A person walks into the SoHo apartment building in the 1500 block of South 7th Street in Soulard on Friday, Aug. 11, 2023.
ST. LOUIS — Sid Chakraverty, the developer indicted last year for lying about the use of minority contractors to obtain city property tax breaks, has a new lawyer: U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi’s brother.
In filings Tuesday in the federal case against him, Chakraverty and his co-defendants — his brother and co-developer Victor Alston and their accountant, Shijing “Poppy” Cao — ask the court to dismiss the federal wire fraud charges against them, arguing the city’s minority hiring law is unconstitutional.
Washington, D.C., lawyer Brad Bondi, the attorney general’s brother, entered an appearance in ӣƵ federal court Tuesday on behalf of Chakraverty. Bondi works at the global law firm Paul Hastings, where Chakraverty’s lead defense counsel, Renato Mariotti of Chicago, is also a lawyer.
On Tuesday, Bondi and other defense lawyers filed two motions to dismiss the charges against Chakraverty, Alston and Cao, who led major regional developer Lux Living and landlords Asprient Properties and STL CityWide. The trio are accused of submitting fake documents to officials at the ӣƵ Development Corp. inflating their use of minority contractors, which the city requires developers to use as part of agreements to obtain property tax breaks.
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Vic Alston, from left, his brother Sid Chakraverty, and accountant Shijing "Poppy" Cao were accused in a federal indictment of falsifying records related to the city’s minority contracting requirements for developers who receive tax incentives. Chakraverty, Alston and Cao were charged with one count of conspiracy to commit wire fraud and 11 counts if wire fraud.
One of the motions argues that the development incentives the city granted are not “property” under federal criminal fraud statutes. A second motion to dismiss the case argues that the city’s entire minority hiring program is unconstitutional.
“If the government proceeds forward with this prosecution premised on the City’s right to do just that, it will be endorsing unconstitutionally discriminatory race- and sex-based programs in direct violation of President Trump’s Executive Orders,” Bondi and the other attorneys write.
The entrance of the politically connected lawyer and arguments taking aim at the city’s goal of encouraging the growth of minority contractors by tying tax incentives to their hiring is a shot across the bow of the government’s case against the wealthy developers, who had grown into the most prolific apartment builders in the region while leaving behind a trail of complaints over the poor maintenance of their properties and strongarm tactics against tenants.
The trio have pleaded not guilty since their September indictments following an 18-month federal investigation aided by officials in SLDC, who had grown suspicious of Alston and Chakraverty’s claims about minority hiring and frustrated over their moves to stymie other city developments they saw as rivals.
Construction continues on both the Lux Living apartment building, top center, and the Expo at Forest Park, foreground, a mixed use development by Jeff Tegethoff, on DeBaliviere Avenue in the Skinker-DeBaliviere neighborhood, seen on Monday, Sept. 20, 2021.
The government has not yet responded to the motions. But they come as President Donald Trump is set to nominate a new U.S. Attorney for ӣƵ and amid broader national concerns over the politicization of the Justice Department.
In the case against the Lux Living developers, the dismissal motion arguing that ӣƵ’ minority hiring program is unconstitutional is “a smart strategic move,” to leverage the Trump administration’s aversion to diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives, said Kathleen Clark, a professor of legal ethics at Washington University. And given what she characterized as the Justice Department’s corrupt operation under Trump and Pam Bondi, there’s a good chance that hiring Brad Bondi is an attempt to get the attention of his sister in the hope she will have the case dismissed.
“In this context, one has to be cognizant of the distinct possibility that this is about corrupt influence peddling rather than any kind of decision on the merits,” Clark said.
Normally, government ethics rules would prohibit Attorney General Bondi from intervening in a federal prosecution where her brother represents a defendant.
“But what we have seen with Trump 2.0 is ethics rules are for suckers, essentially,” Clark said. “Ethics rules are dispensed with, are ignored or flagrantly violated.”
Despite only entering an appearance Tuesday, Brad Bondi has been working as a lawyer for Chakraverty since at least May 13, according to a letter to the defense team from Assistant U.S. Attorney Hal Goldsmith, who heads public corruption and white-collar prosecutions in ӣƵ. The letter was also filed Tuesday as an exhibit in the case.
Brad Bondi has represented high-profile clients that have been in Trump’s orbit, such as billionaire Elon Musk, and Trump Media & Technology Group. Brad Bondi also represented Trevor Milton, convicted in 2022 of defrauding investors in Nikola, the bankrupt electric truck maker he founded and led.
Last month, Bondi was defeated in his high-profile bid for president of the .
US President Donald Trump has said that Attorney General Pam Bondi should disclose the “credible” files related to Jeffrey Epstein, the accused sex trafficker. His appeal follows growing pressure from MAGA supporters amid increasing outrage over the handling of the case by the administration. This comes after Bondi was criticized by some of Trump’s supporters for claiming there was no evidence Epstein maintained a “client list” or blackmailed powerful individuals. As he left the White House, Trump told reporters he had received a “very quick briefing” on the Justice Department and FBI's review of the files. "We've gone through years of it, but she's handled it very well, and it's going to be up to her. Whatever she thinks is credible, she should release," Trump said regarding Bondi. Following Epstein's death in a US prison in 2019, many MAGA supporters have speculated that details about his crimes are being deliberately withheld to protect influential figures. Trump, who has previously been photographed with Epstein, denied that he is on the list when asked whether Bondi had told him his name was included. Just last week, Trump criticized the persistent obsession with the case, describing it as “sordid but boring.” He also claimed that the files were “made up” by former Presidents Barack Obama and Joe Biden, despite his own administration’s role in publicizing the documents.
