Brockman was indicted in October 2020 on 39 federal counts, including tax evasion, wire fraud, money laundering and evidence-tampering, in what federal prosecutors say was a scheme lasting two decades to evade taxes on $2 billion in income. He has pleaded not guilty.
His attorneys requested a competency hearing last December, writing in a court filing that physicians who evaluated Brockman found symptoms consistent with Parkinson’s disease or Lewy body dementia and that the progressive illness has led to problems with processing and retaining information.
Prosecutors argued in court filings that the appearance of Brockman’s symptoms aligned with important dates of the criminal investigation and that his continued role as CEO of Reynolds and Reynolds following his diagnosis — and until after he was formally indicted — raises questions about his attorneys’ claims of impairment.
Prosecutors wrote in an August court filing that “all of the government’s experts found defendant competent, and two of them diagnosed malingering,” or feigning illness.
Brockman’s lawyers had asked Hanks to exclude testimony from the government’s competency experts and appoint “genuine neutral experts,” contending that the government’s experts “acted as partisan examiners.” Prosecutors responded in the filing last month that the request was an attempt to delay competency proceedings and the experts’ appointment was transparent.
Hanks on Monday denied the defense’s motions regarding the government’s experts. He told attorneys during the status conference that “there’s no question that these were prosecution experts. They were hired by the government. They’re paid by the government.”
The competency hearing previously had been delayed until September from an earlier planned date in June after Brockman was hospitalized in March.
