The JEA trial is ongoing. This story will be updated.

A Wall Street credit analyst on Thursday told jurors in the corruption trial of JEA’s former leaders that he disagreed with aspects of the gloomy business case the agency used in 2019 to explore privatization and that he tried in vain to ask JEA’s executives probing questions about it. That testimony is key for prosecutors, whose case includes demonstrating to jurors that former CEO Aaron Zahn used contrived, overly negative financial projections to trick the board of directors into believing privatization was the only viable way to avoid financial trouble in the future.

Zahn’s defense has emphasized that JEA was simply engaging in an exercise called “scenario-based planning” that wasn’t intended to be viewed as providing a definitive view of JEA’s financial future. But the board acted on that planning tool, including allowing Zahn’s team to issue an invitation for bidders to make offers to acquire JEA. And the credit analyst, Jeff Panger, who specializes in public utilities for S&P Global, testified Thursday that Zahn’s view of the agency’s future was “so out of step with what we were seeing historically, and projected by JEA as well as what we were seeing throughout the industry.”

Panger said even planning exercises should still “dovetail” with financial forecasts. In the case of JEA, at the same time Zahn was presenting the board with his dire vision of the future, his team was also giving Wall Street credit-rating firms like S&P far more optimistic data. That contradiction raised concerns in Panger’s eyes.

“Planning itself is not necessarily fully reflective of financial forecasts, but it should, if it’s done properly, contain largely the same sort of assumptions, which in our view it did not,” Panger said of JEA’s work.

Panger sent an email in real time to JEA’s financial leaders and told them some of the assumptions, like a predicted decline in sales, didn’t match what others in the industry were projecting. ““If this is indeed JEA’s view, why is this not reflected in JEA’s forecast …,” he wrote.

The tone of Panger’s email angered then-CFO Ryan Wannemacher, a JEA financial official told federal prosecutors. Instead of answering Panger, JEA engaged with its banker to intercede with a more senior analyst at S&P. After that, Panger’s tone had “softened,” according to prior court testimony.

Nate Monroe is a metro columnist whose work regularly appears every Thursday and Sunday. Follow him on Twitter @NateMonroeTU.

This article originally appeared on Florida Times-Union: S&P analyst had concerns about Jacksonville utility’s privatization