Is a Florida pastor accused of fraud feigning sickness to keep away from jail?

The thriller over the well being of a Florida pastor accused in a Covid aid 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 have been arrested on prices of fraudulently acquiring $8 million in pandemic loans for a sham ministry. 

A choose ordered a psychiatrist to look at Edwards, 64, after he refused to take part in his first court docket 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 Decide Leslie Hoffman Value mentioned at a Jan. 26 court docket listening to, in keeping with a transcript obtained by NBC Information. 

Corridor in the end decided that Edwards was unfit to face trial. However the choose 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 elements, however there’s medical points which might be utterly verifiable,” Value mentioned.

The choose provided no additional particulars as a result of the specifics of Edwards’ well being points, in addition to Corridor’s report, are nonetheless underneath 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,” Value mentioned.

Edwards’ court-appointed lawyer, Brian Phillips, instructed the choose 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 choose then raised the difficulty of how one can proceed with a detention listening to with Edwards’ psychological health in query. She requested Phillips if he was capable of talk together 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 favor 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 Seaside, the place his spouse and daughter additionally lived. They every resist 30 years in jail if convicted on the highest rely of conspiracy to commit financial institution fraud.

On the preliminary court docket look, a lawyer for Josh Edwards instructed the choose he was having bother speaking together with his shopper, prompting the choose to ask a collection of fundamental questions together with “Are you in ache?”

Josh Edwards didn’t say a phrase, and the choose 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 fantastic.”

If the Edwardses have 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 keeping 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, have been two clear rubbish baggage filled with shredded paperwork, in keeping with the civil forfeiture criticism. 

The household’s private digital units have 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 monetary data, two different Faraday baggage with laptops and tablets inside, a doc shredder and a number of backpacks containing exterior onerous drives and USB drives, the criticism says. 

The Edwardses have 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, lease and utilities for his household’s spiritual 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 permitted for an $8.4 million mortgage.

However federal investigators later discovered that its places of work had been deserted, its web site donation hyperlinks inactivated and its payroll bills and revenues “considerably decrease or totally nonexistent,” in keeping with a civil forfeiture criticism. 

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 growth known as Golden Oaks, in keeping with prosecutors. 

However the deal by no means went via. The authorities seized the $868,000 that had been put aside for the down fee.

In court docket late final month, a prosecutor mentioned the federal government believes Edwards poses a critical flight danger and would oppose his launch to dwelling confinement.

“This can be a tough state of affairs and set of info, however there’s a historical past of flight, and the household was concerned in that — the identical household that will be caring for him,” Assistant U.S. Lawyer Kara Wick instructed the choose, in keeping 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 advanced medical points.

He was cleared for discharge from the hospital in December, however all the detention facilities within the space have refused to deal with him, prosecutors mentioned in a Feb. 3 court docket submitting.

In accordance with a well being official with the Orange County jail, Edwards requires “whole day by day care,” consisting of “intervention not less than each hour or two hours; and help with day by day dwelling duties, together with a feeding tube,” the submitting says.

Whereas a facility in South Carolina has agreed to take Edwards via a particular program, his lawyer mentioned he believes the higher possibility is for him to go dwelling to be cared for by his household.

“In accordance with Defendant’s household, the household has been skilled to take care of him at dwelling on account of his medical situations which got here to gentle final summer season,” 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.