The thriller over the well being of a Florida pastor accused in a Covid reduction rip-off has deepened after a court-ordered psychiatrist ready a report that advised he is likely to be faking a few of his signs.
The pastor, Evan Edwards, has been hospitalized since December when he and his son had been arrested on fees of fraudulently acquiring $8 million in pandemic loans for a sham ministry.
A decide ordered a psychiatrist to look at Edwards, 64, after he refused to take part in his first courtroom look and mumbled incoherently in a subsequent one. However the psychiatrist, Dr. Ryan Corridor, wasn’t capable of shed a lot gentle on the pastor’s well being.
Edwards was “unable or unwilling” to interact with the psychiatrist, Justice of the Peace Choose Leslie Hoffman Worth mentioned at a Jan. 26 courtroom listening to, in accordance with a transcript obtained by NBC Information.
Corridor in the end decided that Edwards was unfit to face trial. However the decide mentioned there have been questions over whether or not the accused fraudster was feigning sickness.
“I do know there’s a suggestion of potential malingering on some points, however there’s medical points which might be fully verifiable,” Worth mentioned.
The decide supplied no additional particulars as a result of the specifics of Edwards’ well being points, in addition to Corridor’s report, are nonetheless beneath seal. Corridor reached his conclusion that Edwards was not competent after spending solely quarter-hour with him.
Corridor was “unable to find out if it’s a medical challenge or if it’s a psychological challenge or some mixture of the identical,” Worth mentioned.
Edwards’ court-appointed lawyer, Brian Phillips, instructed the decide he thought the report was inconsistent and raised extra questions than solutions. He mentioned he believed the difficulty ought to be resolved in a competency listening to.
“I can’t take Dr. Corridor’s report at face worth,” Phillips added.
The decide then raised the difficulty of tips on how to proceed with a detention listening to with Edwards’ psychological health in query. She requested Phillips if he was capable of talk along with his shopper.
“In solely probably the most restricted style, your honor,” Phillips replied.
He mentioned Edwards has solely communicated in “monosyllabic responses or gestures to easy binary questions.”
“I’m capable of discern from that that he would like to not be handcuffed, ankle and wrist, to the hospital mattress that he’s been in since December,” Phillips mentioned. “That a lot, I’m sure of.”
A competency listening to is anticipated to happen later this month.
Phillips didn’t return a request for remark.
Edwards was in a wheelchair when federal brokers arrested him and his son, Josh, 30, at their dwelling in New Smyrna Seashore, the place his spouse and daughter additionally lived. They every resist 30 years in jail if convicted on the highest depend of conspiracy to commit financial institution fraud.
On the preliminary courtroom look, a lawyer for Josh Edwards instructed the decide he was having hassle speaking along with his shopper, prompting the decide to ask a collection of primary questions together with: “Are you in ache?”
Josh Edwards didn’t say a phrase, and the decide ordered a psychiatric examination.
However then a prosecutor chimed in, noting that the brokers who arrested him earlier within the day mentioned he was “talking and responding to them simply advantageous.”
If the Edwardses had been faking an sickness or exaggerating signs, it wouldn’t be the primary time accused criminals did so to keep away from jail.
In maybe probably the most well-known case, mobster Vincent “The Chin” Gigante delayed his racketeering trial for years by performing unusual — a transfer that garnered him a second nickname, “Oddfather.”
The arrest of Edwards and his son got here greater than two years after federal brokers confirmed up on the dwelling to execute a search.
Later that day in September 2020, Florida law enforcement officials pulled over the household’s Mercedes SUV because it was heading north on a freeway in central Florida, about 150 miles from the household’s dwelling, in accordance with a police report.
Evan Edwards, seated within the entrance passenger seat, had a laser printer on his lap. In a rear passenger seat, subsequent to his spouse and daughter, had been two clear rubbish luggage filled with shredded paperwork, in accordance with the civil forfeiture grievance.
The household’s private digital units had been stuffed right into a Faraday bag, which blocks radio frequencies to maintain the units from being tracked.
There have been additionally suitcases full of economic information, two different Faraday luggage with laptops and tablets inside, a doc shredder and a number of backpacks containing exterior exhausting drives and USB drives, the grievance says.
The Edwardses had been taken into custody however launched the subsequent day.
The case facilities on a $6 million Paycheck Safety Program mortgage utility filed by Josh Edwards to cowl payroll, hire and utilities for his household’s non secular group, ASLAN Worldwide Ministry.
The paperwork mentioned that ASLAN had 486 workers and a month-to-month payroll of $2.7 million. ASLAN Worldwide was in the end accredited for an $8.4 million mortgage.
However federal investigators later discovered that its workplaces had been deserted, its web site donation hyperlinks inactivated and its payroll bills and revenues “considerably decrease or completely nonexistent,” in accordance with a civil forfeiture grievance.
The household had tried to make use of the cash to purchase a $3.7 million, 4,700-square-foot dwelling in a brand new Disney World improvement known as Golden Oaks, in accordance with prosecutors.
However the deal by no means went by. The authorities seized the $868,000 that had been put aside for the down fee.
In courtroom late final month, a prosecutor mentioned the federal government believes Edwards poses a severe flight danger and would oppose his launch to dwelling confinement.
“It is a tough scenario and set of information, however there’s a historical past of flight, and the household was concerned in that — the identical household that might be caring for him,” Assistant U.S. Lawyer Kara Wick instructed the decide, in accordance with the transcript.
The U.S. Marshals Service has been working with Orange County officers to discover a native correctional facility that may accommodate Edwards given his complicated medical points.
He was cleared for discharge from the hospital in December, however the entire detention facilities within the space have refused to accommodate him, prosecutors mentioned in a Feb. 3 courtroom submitting.
In line with a well being official with the Orange County jail, Edwards requires “complete day by day care,” consisting of “intervention a minimum of each hour or two hours; and help with day by day residing duties, together with a feeding tube,” the submitting says.
Whereas a facility in South Carolina has agreed to take Edwards by a particular program, his lawyer mentioned he believes the higher choice is for him to go dwelling to be cared for by his household.
“In line with Defendant’s household, the household has been educated to take care of him at dwelling because of his medical circumstances which got here to gentle final summer time,” Phillips wrote within the submitting.
The response from the U.S. Lawyer’s Workplace for the Center District of Florida was unambiguous.
“The federal government’s place is that launch to the defendant’s household is inappropriate,” prosecutors wrote.
