ST. LOUIS — Former ºüÀêÊÓƵ Aldermanic Board President Lewis Reed is expected to plead guilty Friday in a federal bribery case against him and two other ex-aldermen.
Reed has a change-of-plea hearing set for 11 a.m. Friday in U.S. District Court in ºüÀêÊÓƵ, which means he is expected to change his earlier not guilty plea to guilty.
Reed’s lawyer Scott Rosenblum said Monday that “it would not be appropriate†for him to comment.
Former Alderman John Collins-Muhammad is set to plead guilty on Tuesday, and fellow former Alderman Jeffrey Boyd is set to plead guilty to all charges on Friday.
Collins-Muhammad said last month that he had reached a plea agreement with prosecutors and waived pretrial motions as a condition of the deal.
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Boyd, Collins-Muhammad and Reed were indicted in June on charges of accepting cash bribes in exchange for helping push legislation granting businesses tax abatements. Boyd also intervened to help a businessman purchase real estate from the ºüÀêÊÓƵ Land Reutilization Authority.
Lawyers for Boyd and Collins-Muhammad have previously confirmed the plea hearings but declined further comment.
Reed resigned in June, five days after being indicted on corruption charges. He had held that key city post for 15 years.
The indictments were the result of a 2½-year investigation by the FBI and U.S. Attorney’s Office involving surveillance, hundreds of recorded phone calls and meetings, and thousands of text messages and emails, Assistant U.S. Attorney Hal Goldsmith said in court in June.
Goldsmith said the three defendants accepted cash bribes and other goods in “pay-to-play schemes†for the passage of board bills and other official action.
The indictments alleged that Collins-Muhammad and later Reed helped a small-business owner obtain a property tax abatement from the city for a new gas station and convenience store on Von Phul Street near Interstate 70 that a businessman was seeking to develop in Collins-Muhammad’s 21st Ward on the north side.
The business owner is referred to as “John Doe†in the indictment. But the properties mentioned appear to correspond to sites owned by Mohammed Almuttan that were the subject of federal subpoenas sent to the city’s development arm.
Almuttan co-owns and operates several gas stations and convenience stores in north ºüÀêÊÓƵ and north ºüÀêÊÓƵ County. He had been one of 35 people charged in a 2017 cigarette and synthetic marijuana trafficking sting. Many of his charges were dismissed in April as part of a a plea agreement. He is scheduled to be sentenced in October.
Boyd quit as 22nd Ward alderman in June. Collins-Muhammad resigned in May, citing “mistakes†but not elaborating.