The arraignment of Carlos De Oliveira, charged in Special Counsel Jack Smith’s superseding indictment into his investigation of former President Trump’s handling of classified documents, was postponed Monday.
De Oliveira, the property manager of Trump’s Florida residence Mar-a-Lago, made his first court appearance Monday morning. U.S. Magistrate Judge Edwin Torres presided over the hearing.
However, as of Monday De Oliveira’s legal team had not secured local counsel for their client.
The rules surrounding the federal court in Miami require that practicing attorneys be a member in good standing of the Florida bar, or to be sponsored by one before appearing.
Another person named in both the initial and the superseding indictment, Trump aide Walt Nauta, underwent the same situation. It wasn’t until his third court appearance before Judge Torres to enter a not guilty plea that Nauta finally obtained a Florida attorney to represent him: Sasha Dadan.
De Oliveira is now set to be arraigned on August 10 in Ft. Pierce, Florida. He was released on a $100,000 bond pending trial.
In the superseding indictment released by Smith on Thursday, De Oliveira was charged with three criminal counts for allegedly aiding in an attempt to conceal Mar-a-Lago surveillance video footage that had been subpoenaed by the Department of Justices.
Charges against 56-year-old De Oliveira include one count each of altering, destroying, mutilating, or concealing an object; corruptly altering, destroying, mutilating or concealing a document, record or other object; and making false statements and representations during a voluntary interview with federal investigators.
The superseding indictment also adds additional counts against Trump related to the subpoenaed surveillance video, including: altering, destroying, mutilating, or concealing an object; and corruptly altering, destroying, mutilating or concealing a document, record or other object; and an additional charge of willful retention of national defense information.
That’s on top of the 37 criminal counts to which Trump pleaded not guilty on June 13, including 31 initial counts for willful retention of national defense secrets in violation of the Espionage Act, as well as one count each of making false statements, conspiracy to obstruct justice, withholding a document or record, corruptly concealing a document or record, concealing a document in a federal investigation, and a scheme to conceal.
An attorney for De Oliveira declined last week to comment on the charges against his client. Trump has denied any wrongdoing and said the Mar-a-Lago security tapes were voluntarily handed over to investigators. Since the release of the superseding indictment, Trump has posted multiple times on his Truth Social platform that the tapes in question were not deleted.
Prosecutors have not alleged that the Mar-a-Lago security footage was actually deleted or ultimately kept from investigators.
