TAMPA, Fla., (WFLA) \u2014 Another hurdle in the case against Leo Govoni was overcome in Federal Court on Tuesday.<\/p>\n
Govoni is the Pinellas County businessman found liable for the disappearance of more than $100 million dollars from special needs trusts.<\/p>\n
His longtime accountant, John Witeck, is also charged alongside him in the case. <\/p>\n
Tuesday\u2019s hearing in front of Judge Natalie Adams was to decide on a motion disputing delaying the trial to next May.<\/p>\n
Witeck\u2019s attorney filed the motion challenging the decision on the trial being pushed back. <\/p>\n
The trial date was set for February of next year, but during a hearing last month, was pushed to May 2027. <\/p>\n
Witeck and Govoni are both charged after federal prosecutors said the two built a scheme convincing their victims the money they put into the special needs trust was safe. <\/p>\n
Govoni was found liable in the disappearance of more than $100 million dollars from the bankrupt Center for Special Needs Trust Administration. <\/p>\n
\u201cAnyone that steals from disabled people, they have a certain place in hell,\u201d said Sean Burke. <\/p>\n
In late July, 8 On Your Side\u2019s Alessandra Young spoke with Sean Burke, one of the alleged victims. Burke had an incident at a hospital years ago that left him a quadriplegic. He did reach a settlement with that hospital in 2023.<\/p>\n
He put his money into a trust, which is how he heard about Govoni in the first place. He said Govoni allegedly stole half a million dollars from him. <\/p>\n
\u201cThat man is a coward,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Court documents reveal the mountains of evidence that need to be combed through to get ready for the trial. <\/p>\n
According to the documents, the evidence gathering process is not complete. <\/p>\n
In court on Tuesday, Judge Adams set a date for late January of next year where all the material needs to be ready to review. <\/p>\n
Govoni and Witeck are facing 15 grand jury charges, including conspiracy to commit mail and wire fraud. <\/p>\n
Alleged victims have been waiting and waiting to find out where their money went. <\/p>\n
\u201cWhere did it go?\u201d Burke said. <\/p>\n
The judge laid out an entire schedule of deadlines for both parties to meet. <\/p>\n
The exact day for the trial to begin was not brought up during Tuesday\u2019s hearing. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"TAMPA, Fla., (WFLA) \u2014 Another hurdle in the case against Leo Govoni was overcome in Federal Court on…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":420956,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[202,204,203,199,201,200],"class_list":["post-420955","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-st-petersburg","tag-st-pete","tag-st-pete-headlines","tag-st-pete-news","tag-st-petersburg","tag-st-petersburg-headlines","tag-st-petersburg-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/420955","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=420955"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/420955\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/420956"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=420955"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=420955"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=420955"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}