Former V.I. Management and Budget Director Jenifer O’Neal has asked a federal judge to push her court-ordered surrender date by eight weeks while she secures new legal representation to appeal her December conviction on charges of wire fraud, bribery and money laundering conspiracy.
U.S. District Judge Mark Kearney ordered O’Neal to surrender into federal custody by June 23 after sentencing her to spend seven years in prison last week. During an occasionally tense sentencing hearing, friction between O’Neal and her attorney, Dale Lionel Smith, briefly halted proceedings. She revisited her concerns in a June 14 letter to Smith in which she said her decision to seek new counsel was “based on serious concerns about the quality and attentiveness” of Smith’s representation. O’Neal claimed that she repeatedly urged Smith to file a motion to sever her case from that of her co-defendant, former V.I. Police Commissioner Ray Martinez, ahead of their trial in late 2025.
“Beyond the severance issue, I have consistently felt throughout this representation that my concerns, my instructions, and my knowledge of the facts were not being heard or incorporated into my defense,” she wrote, adding that trial transcripts and Kearney’s rulings reveal “several instances where the evidence was framed in ways that could have been challenged more effectively, including the characterization of routine ARPA payment communications as evidence of corrupt intent.”
O’Neal also appeared frustrated last week to learn that Smith had not filed a sentencing request — or letters from supporters requesting leniency. Instead, Smith emailed the materials to Kearney and government attorneys while asking for leave to file them under seal because the letter writers “were assured that their letters would be read only by the court and parties and not placed on the public docket.” Kearney denied the request.
“This was not the first instance in which motions in my case were filed after the purported deadline or in a manner that did not meet the Court’s requirements,” O’Neal wrote. “This pattern is deeply troubling.”
O’Neal’s request to stay her surrender was filed by attorney Carl Williams, whom O’Neal hired “on an emergency and limited basis” to file the motion to stay. By delaying her surrender date, O’Neal said she will be able to “complete the necessary preliminary appellate work, establish a legal relationship with retained appellate counsel of her choosing, and meaningfully assist in the development of the framework of her appeal.”
Kearney has not yet ruled on the request.
