McDonald enters not guilty pleas to fed criminal charges in EDA financial scandal case

By virtual, remote hook up Friday, September 3, Jennifer McDonald entered not guilty pleas to the 34 federal charges brought against her four days earlier related to the $26-million to $62-million-dollar Front Royal-Warren County Economic Development Authority (EDA) financial scandal. Following a hearing after her Tuesday, August 31st arrest, the former EDA executive director remains free on a personal recognizance bond pending trial.

In fact, during Friday’s brief virtual hearing Harrisonburg-based Judge Joel Hoppe set a November 3rd trial date. However, Public Defenders Office attorney Andrea Harris who represented McDonald Friday, indicated a continuance would likely be sought by the defense at that time. As those who have followed this case as it developed through 2018, ’19, and ’20 will recall, the volume of evidentiary material estimated at what is likely well over a million pages now, led the State Special Prosecutor’s Office to drop the original criminal indictments against McDonald and a few co-EDA criminal case defendants in 2019, in order to avoid speedy trial issues that could have led to defense motions for dismissal of those charges. It is likely that manpower issues led the Harrisonburg-based State Special Prosecutor’s Office to eventually hand the cases over to federal prosecutors in the Western District of Virginia, also based in Harrisonburg.

FBI on scene in April 2019 with other law enforcement seizing evidence out of Jennifer McDonald’s former office, which had been locked down since her Dec. 20, 2018, resignation under mounting pressure from her board. Below, that office after materials, including McDonald’s work computer, was removed on April 16, 2019. Royal Examiner File Photos by Roger Bianchini

Current EDA Board Chairman Jeff Browne told Royal Examiner Tuesday he believed federal prosecutors were anticipating a 2022 trial in the McDonald-EDA criminal cases.

As reported in Tuesday’s story on McDonald’s arrest and recognizance bond release, the 34-count indictment filed by a federal grand jury on August 25, includes 16 money laundering counts, 10 counts of bank fraud, 7 of wire fraud, and 1 count of aggravated identity theft regarding someone identified as “T.T.” (ITFederal principal Truc Tran perhaps?)

As previously reported on the once $26-million civil case side of EDA financial scandal, the EDA and McDonald have reached a no-fault agreement on a debt of $9-million by the former EDA executive director to the EDA. That agreement in which McDonald admits no wrongdoing, has also been accepted by the bankruptcy court and EDA civil case Judge Bruce D. Albertson.

Also as noted in our earlier story Federal Prosecutors charge McDonald on 34 criminal counts in EDA financial scandal, out of McDonald’s bankruptcy filing the EDA civil claim of damages in the alleged McDonald-led conspiracy to embezzle EDA assets to her and others personal gain, has risen to $62 million.