new trial or resentencing,” Brown wrote.
“If he has plans to pay off his vendor then so that he can access his case files for those purposes, it would seem that he made a strategic choice to ignore the court’s order.”