The Indianapolis Star reported on an Akerman litigation team's courtroom triumph on behalf of client Bobby Peavler, former chief financial officer of Celadon Group Inc., an Indianapolis-based trucking and transport company.
Peavler, represented by litigation partners Michael Kelly and Sergio Acosta, based in Washington and Chicago respectively, was accused by Federal prosecutors of conspiring to overstate the value of the company's used truck inventory to shareholders almost three years prior to Celadon declaring bankruptcy in December 2019. But the Department of Justice dropped the charges in August of this year, after Kelly and Acosta demonstrated that the FBI had provided false testimony about what Peavler said in an interview and had identified evidence showing Peavler's innocence.
The Star wrote in the September 8threport: "Michael Kelly, a partner at Akerman LLP and Peavler's attorney, said it's out of the norm for the government to dismiss a case before its trial, but he thinks the dismissal highlights two points.
"'Bobby Peavler was innocent of the charges in this case,' he said. 'I believe that the government ultimately recognized that by agreeing to dismiss the charges with prejudice in the interest of justice. This case shows that the FBI should tape record its interviews and not rely on FBI agents to produce memoranda because in this case the inaccurate memorandum resulted in an FBI agent testifying inaccurately.'"