A federal judge on Thursday evening found attorney Stephen L. Snyder in criminal contempt and sent him to jail overnight, stating that he repeatedly and intentionally violated her orders during his trial on attempted extortion charges.

Long known for his prowess as a top plaintiff’s attorney in Maryland, Snyder, now 77, put on an often unprepared and meandering case as he represented himself. He seethed during closing arguments that he was a victim of entrapment and government overreach.

Some of those references violated specific court orders from U.S. District Judge Deborah L. Boardman not to discuss aspects of the investigation, which Snyder had also violated during the trial. And while he opted not to testify, the judge said Snyder repeatedly conveyed information to jurors anyway through his questions and arguments.

“Summary contempt is the only way to restore order in my courtroom,” Boardman said before Snyder was led out by U.S. marshals.

Snyder is on trial over a proposed $25 million consultancy arrangement with the University of Maryland Medical System (UMMS) in 2018 that prosecutors said was a shakedown.

The defendant said in court earlier Thursday that he had hoped the consultancy would be his “legacy.” Instead, it’s the trial that is likely to define how he is remembered — either for representing himself to pull off his most important legal victory, or for stubbornly refusing criminal defense help and becoming a convicted felon.

The case arises from Snyder’s representation of two clients who said they suffered complications from transplant surgery at UMMS. Snyder threatened to destroy the organ transplant program with a negative press blitz if the UM medical system did not pay him.

“This was about power and control for this defendant,” Assistant U.S. Attorney Evelyn Cusson told jurors in her closing arguments.

Snyder said he was acting aggressively in his clients’ interest and had consulted with legal ethics experts for guidance on his approach to the hospital. Prosecutors initially cleared him of criminal wrongdoing, only to charge him two years later — a fact Snyder was prevented from telling jurors about, but which he sought to discuss anyway.

“If Maryland didn’t want to do it, that was the end,” Snyder said. “Steve Snyder would not being doing a consultancy. If they didn’t want to do it, why didn’t they tell me?”

Hospital officials said they kept the conversations going because they were afraid Snyder would follow through on his threats, and went to the FBI.

In conversations secretly recorded by the FBI in 2018, Snyder told hospital officials that if they hired him as a consultant, he would have a conflict and not be able to bring additional cases. He said they could use him as little or as much as they wanted, and hospital officials testified that he gave little indication of what they would be paying him for other than not to publicly disparage the hospital.

Snyder was also recorded saying he wanted to make sure the arrangement was proper and that it was “not hush money” or extortion. That was little more than a cover, prosecutors argued.

“Mr. Snyder has a way of saying the opposite of what he means,” Assistant U.S. Attorney Matthew Phelps said.

Over the course of his 50-year career, Snyder has been heralded for his legal skills, winning multiple nine-figure settlements and jury verdicts. During the trial, he has repeated his well-known commercial tagline, “Don’t just sue them, Snyder them.”

But by his own admission, Snyder is not at the top of his game.

He has told the court that he is in poor health and struggling. He repeatedly ran afoul of the judge. Most of his direct and cross-examinations were peppered with sustained objections for not following court rules and Boardman’s orders, including 100 in one day of testimony. In imposing the overnight jail stay, Boardman said Snyder had been twice warned that he faced criminal contempt during bench conferences.

Snyder was unprepared to question even his own witnesses.

His final witness, a doctor whom Snyder had consulted with six years ago about alleged problems at UMMS, said he couldn’t remember the vast majority of what he had told Snyder. The lawyer failed to introduce any documents that could refresh the doctor’s recollection. It was prosecutors, on cross-examination, who showed him an email that summarized his opinions.

Among other things, he also raised objections to jury instructions that he was supposed to have lodged a month ago.

Jurors have received a crash course in the world of organ transplants, with a parade of UMMS officials, past and present, taking the witness stand to explain how transplant kidneys are rated and how the hospital took on riskier cases in order to help more people.

The case also has pulled back the curtain on the hidden world of malpractice settlements. Testimony showed Snyder engineered an $8.5 million settlement for one client, who later died, and a $5 million settlement for another client after her husband died.

“The wrong person is being prosecuted,” Snyder told jurors. “It is the bad conduct of Maryland that has not been exposed.”

UMMS officials conceded that mistakes were made in Snyder’s clients’ cases, but rejected Snyder’s assertions about the overall program. They said he was distorting claims in order to squeeze them for money.

“He took a kernel of information,” Cusson said, “and twisted it and used to broker a side deal for himself for $25 million.”

Snyder took a top hospital official, Dr. Stephen Bartlett, out to dinner at The Capital Grille with their significant others. Snyder directed Bartlett to the bar, where the maître d’ handed him an envelope containing graphic images of a hospital patient and internal hospital documents. Snyder said he wanted to be paid to keep it quiet.

Red-faced with bloodshot eyes, Snyder repeatedly told Bartlett’s wife, “As long as he does what I want him to do, you’ll be OK,” according to Bartlett, who was the chief medical officer at UMMS.

“I was sick inside,” Bartlett testified. “I felt as if I had just had dinner with a very bad person.”

Bartlett later sent Snyder a text message saying he had told another hospital official that they were at risk for fraud and punitive damages. Snyder told jurors that was an admission of wrongdoing, but Bartlett said he was conveying Snyder’s threat.

In a hospital official’s notes from a meeting with Snyder, he was asked why $25 million. “Bc that’s what you have to pay me,” he said, according to her notes. “I could make it $100M.”

Andrew Jay Graham, a well-known Baltimore attorney whom Snyder hired for ethical guidance, testified that he thought it appropriate for Snyder to seek the consultancy arrangement, though he also said he was unaware of the threats Snyder was making. Another legal expert also testified that there was nothing unusual about the proposed arrangement, and said it appeared to him, based on Snyder’s assertions, that the hospital was at risk for greater economic harm.

Michele Sanders, the client of Snyder’s who lost her husband after severe complications following a kidney transplant, testified that she wasn’t seeking economic relief but wanted to make sure there were changes at UMMS. She said she wanted Snyder to become a consultant “so this would never, ever, ever happen to anyone else again.”

She said she trusts Snyder to this day. But in response to Snyder’s final question, she said she was upset after learning that Snyder’s consultancy would have put him “on their side,” referring to the hospital.

That would mean “you couldn’t help people like me anymore,” Sanders testified. “I said if you ever did this, I would never speak to you again.”

Still, outside the courtroom, Sanders told a reporter that she believed Snyder was not guilty.

Jurors also heard from a former associate who worked for Snyder, Kevin Stern, who said Snyder directed him to destroy his notes of a meeting Snyder had with hospital officials. Stern did not destroy the notes, instead making multiple copies and contacting an attorney.

Snyder made repeated references throughout trial to his success as a trial lawyer.

“You would want a lawyer like me, like Steve Snyder, to bring forth the message” if you were hurt by a hospital, he said.

At the conclusion of closing arguments, Snyder said something to Boardman that a Banner reporter could not hear. She said she would be holding an unscheduled hearing and return in 20 minutes. Two U.S. marshals entered the courtroom, with one sitting behind Snyder and another kitty-corner.

“I think she’s holding me in contempt,” Snyder said to his family.

When Boardman issued her order, Snyder said he had health problems and that she should reconsider. She allowed him to write them down and show her, but it did not change her mind. He took off his suit jacket, tie, and belt, and was led out of the courtroom. He was not handcuffed.

He waved to his family and smiled. “Bye,” he said.