Some say black politicians unfairly targeted
- Thread starter tian
- Start date
No matter how you look at it, its going to be hard to explain 90K in the fridge. Even if somehow the money was legit, its going to be hard for a congressman to sell that story.
If he'd only put the money in coffee cans and buried it in his back yard some place.
QueEx
If he'd only put the money in coffee cans and buried it in his back yard some place.
QueEx
We already have "term limits", 6 yrs. for senators, 4 for presidents. Term limits are the mechanism of a lazy populace that a) usually doesn't like someone else's representative (like say Jesse Helms) and b) doesn't want to really participate in the process. When a politician outstays his welcome his jurisdiction will let him know. This past national election is proof of that.
As far as Jefferson goes, if he's guilty, he should suffer the penalty just like anyone else. He just happened to be Black.
As far as Jefferson goes, if he's guilty, he should suffer the penalty just like anyone else. He just happened to be Black.
blackIpod said:
ipod
they've gone back to 5 day work weeks when the Democrats came back into power.
I hope this serves as fair warning to all black politicians at the local, state, and federal to watch out. The FBI had a black mayor office bugged up like the mafia, I thought that was extreme.
This guy is an idiot, putting this money on his property and dealing with the people directly. He should have gotten somebody to deal with these people and denied everything if he got caught. That is how other politicians do it.
This guy is an idiot, putting this money on his property and dealing with the people directly. He should have gotten somebody to deal with these people and denied everything if he got caught. That is how other politicians do it.
<font size="5"><center>Ex-N.J. mayor indicted on corruption charges</font size><font size="4">
Former Newark leader allegedly fraudulently took money from city</font size></center>
Former Newark, N.J., Mayor Sharpe James,
is charged with using city issued credit cards
to spend extravagantly on himself, eight
women and others during vacations.
Associated Press
July 12, 2007
NEWARK, N.J. - A federal grand jury Thursday indicted former Newark Mayor Sharpe James on corruption charges involving land sales and the extravagant use of city-issued credit cards on himself and several women.
The 33-count indictment charges James with fraud for allegedly facilitating and approving the cut-rate sales of city-owned land to a female companion.
It also charges James, 71, with using the city-issued credit cards on himself and eight women during trips to destinations including Rio de Janeiro, Puerto Rico and Martha’s Vineyard, U.S. Attorney Christopher J. Christie and state Attorney General Anne Milgram announced.
Minutes after the indictment was announced, James was seen walking into FBI headquarters in Newark where he was expected to turn himself in. The woman accused of buying the bargain-priced city land, Tamika Riley, was expected to appear in court with him. Riley, 38, is a publicist and former clothing store operator in Newark.
Ethical questions have long surrounded James, who has a home on the Jersey shore, a yacht and a Rolls Royce. He has been a state senator since 1999, while also serving as Newark’s mayor until last year, when he decided not to see re-election.
“This indictment is about as surprising as the sun rising in the morning,” Tom Wilson, the New Jersey Republican State Committee chairman, said wryly.
The former mayor, a Democrat, has said little publicly since federal investigators notified him that he was the target of a corruption probe last month.
Denies power
In a handwritten letter to The Associated Press, dated June 16, James said he never had the power to broker land deals or set prices by himself.
“No, no, no, the mayor is not a boss or a lord or can give away municipal land,” he wrote.
James served as the mayor of New Jersey’s largest city for 20 years before announcing last year he wouldn’t seek re-election. He announced in April that he also wouldn’t seek another term in the Senate after his current term expires in January.
James first joined Newark city council in 1970. His election in 1986 made him the city’s second black mayor.
He earns $49,000 a year as a senator and collects an annual pension of about $125,000 from Newark. Additionally, he accrued more than $1 million in a retirement account at Essex County College, where he worked two decades ago. After leaving the mayor’s job last year, he directed an urban institute at the college — at a salary of $150,000 annually — before retiring in June.
James withdrew $500,000 from his retirement account last week, state Treasury Department spokesman Tom Vincz said.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/19730758/
Former Newark leader allegedly fraudulently took money from city</font size></center>
Former Newark, N.J., Mayor Sharpe James,
is charged with using city issued credit cards
to spend extravagantly on himself, eight
women and others during vacations.
Associated Press
July 12, 2007
NEWARK, N.J. - A federal grand jury Thursday indicted former Newark Mayor Sharpe James on corruption charges involving land sales and the extravagant use of city-issued credit cards on himself and several women.
The 33-count indictment charges James with fraud for allegedly facilitating and approving the cut-rate sales of city-owned land to a female companion.
It also charges James, 71, with using the city-issued credit cards on himself and eight women during trips to destinations including Rio de Janeiro, Puerto Rico and Martha’s Vineyard, U.S. Attorney Christopher J. Christie and state Attorney General Anne Milgram announced.
Minutes after the indictment was announced, James was seen walking into FBI headquarters in Newark where he was expected to turn himself in. The woman accused of buying the bargain-priced city land, Tamika Riley, was expected to appear in court with him. Riley, 38, is a publicist and former clothing store operator in Newark.
Ethical questions have long surrounded James, who has a home on the Jersey shore, a yacht and a Rolls Royce. He has been a state senator since 1999, while also serving as Newark’s mayor until last year, when he decided not to see re-election.
“This indictment is about as surprising as the sun rising in the morning,” Tom Wilson, the New Jersey Republican State Committee chairman, said wryly.
The former mayor, a Democrat, has said little publicly since federal investigators notified him that he was the target of a corruption probe last month.
Denies power
In a handwritten letter to The Associated Press, dated June 16, James said he never had the power to broker land deals or set prices by himself.
“No, no, no, the mayor is not a boss or a lord or can give away municipal land,” he wrote.
James served as the mayor of New Jersey’s largest city for 20 years before announcing last year he wouldn’t seek re-election. He announced in April that he also wouldn’t seek another term in the Senate after his current term expires in January.
James first joined Newark city council in 1970. His election in 1986 made him the city’s second black mayor.
He earns $49,000 a year as a senator and collects an annual pension of about $125,000 from Newark. Additionally, he accrued more than $1 million in a retirement account at Essex County College, where he worked two decades ago. After leaving the mayor’s job last year, he directed an urban institute at the college — at a salary of $150,000 annually — before retiring in June.
James withdrew $500,000 from his retirement account last week, state Treasury Department spokesman Tom Vincz said.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/19730758/
<font size="5"><center>Courts rules FBI raid on lawmaker illegal</font size><font size="4">
FBI Illegally Seized Documents from Congressman Jefferson's Office</font size></center>
MSNBC
By Stephanie Kirchgaessner in Washington
Updated: 1:42 a.m. CT Aug 4, 2007
The FBI illegally seized documents from the Capitol Hill office of a Louisiana lawmaker last year, a US court ruled on Friday, in a decision that could affect the ability of federal prosecutors to investigate political corruption.
The court of appeals for the District of Columbia said the Department of Justice must return to William Jefferson some privileged documents that were taken during the raid.
It ruled that the search of Mr Jefferson's computer hard drives was not illegal, however, because it did not reveal "legislative material" to the executive branch of government.
Mr Jefferson, a Democratic congressman who is alleged to have kept $90,000 in cash in his home freezer, was indicted on corruption charges in June, months after the search of his Washington office caused a bipartisan furore over whether the raid was constitutional.
The Department of Justice said on Friday it was pleased that the court did not find the search of the office unconstitutional but was "disappointed" that the ruling required members of Congress to be given "advance notice and the right to review materials before the execution of a search warrant".
The department said its prosecution of Mr Jefferson would not be hurt by the decision because of "procedures" it put in place before its search warrant was executed.
Mr Jefferson's attorney, Robert Trout, hailed the ruling as a victory.
"This is a reminder that just because the Department of Justice says it's so, doesn't make it so. We are confident that as this case moves forward, and when all of the facts are known, we will prevail again and clear Congressman Jefferson's name," Mr Trout said in a statement.
But Melanie Sloan, a former prosecutor and ethics watchdog, said the decision was "devastating" to the investigation and prosecution of congressional corruption because it could have a "profound effect" on other cases, including the fed-eral investigation into Ted Stevens, the longest-serving Republican in the Senate.
Mr Stevens' Alaska home was searched by the FBI and tax officials on Monday as part of a wide-ranging corruption probe.
"Sen Ted Stevens now has every incentive to store in his congressional office any document concerning the renovations of his house, secure in the knowledge that it will be beyond the reach of federal investigators," she said.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/20114520/
FBI Illegally Seized Documents from Congressman Jefferson's Office</font size></center>
MSNBC
By Stephanie Kirchgaessner in Washington
Updated: 1:42 a.m. CT Aug 4, 2007
The FBI illegally seized documents from the Capitol Hill office of a Louisiana lawmaker last year, a US court ruled on Friday, in a decision that could affect the ability of federal prosecutors to investigate political corruption.
The court of appeals for the District of Columbia said the Department of Justice must return to William Jefferson some privileged documents that were taken during the raid.
It ruled that the search of Mr Jefferson's computer hard drives was not illegal, however, because it did not reveal "legislative material" to the executive branch of government.
Mr Jefferson, a Democratic congressman who is alleged to have kept $90,000 in cash in his home freezer, was indicted on corruption charges in June, months after the search of his Washington office caused a bipartisan furore over whether the raid was constitutional.
The Department of Justice said on Friday it was pleased that the court did not find the search of the office unconstitutional but was "disappointed" that the ruling required members of Congress to be given "advance notice and the right to review materials before the execution of a search warrant".
The department said its prosecution of Mr Jefferson would not be hurt by the decision because of "procedures" it put in place before its search warrant was executed.
Mr Jefferson's attorney, Robert Trout, hailed the ruling as a victory.
"This is a reminder that just because the Department of Justice says it's so, doesn't make it so. We are confident that as this case moves forward, and when all of the facts are known, we will prevail again and clear Congressman Jefferson's name," Mr Trout said in a statement.
But Melanie Sloan, a former prosecutor and ethics watchdog, said the decision was "devastating" to the investigation and prosecution of congressional corruption because it could have a "profound effect" on other cases, including the fed-eral investigation into Ted Stevens, the longest-serving Republican in the Senate.
Mr Stevens' Alaska home was searched by the FBI and tax officials on Monday as part of a wide-ranging corruption probe.
"Sen Ted Stevens now has every incentive to store in his congressional office any document concerning the renovations of his house, secure in the knowledge that it will be beyond the reach of federal investigators," she said.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/20114520/
Court rules part of Jefferson raid unconstitutional
WASHINGTON (AP) -- The FBI violated the Constitution when agents raided U.S. Rep. William Jefferson's office last year and viewed legislative documents in a corruption investigation, a federal appeals court ruled Friday.
The court ordered the Justice Department to return any legislative documents it seized from the Louisiana Democrat's office on Capitol Hill. The court did not order the return of all the documents seized in the raid and did not say whether prosecutors could use any of the records against Jefferson in their bribery case.
Jefferson argued that the first-of-its-kind raid trampled congressional independence. The Constitution prohibits the executive branch from using its law enforcement powers to interfere with the lawmaking process. The Justice Department said that declaring the search unconstitutional would essentially prohibit the FBI from ever looking at a lawmaker's documents.
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit rejected that claim. The court held that, while the search itself was constitutional, FBI agents crossed the line when they viewed every record in the office without giving Jefferson the chance to argue that some documents involved legislative business.
"The review of the Congressman's paper files when the search was executed exposed legislative material to the Executive" and violated the Constitution, the court wrote. "The Congressman is entitled to the return of documents that the court determines to be privileged."
The raid was part of a 16-month international bribery investigation of Jefferson, who allegedly accepted $100,000 from a telecommunications businessman, $90,000 of which was later recovered in a freezer in the congressman's Washington home.
Jefferson pleaded not guilty in June to charges of soliciting more than $500,000 in bribes while using his office to broker business deals in Africa. The Justice Department said it built that case without using the disputed documents from the raid.
The court did not rule whether, because portions of the search were illegal, prosecutors should be barred from using any of the records in their case against Jefferson. That will be decided by the federal judge in Virginia who is presiding over the criminal case.
"Today's opinion underscores the fact that the Department of Justice is required to follow the law, and that it is bound to abide by the Constitution," defense attorney Robert Trout, said, promising more legal challenges to "overreaching by the government in this case."
The Justice Department did not immediately return messages seeking comment on the decision. Officials have said they took extraordinary steps, including using an FBI "filter team" not involved in the case to review the congressional documents. Government attorneys said the Constitution was not intended to shield lawmakers from prosecution for political corruption.
The court was not convinced. It said the Constitution insists that lawmakers must be free from any intrusion into their congressional duties. Such intrusion, even by a filter team, "may therefore chill the exchange of views with respect to legislative activity," the court held.
The case has cut across political party lines. Former House Speakers Newt Gingrich, a Republican, and Thomas Foley, a Democrat, filed legal documents opposing the raid, along with former House Minority Leader Bob Michel, a Republican.
Conservative groups Judicial Watch and the Washington Legal Foundation were joined by the liberal Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington in supporting the legality of the raid.
Following his indictment, Jefferson's supporters accused the Bush administration of targeting black Democrats to shift attention from the legal troubles of Republican congressmen.
"We are confident that as this case moves forward, and when all of the facts are known, we will prevail again and clear Congressman Jefferson's name," Trout said Friday.
Despite the looming investigation, Jefferson was re-elected to a ninth term in 2006. His win complicated things for Democratic leaders who promised to run the most ethical Congress in history.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-California, stripped Jefferson of his seat on the powerful Ways and Means Committee and placed him instead on the Small Business Committee. He resigned that committee assignment after being indicted.
The case was considered by Chief Judge Douglas H. Ginsburg, Judge Karen Lecraft Henderson and Judge Judith W. Rogers.
Ginsburg and Rogers served in the Justice Department and Henderson served as deputy South Carolina attorney general. None of the judges served in the legislative branch, though Rogers was counsel to a congressional commission formed to review Washington's municipal structure. Ginsburg and Henderson were appointed by Republican presidents, Rogers by a Democrat.
WASHINGTON (AP) -- The FBI violated the Constitution when agents raided U.S. Rep. William Jefferson's office last year and viewed legislative documents in a corruption investigation, a federal appeals court ruled Friday.
The court ordered the Justice Department to return any legislative documents it seized from the Louisiana Democrat's office on Capitol Hill. The court did not order the return of all the documents seized in the raid and did not say whether prosecutors could use any of the records against Jefferson in their bribery case.
Jefferson argued that the first-of-its-kind raid trampled congressional independence. The Constitution prohibits the executive branch from using its law enforcement powers to interfere with the lawmaking process. The Justice Department said that declaring the search unconstitutional would essentially prohibit the FBI from ever looking at a lawmaker's documents.
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit rejected that claim. The court held that, while the search itself was constitutional, FBI agents crossed the line when they viewed every record in the office without giving Jefferson the chance to argue that some documents involved legislative business.
"The review of the Congressman's paper files when the search was executed exposed legislative material to the Executive" and violated the Constitution, the court wrote. "The Congressman is entitled to the return of documents that the court determines to be privileged."
The raid was part of a 16-month international bribery investigation of Jefferson, who allegedly accepted $100,000 from a telecommunications businessman, $90,000 of which was later recovered in a freezer in the congressman's Washington home.
Jefferson pleaded not guilty in June to charges of soliciting more than $500,000 in bribes while using his office to broker business deals in Africa. The Justice Department said it built that case without using the disputed documents from the raid.
The court did not rule whether, because portions of the search were illegal, prosecutors should be barred from using any of the records in their case against Jefferson. That will be decided by the federal judge in Virginia who is presiding over the criminal case.
"Today's opinion underscores the fact that the Department of Justice is required to follow the law, and that it is bound to abide by the Constitution," defense attorney Robert Trout, said, promising more legal challenges to "overreaching by the government in this case."
The Justice Department did not immediately return messages seeking comment on the decision. Officials have said they took extraordinary steps, including using an FBI "filter team" not involved in the case to review the congressional documents. Government attorneys said the Constitution was not intended to shield lawmakers from prosecution for political corruption.
The court was not convinced. It said the Constitution insists that lawmakers must be free from any intrusion into their congressional duties. Such intrusion, even by a filter team, "may therefore chill the exchange of views with respect to legislative activity," the court held.
The case has cut across political party lines. Former House Speakers Newt Gingrich, a Republican, and Thomas Foley, a Democrat, filed legal documents opposing the raid, along with former House Minority Leader Bob Michel, a Republican.
Conservative groups Judicial Watch and the Washington Legal Foundation were joined by the liberal Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington in supporting the legality of the raid.
Following his indictment, Jefferson's supporters accused the Bush administration of targeting black Democrats to shift attention from the legal troubles of Republican congressmen.
"We are confident that as this case moves forward, and when all of the facts are known, we will prevail again and clear Congressman Jefferson's name," Trout said Friday.
Despite the looming investigation, Jefferson was re-elected to a ninth term in 2006. His win complicated things for Democratic leaders who promised to run the most ethical Congress in history.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-California, stripped Jefferson of his seat on the powerful Ways and Means Committee and placed him instead on the Small Business Committee. He resigned that committee assignment after being indicted.
The case was considered by Chief Judge Douglas H. Ginsburg, Judge Karen Lecraft Henderson and Judge Judith W. Rogers.
Ginsburg and Rogers served in the Justice Department and Henderson served as deputy South Carolina attorney general. None of the judges served in the legislative branch, though Rogers was counsel to a congressional commission formed to review Washington's municipal structure. Ginsburg and Henderson were appointed by Republican presidents, Rogers by a Democrat.
Re: Court rules part of Jefferson raid unconstitutional
<font size="5"><Center>FBI: Photos Show Massachusetts Lawmaker
Stuffing Bribes in Bra</font size></center>
This FBI photo allegedly shows Massachusetts state Sen. Dianne
Wilkerson, D-Boston, stuffing bribe money under her sweater on
June 18, 2007.
Fox News
Tuesday, October 28, 2008
BOSTON — Sen. Dianne Wilkerson, who cuts a glittering, energetic figure around the Massachusetts Statehouse, stood alone and soberly attired in federal court Tuesday after being charged with accepting $23,500 in bribes — including $10,000 to fund her write-in campaign next week.
The Democrat was freed on a $50,000 unsecured bond. FBI agents arrested her at her Boston home earlier in the day on charges of attempted extortion as a public official and theft of honest services as a state senator.
An FBI affidavit includes a series of still photographs from video recordings allegedly showing Wilkerson accepting money from undercover agents, in one case stuffing cash under her sweater and inside her bra.
Some meetings to discuss her assistance in obtaining a liquor license and pushing legislation on behalf of a developer took place in the Statehouse, according to the complaint. Wilkerson also allegedly took the write-in payment earlier this month outside her district office in Roxbury.
"Public service is a privilege, and voters and taxpayers expect that elected officials will do what's right for their constituents, not what is financially best for themselves," U.S. Attorney Michael Sullivan said. "The citizens of the commonwealth deserve honest and faithful services from elected officials, uncompromised by secret payments of cash."
While the complaint detailed political horse-trading, Sullivan said he did not believe any other public official took a bribe.
Wilkerson did not enter a plea. She has a pre-trial hearing in Worcester on Nov. 17. She faces up to 20 years in prison and $250,000 in fines on each count.
Wilkerson's attorney, Max Stern, declined a request for comment, but supporters suggested the senator, who has a long history of campaign finance violations and personal legal problems, was being targeted by law enforcement officials.
Asked about those concerns, one of Wilkerson's two sons who attended the hearing, Cornell Mills, said afterward, "What can you say? We'll just have to wait and see how it works out."
Wilkerson, 53, has held her Senate seat since 1993 but she lost a close Democratic primary in September to former teacher Sonia Chang-Diaz. She has been running a sticker campaign for the Nov. 4 general election, urging her supporters to either write her name on the ballot or affix a sticker bearing her name.
Among the allegations, she is accused of urging an undercover agent to help her raise $10,000 of the up to $70,000 needed for a primary recount. Sullivan said it was "coincidental" the complaint was filed a week before the election.
Despite her problems, Wilkerson remained popular in her district and was supported in her primary bid by Boston Mayor Thomas Menino and Gov. Deval Patrick. Wilkerson, the first and only black woman to serve in the Legislature's upper chamber, was cited as an advocate for the minority community, especially for access to public health care.
Senate President Therese Murray, who had endorsed Wilkerson and campaigned with her, said she was seeking an investigation by the Senate Ethics Committee and would remove the senator from her post as chairwoman of the Joint Committee on State Administration and Regulatory Oversight.
The governor said the allegations were "troubling and sad."
"These are very serious charges and I will trust the judicial process to take them seriously," he said.
Senate Republican Leader Richard Tisei called on her to resign.
Sullivan said Wilkerson accepted eight payments, ranging in amounts from $500 to $10,000, during the 17-month investigation. Wilkerson was carrying $6,000 in cash when arrested, although her lawyer said it was for personal bills.
In one part of the criminal complaint, an undercover agent asks Wilkerson if a second agent has been "taking care" of her.
"Sure has," Wilkerson is quoted as saying. "And believe me, they're very, very, very much appreciated."
According to the complaint, between June 2007 and March 2008, Wilkerson allegedly took $8,500 in cash payments from an undercover agent and a cooperating witness to help a proposed nightclub in her district, named Dejavu, get a liquor license.
She allegedly pressured the Boston License Board, Menino and the City Council on behalf of the nightclub, and delayed legislation that would have increased the salaries of members of the Licensing Board.
"I pushed the envelope farther than it's ever been pushed before," Wilkerson allegedly told the agent.
She also said "I've been beating people up" for action, and spoke of "people who's knees I had to crack," according to the complaint.
Between June and October, she also allegedly accepted $15,000 in payments in exchange for helping an undercover officer posing as a businessman avoid the bidding process to develop state property in Roxbury.
During one transaction caught on videotape on June 18, 2007, Wilkerson allegedly took a payment and stuffed it inside her sweater at the bar at No. 9 Park restaurant on Beacon Hill. The money was handed to Wilkerson by a cooperating witness who the senator allegedly promised to help obtain the liquor license.
During another transaction at the Fill-A-Buster restaurant on Beacon Hill, a cooperating witness handed Wilkerson $1,000 in cash, telling her she had earned the money and should "knock yourself out." The handoff was made while Wilkerson's granddaughter, who had accompanied her to the lunch, was away from the table, according to the complaint.
Wilkerson told the witness she planned to go to the spa at the Foxwoods Resort Casino in Connecticut that weekend, the complaint said.
The new charges are the latest in a string of troubles to plague the lawmaker.
On Friday, the state Bar Counsel filed a complaint against Wilkerson accusing her of lying under oath in an effort to overturn her nephew's voluntary manslaughter conviction. The penalty could include disbarment. She has denied those allegations.
She was sentenced to house arrest in December 1997 after pleading guilty to failing to pay $51,000 in federal income taxes in the early 1990s.
Over the years, she also has paid thousands in fines to settle allegations of failing to account for donations and personal reimbursements for her campaign and political action committee and for failing to properly report that a bank she lobbied for as senator was paying her more than $20,000 a year as a consultant.
Assistant U.S. Attorney John McNeil, who is prosecuting the case, asked that Wilkerson not only be banned from talking to potential witnesses, but also destroying any documents related to the case or her personal finances. He said federal agents may review her bills to determine if there were tax violations.
Stern said Wilkerson would obey the judge but the requested conditions were not necessary.
He accused McNeil of using the hearing as "an occasion to engage in something of a character assassination of Sen. Wilkerson."
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,444666,00.html
<font size="5"><Center>FBI: Photos Show Massachusetts Lawmaker
Stuffing Bribes in Bra</font size></center>
This FBI photo allegedly shows Massachusetts state Sen. Dianne
Wilkerson, D-Boston, stuffing bribe money under her sweater on
June 18, 2007.
Fox News
Tuesday, October 28, 2008
BOSTON — Sen. Dianne Wilkerson, who cuts a glittering, energetic figure around the Massachusetts Statehouse, stood alone and soberly attired in federal court Tuesday after being charged with accepting $23,500 in bribes — including $10,000 to fund her write-in campaign next week.
The Democrat was freed on a $50,000 unsecured bond. FBI agents arrested her at her Boston home earlier in the day on charges of attempted extortion as a public official and theft of honest services as a state senator.
An FBI affidavit includes a series of still photographs from video recordings allegedly showing Wilkerson accepting money from undercover agents, in one case stuffing cash under her sweater and inside her bra.
Some meetings to discuss her assistance in obtaining a liquor license and pushing legislation on behalf of a developer took place in the Statehouse, according to the complaint. Wilkerson also allegedly took the write-in payment earlier this month outside her district office in Roxbury.
"Public service is a privilege, and voters and taxpayers expect that elected officials will do what's right for their constituents, not what is financially best for themselves," U.S. Attorney Michael Sullivan said. "The citizens of the commonwealth deserve honest and faithful services from elected officials, uncompromised by secret payments of cash."
While the complaint detailed political horse-trading, Sullivan said he did not believe any other public official took a bribe.
Wilkerson did not enter a plea. She has a pre-trial hearing in Worcester on Nov. 17. She faces up to 20 years in prison and $250,000 in fines on each count.
Wilkerson's attorney, Max Stern, declined a request for comment, but supporters suggested the senator, who has a long history of campaign finance violations and personal legal problems, was being targeted by law enforcement officials.
Asked about those concerns, one of Wilkerson's two sons who attended the hearing, Cornell Mills, said afterward, "What can you say? We'll just have to wait and see how it works out."
Wilkerson, 53, has held her Senate seat since 1993 but she lost a close Democratic primary in September to former teacher Sonia Chang-Diaz. She has been running a sticker campaign for the Nov. 4 general election, urging her supporters to either write her name on the ballot or affix a sticker bearing her name.
Among the allegations, she is accused of urging an undercover agent to help her raise $10,000 of the up to $70,000 needed for a primary recount. Sullivan said it was "coincidental" the complaint was filed a week before the election.
Despite her problems, Wilkerson remained popular in her district and was supported in her primary bid by Boston Mayor Thomas Menino and Gov. Deval Patrick. Wilkerson, the first and only black woman to serve in the Legislature's upper chamber, was cited as an advocate for the minority community, especially for access to public health care.
Senate President Therese Murray, who had endorsed Wilkerson and campaigned with her, said she was seeking an investigation by the Senate Ethics Committee and would remove the senator from her post as chairwoman of the Joint Committee on State Administration and Regulatory Oversight.
The governor said the allegations were "troubling and sad."
"These are very serious charges and I will trust the judicial process to take them seriously," he said.
Senate Republican Leader Richard Tisei called on her to resign.
Sullivan said Wilkerson accepted eight payments, ranging in amounts from $500 to $10,000, during the 17-month investigation. Wilkerson was carrying $6,000 in cash when arrested, although her lawyer said it was for personal bills.
In one part of the criminal complaint, an undercover agent asks Wilkerson if a second agent has been "taking care" of her.
"Sure has," Wilkerson is quoted as saying. "And believe me, they're very, very, very much appreciated."
According to the complaint, between June 2007 and March 2008, Wilkerson allegedly took $8,500 in cash payments from an undercover agent and a cooperating witness to help a proposed nightclub in her district, named Dejavu, get a liquor license.
She allegedly pressured the Boston License Board, Menino and the City Council on behalf of the nightclub, and delayed legislation that would have increased the salaries of members of the Licensing Board.
"I pushed the envelope farther than it's ever been pushed before," Wilkerson allegedly told the agent.
She also said "I've been beating people up" for action, and spoke of "people who's knees I had to crack," according to the complaint.
Between June and October, she also allegedly accepted $15,000 in payments in exchange for helping an undercover officer posing as a businessman avoid the bidding process to develop state property in Roxbury.
During one transaction caught on videotape on June 18, 2007, Wilkerson allegedly took a payment and stuffed it inside her sweater at the bar at No. 9 Park restaurant on Beacon Hill. The money was handed to Wilkerson by a cooperating witness who the senator allegedly promised to help obtain the liquor license.
During another transaction at the Fill-A-Buster restaurant on Beacon Hill, a cooperating witness handed Wilkerson $1,000 in cash, telling her she had earned the money and should "knock yourself out." The handoff was made while Wilkerson's granddaughter, who had accompanied her to the lunch, was away from the table, according to the complaint.
Wilkerson told the witness she planned to go to the spa at the Foxwoods Resort Casino in Connecticut that weekend, the complaint said.
The new charges are the latest in a string of troubles to plague the lawmaker.
On Friday, the state Bar Counsel filed a complaint against Wilkerson accusing her of lying under oath in an effort to overturn her nephew's voluntary manslaughter conviction. The penalty could include disbarment. She has denied those allegations.
She was sentenced to house arrest in December 1997 after pleading guilty to failing to pay $51,000 in federal income taxes in the early 1990s.
Over the years, she also has paid thousands in fines to settle allegations of failing to account for donations and personal reimbursements for her campaign and political action committee and for failing to properly report that a bank she lobbied for as senator was paying her more than $20,000 a year as a consultant.
Assistant U.S. Attorney John McNeil, who is prosecuting the case, asked that Wilkerson not only be banned from talking to potential witnesses, but also destroying any documents related to the case or her personal finances. He said federal agents may review her bills to determine if there were tax violations.
Stern said Wilkerson would obey the judge but the requested conditions were not necessary.
He accused McNeil of using the hearing as "an occasion to engage in something of a character assassination of Sen. Wilkerson."
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,444666,00.html
Re: Court rules part of Jefferson raid unconstitutional
<font size="5"><Center>FBI: Photos Show Massachusetts Lawmaker
Stuffing Bribes in Bra</font size></center>
This FBI photo allegedly shows Massachusetts state Sen. Dianne
Wilkerson, D-Boston, stuffing bribe money under her sweater on
June 18, 2007.
Fox News
Tuesday, October 28, 2008
BOSTON — Sen. Dianne Wilkerson, who cuts a glittering, energetic figure around the Massachusetts Statehouse, stood alone and soberly attired in federal court Tuesday after being charged with accepting $23,500 in bribes — including $10,000 to fund her write-in campaign next week.
The Democrat was freed on a $50,000 unsecured bond. FBI agents arrested her at her Boston home earlier in the day on charges of attempted extortion as a public official and theft of honest services as a state senator.
An FBI affidavit includes a series of still photographs from video recordings allegedly showing Wilkerson accepting money from undercover agents, in one case stuffing cash under her sweater and inside her bra.
Some meetings to discuss her assistance in obtaining a liquor license and pushing legislation on behalf of a developer took place in the Statehouse, according to the complaint. Wilkerson also allegedly took the write-in payment earlier this month outside her district office in Roxbury.
"Public service is a privilege, and voters and taxpayers expect that elected officials will do what's right for their constituents, not what is financially best for themselves," U.S. Attorney Michael Sullivan said. "The citizens of the commonwealth deserve honest and faithful services from elected officials, uncompromised by secret payments of cash."
While the complaint detailed political horse-trading, Sullivan said he did not believe any other public official took a bribe.
Wilkerson did not enter a plea. She has a pre-trial hearing in Worcester on Nov. 17. She faces up to 20 years in prison and $250,000 in fines on each count.
Wilkerson's attorney, Max Stern, declined a request for comment, but supporters suggested the senator, who has a long history of campaign finance violations and personal legal problems, was being targeted by law enforcement officials.
Asked about those concerns, one of Wilkerson's two sons who attended the hearing, Cornell Mills, said afterward, "What can you say? We'll just have to wait and see how it works out."
Wilkerson, 53, has held her Senate seat since 1993 but she lost a close Democratic primary in September to former teacher Sonia Chang-Diaz. She has been running a sticker campaign for the Nov. 4 general election, urging her supporters to either write her name on the ballot or affix a sticker bearing her name.
Among the allegations, she is accused of urging an undercover agent to help her raise $10,000 of the up to $70,000 needed for a primary recount. Sullivan said it was "coincidental" the complaint was filed a week before the election.
Despite her problems, Wilkerson remained popular in her district and was supported in her primary bid by Boston Mayor Thomas Menino and Gov. Deval Patrick. Wilkerson, the first and only black woman to serve in the Legislature's upper chamber, was cited as an advocate for the minority community, especially for access to public health care.
Senate President Therese Murray, who had endorsed Wilkerson and campaigned with her, said she was seeking an investigation by the Senate Ethics Committee and would remove the senator from her post as chairwoman of the Joint Committee on State Administration and Regulatory Oversight.
The governor said the allegations were "troubling and sad."
"These are very serious charges and I will trust the judicial process to take them seriously," he said.
Senate Republican Leader Richard Tisei called on her to resign.
Sullivan said Wilkerson accepted eight payments, ranging in amounts from $500 to $10,000, during the 17-month investigation. Wilkerson was carrying $6,000 in cash when arrested, although her lawyer said it was for personal bills.
In one part of the criminal complaint, an undercover agent asks Wilkerson if a second agent has been "taking care" of her.
"Sure has," Wilkerson is quoted as saying. "And believe me, they're very, very, very much appreciated."
According to the complaint, between June 2007 and March 2008, Wilkerson allegedly took $8,500 in cash payments from an undercover agent and a cooperating witness to help a proposed nightclub in her district, named Dejavu, get a liquor license.
She allegedly pressured the Boston License Board, Menino and the City Council on behalf of the nightclub, and delayed legislation that would have increased the salaries of members of the Licensing Board.
"I pushed the envelope farther than it's ever been pushed before," Wilkerson allegedly told the agent.
She also said "I've been beating people up" for action, and spoke of "people who's knees I had to crack," according to the complaint.
Between June and October, she also allegedly accepted $15,000 in payments in exchange for helping an undercover officer posing as a businessman avoid the bidding process to develop state property in Roxbury.
During one transaction caught on videotape on June 18, 2007, Wilkerson allegedly took a payment and stuffed it inside her sweater at the bar at No. 9 Park restaurant on Beacon Hill. The money was handed to Wilkerson by a cooperating witness who the senator allegedly promised to help obtain the liquor license.
During another transaction at the Fill-A-Buster restaurant on Beacon Hill, a cooperating witness handed Wilkerson $1,000 in cash, telling her she had earned the money and should "knock yourself out." The handoff was made while Wilkerson's granddaughter, who had accompanied her to the lunch, was away from the table, according to the complaint.
Wilkerson told the witness she planned to go to the spa at the Foxwoods Resort Casino in Connecticut that weekend, the complaint said.
The new charges are the latest in a string of troubles to plague the lawmaker.
On Friday, the state Bar Counsel filed a complaint against Wilkerson accusing her of lying under oath in an effort to overturn her nephew's voluntary manslaughter conviction. The penalty could include disbarment. She has denied those allegations.
She was sentenced to house arrest in December 1997 after pleading guilty to failing to pay $51,000 in federal income taxes in the early 1990s.
Over the years, she also has paid thousands in fines to settle allegations of failing to account for donations and personal reimbursements for her campaign and political action committee and for failing to properly report that a bank she lobbied for as senator was paying her more than $20,000 a year as a consultant.
Assistant U.S. Attorney John McNeil, who is prosecuting the case, asked that Wilkerson not only be banned from talking to potential witnesses, but also destroying any documents related to the case or her personal finances. He said federal agents may review her bills to determine if there were tax violations.
Stern said Wilkerson would obey the judge but the requested conditions were not necessary.
He accused McNeil of using the hearing as "an occasion to engage in something of a character assassination of Sen. Wilkerson."
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,444666,00.html
<font size="5"><Center>FBI: Photos Show Massachusetts Lawmaker
Stuffing Bribes in Bra</font size></center>
This FBI photo allegedly shows Massachusetts state Sen. Dianne
Wilkerson, D-Boston, stuffing bribe money under her sweater on
June 18, 2007.
Fox News
Tuesday, October 28, 2008
BOSTON — Sen. Dianne Wilkerson, who cuts a glittering, energetic figure around the Massachusetts Statehouse, stood alone and soberly attired in federal court Tuesday after being charged with accepting $23,500 in bribes — including $10,000 to fund her write-in campaign next week.
The Democrat was freed on a $50,000 unsecured bond. FBI agents arrested her at her Boston home earlier in the day on charges of attempted extortion as a public official and theft of honest services as a state senator.
An FBI affidavit includes a series of still photographs from video recordings allegedly showing Wilkerson accepting money from undercover agents, in one case stuffing cash under her sweater and inside her bra.
Some meetings to discuss her assistance in obtaining a liquor license and pushing legislation on behalf of a developer took place in the Statehouse, according to the complaint. Wilkerson also allegedly took the write-in payment earlier this month outside her district office in Roxbury.
"Public service is a privilege, and voters and taxpayers expect that elected officials will do what's right for their constituents, not what is financially best for themselves," U.S. Attorney Michael Sullivan said. "The citizens of the commonwealth deserve honest and faithful services from elected officials, uncompromised by secret payments of cash."
While the complaint detailed political horse-trading, Sullivan said he did not believe any other public official took a bribe.
Wilkerson did not enter a plea. She has a pre-trial hearing in Worcester on Nov. 17. She faces up to 20 years in prison and $250,000 in fines on each count.
Wilkerson's attorney, Max Stern, declined a request for comment, but supporters suggested the senator, who has a long history of campaign finance violations and personal legal problems, was being targeted by law enforcement officials.
Asked about those concerns, one of Wilkerson's two sons who attended the hearing, Cornell Mills, said afterward, "What can you say? We'll just have to wait and see how it works out."
Wilkerson, 53, has held her Senate seat since 1993 but she lost a close Democratic primary in September to former teacher Sonia Chang-Diaz. She has been running a sticker campaign for the Nov. 4 general election, urging her supporters to either write her name on the ballot or affix a sticker bearing her name.
Among the allegations, she is accused of urging an undercover agent to help her raise $10,000 of the up to $70,000 needed for a primary recount. Sullivan said it was "coincidental" the complaint was filed a week before the election.
Despite her problems, Wilkerson remained popular in her district and was supported in her primary bid by Boston Mayor Thomas Menino and Gov. Deval Patrick. Wilkerson, the first and only black woman to serve in the Legislature's upper chamber, was cited as an advocate for the minority community, especially for access to public health care.
Senate President Therese Murray, who had endorsed Wilkerson and campaigned with her, said she was seeking an investigation by the Senate Ethics Committee and would remove the senator from her post as chairwoman of the Joint Committee on State Administration and Regulatory Oversight.
The governor said the allegations were "troubling and sad."
"These are very serious charges and I will trust the judicial process to take them seriously," he said.
Senate Republican Leader Richard Tisei called on her to resign.
Sullivan said Wilkerson accepted eight payments, ranging in amounts from $500 to $10,000, during the 17-month investigation. Wilkerson was carrying $6,000 in cash when arrested, although her lawyer said it was for personal bills.
In one part of the criminal complaint, an undercover agent asks Wilkerson if a second agent has been "taking care" of her.
"Sure has," Wilkerson is quoted as saying. "And believe me, they're very, very, very much appreciated."
According to the complaint, between June 2007 and March 2008, Wilkerson allegedly took $8,500 in cash payments from an undercover agent and a cooperating witness to help a proposed nightclub in her district, named Dejavu, get a liquor license.
She allegedly pressured the Boston License Board, Menino and the City Council on behalf of the nightclub, and delayed legislation that would have increased the salaries of members of the Licensing Board.
"I pushed the envelope farther than it's ever been pushed before," Wilkerson allegedly told the agent.
She also said "I've been beating people up" for action, and spoke of "people who's knees I had to crack," according to the complaint.
Between June and October, she also allegedly accepted $15,000 in payments in exchange for helping an undercover officer posing as a businessman avoid the bidding process to develop state property in Roxbury.
During one transaction caught on videotape on June 18, 2007, Wilkerson allegedly took a payment and stuffed it inside her sweater at the bar at No. 9 Park restaurant on Beacon Hill. The money was handed to Wilkerson by a cooperating witness who the senator allegedly promised to help obtain the liquor license.
During another transaction at the Fill-A-Buster restaurant on Beacon Hill, a cooperating witness handed Wilkerson $1,000 in cash, telling her she had earned the money and should "knock yourself out." The handoff was made while Wilkerson's granddaughter, who had accompanied her to the lunch, was away from the table, according to the complaint.
Wilkerson told the witness she planned to go to the spa at the Foxwoods Resort Casino in Connecticut that weekend, the complaint said.
The new charges are the latest in a string of troubles to plague the lawmaker.
On Friday, the state Bar Counsel filed a complaint against Wilkerson accusing her of lying under oath in an effort to overturn her nephew's voluntary manslaughter conviction. The penalty could include disbarment. She has denied those allegations.
She was sentenced to house arrest in December 1997 after pleading guilty to failing to pay $51,000 in federal income taxes in the early 1990s.
Over the years, she also has paid thousands in fines to settle allegations of failing to account for donations and personal reimbursements for her campaign and political action committee and for failing to properly report that a bank she lobbied for as senator was paying her more than $20,000 a year as a consultant.
Assistant U.S. Attorney John McNeil, who is prosecuting the case, asked that Wilkerson not only be banned from talking to potential witnesses, but also destroying any documents related to the case or her personal finances. He said federal agents may review her bills to determine if there were tax violations.
Stern said Wilkerson would obey the judge but the requested conditions were not necessary.
He accused McNeil of using the hearing as "an occasion to engage in something of a character assassination of Sen. Wilkerson."
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,444666,00.html
Re: Court rules part of Jefferson raid unconstitutional
<font size="5"><Center>
Allegations against Wilkerson shock
colleagues, constituents</font size><font size="4">
Republicans call for her to step down</font size></center>
Dianne Wilkerson celebrated in September 2006 after she retained her Senate seat
in a sticker campaign she was forced to run after failing to file enough nomination
signatures. (Globe Staff/ File Photo / Matthew J. Lee)
Boston Globe
By Matt Viser
Globe Staff
October 29, 2008
From the beginning, she was a determined advocate for civil rights and a tough deal maker.
In 1991, as a lawyer for the NAACP, Dianne Wilkerson secured a nationally acclaimed pact with Mayor Raymond L. Flynn to end decades of discrimination in the city's public housing projects. She successfully pushed insurance companies to stop discriminating in poor neighborhoods. And since her election to the state Senate in 1992, she pressed her colleagues in the Legislature to support gay marriage and racial equality.
But Wilkerson's more recent forays into political deal making, portrayed yesterday in an FBI affidavit that resulted from an 18-month federal investigation, allegedly showed her using her political skills to extort bribes.
Transcripts of telephone calls and recorded conversations allegedly show her relentlessly pursuing a liquor license for a business executive who investigators say was paying her thousands of dollars in cash as she pulled strings at the highest levels of city and state government to get her way.
As a legislative committee received subpoenas and federal agents executed search warrants in her State House office yesterday, the allegations shocked lawmakers on Beacon Hill and constituents in Roxbury and Dorchester who had relied on her to come to their aid. The Senate president stripped her of her committee leadership post. Republicans called on her to resign.
Wilkerson has a track record of ethical and financial troubles, but the allegations of such brazen bribe taking were breathtaking, said observers.
"We've all been walking around with our jaws dropped," said Horace Small, executive director of the Union of Minority Neighborhoods, which is based in Wilkerson's district. "I just felt this incredible sadness. Dianne's personal life was nothing short of a nightmare, but in my interactions with her was as a legislator, she was one of the best. . . . She mastered that building."
Born in a small Arkansas town, Wilkerson moved in 1960 to Springfield, where her father worked as a steel factory laborer. She became pregnant with her first son, Kendall Wayne, while she was a senior at Commerce High. A year later, she gave birth to her second son, Cornell, as she earned a full scholarship to attend American International College in Springfield.
"I'm saddened that this has happened," said Darnell Williams, president of the Urban League of Eastern Massachusetts, who attended AIC with Wilkerson and baby-sat her two children while she attended classes. "My prayers and thoughts go out to her and her family at this time. She's been a strong advocate for this community. This is a sad chapter in her life."
She divorced, went on welfare as a single mother, and started law school at Boston College. She worked for two years as assistant legal counsel for Governor Michael S. Dukakis.
As a respected lawyer and NAACP vice president, she began to lay the groundwork for a career in politics. She spoke out against violence in the community and held meetings to call upon on residents to condemn drug use, reduce teenage pregnancies, and take responsibility for neighborhood children.
In 1992, using the slogan "We Can Do Better," she challenged veteran Senator Bill Owens in the Democratic primary and pulled off a surprising victory. Owens, who in 1974 became the first African-American elected to the state Senate, was backed by a wide array of black leaders, and Wilkerson's victory was seen as ushering in a new era in urban politics.
Almost immediately her name was floated as a future mayor or congresswoman.
"I remember seeing Dianne before she entered politics," said Senator Jack Hart, a Boston Democrat. "I thought she was an extraordinary figure with great promise, talented, articulate, bright. I always thought that she was somebody I had great admiration for. It's just tragic to see all of this happen."
Yet from the beginning of her career as an elected official, she was dogged by her seeming indifference to the most basic of civic obligations: paying bills.
She frequently played the role of victim, even when it was painfully obvious that she had misstepped, and implied that her critics were motivated by her race.
She defaulted on a $10,000 federally guaranteed student loan in 1987, which became an issue in her first political campaign. She neglected to pay $51,000 in federal income taxes in the early 1990s, charges that she pleaded guilty to in 1997 and for which she served six months in home detention.
In 2000, she faced foreclosure of her condominium after falling behind on her mortgage.
In 2001, the State Ethics Commission fined her $1,000 for failing to report that a bank was paying her $20,000 a year as a consultant. She was also sued that year for not paying $4,671 in condominium fees.
Despite all her personal problems, the good often seemed to outweigh the bad. She appeared to have nine lives, and issues that dogged other politicians were overshadowed by her passionate voice speaking for those who are not normally heard.
"When kids were dying in the streets, Dianne would bury them. When children were hungry, Dianne would feed them," Small said. "It's not that Dianne does no wrong - she's done a lot of wrong. But at the end of the day you had someone whose mission was to help other people."
Over the years, Wilkerson mastered the spider's web of Beacon Hill and developed a reputation for delivering for her district. She fought for reform of the state's criminal records system. She was an advocate for same-sex marriage, particularly in overturning a 1913 law originally aimed at interracial marriage that prohibited out-of-state same-sex couples from marrying in Massachusetts.
She was also one of the early endorsers of Governor Deval Patrick.
"The initial reports are both troubling and sad," Patrick said yesterday in a brief statement, later adding that she should resign if she is convicted. "These are very serious charges, and I will trust the judicial process to take them seriously."
Wilkerson also had a tight relationship with Senate President Therese Murray. The two women started at the same time in a Senate that was controlled by William M. Bulger. One of Murray's top aides, Jerome Smith, ran Wilkerson's successful reelection campaign in 2006.
"I've had better days," a tight-lipped Murray said outside her office yesterday, before announcing she was stripping Wilkerson of her committee chairwomanship and launching a Senate ethics probe. "I'm extremely disappointed."
The 32-page affidavit details meetings where Wilkerson was able to assemble the political muscle needed to get liquor licenses through.
"This woman is extremely powerful," said an unnamed associate in the FBI affidavit. "If she says no, you're [expletive] dead. If she says yes, you're golden."
But her problems continued. In 2004, her car was towed from the South End after she ran up about $1,300 in unpaid parking tickets. In 2006, she failed to gather enough signatures to place her name on the ballot, instead having to run a write-in campaign. In August, Wilkerson paid a $10,000 fine to the state attorney general's office and acknowledged campaign finance violations.
Despite all this, she was endorsed by Patrick and Mayor Thomas M. Menino in her reelection campaign this year. She lost the Democratic primary to Sonia Chang-Díaz, a 30-year-old former Jamaica Plain schoolteacher, but was still planning to run a write-in campaign next week.
"I don't think there ever will be a time of complete freedom from this kind of scrutiny," Wilkerson told the Globe in January 2006.
She also said she expected to be the target of more investigations. "Who knows what it will be?" she said.
A year after she made those comments, the federal probe began.
Matt Viser can be reached at maviser@globe.com.
© Copyright 2008 Globe Newspaper Company.
http://www.boston.com/news/local/ma...inst_wilkerson_shock_colleagues_constituents/
<font size="5"><Center>
Allegations against Wilkerson shock
colleagues, constituents</font size><font size="4">
Republicans call for her to step down</font size></center>
Dianne Wilkerson celebrated in September 2006 after she retained her Senate seat
in a sticker campaign she was forced to run after failing to file enough nomination
signatures. (Globe Staff/ File Photo / Matthew J. Lee)
Boston Globe
By Matt Viser
Globe Staff
October 29, 2008
From the beginning, she was a determined advocate for civil rights and a tough deal maker.
In 1991, as a lawyer for the NAACP, Dianne Wilkerson secured a nationally acclaimed pact with Mayor Raymond L. Flynn to end decades of discrimination in the city's public housing projects. She successfully pushed insurance companies to stop discriminating in poor neighborhoods. And since her election to the state Senate in 1992, she pressed her colleagues in the Legislature to support gay marriage and racial equality.
But Wilkerson's more recent forays into political deal making, portrayed yesterday in an FBI affidavit that resulted from an 18-month federal investigation, allegedly showed her using her political skills to extort bribes.
Transcripts of telephone calls and recorded conversations allegedly show her relentlessly pursuing a liquor license for a business executive who investigators say was paying her thousands of dollars in cash as she pulled strings at the highest levels of city and state government to get her way.
As a legislative committee received subpoenas and federal agents executed search warrants in her State House office yesterday, the allegations shocked lawmakers on Beacon Hill and constituents in Roxbury and Dorchester who had relied on her to come to their aid. The Senate president stripped her of her committee leadership post. Republicans called on her to resign.
Wilkerson has a track record of ethical and financial troubles, but the allegations of such brazen bribe taking were breathtaking, said observers.
"We've all been walking around with our jaws dropped," said Horace Small, executive director of the Union of Minority Neighborhoods, which is based in Wilkerson's district. "I just felt this incredible sadness. Dianne's personal life was nothing short of a nightmare, but in my interactions with her was as a legislator, she was one of the best. . . . She mastered that building."
Born in a small Arkansas town, Wilkerson moved in 1960 to Springfield, where her father worked as a steel factory laborer. She became pregnant with her first son, Kendall Wayne, while she was a senior at Commerce High. A year later, she gave birth to her second son, Cornell, as she earned a full scholarship to attend American International College in Springfield.
"I'm saddened that this has happened," said Darnell Williams, president of the Urban League of Eastern Massachusetts, who attended AIC with Wilkerson and baby-sat her two children while she attended classes. "My prayers and thoughts go out to her and her family at this time. She's been a strong advocate for this community. This is a sad chapter in her life."
She divorced, went on welfare as a single mother, and started law school at Boston College. She worked for two years as assistant legal counsel for Governor Michael S. Dukakis.
As a respected lawyer and NAACP vice president, she began to lay the groundwork for a career in politics. She spoke out against violence in the community and held meetings to call upon on residents to condemn drug use, reduce teenage pregnancies, and take responsibility for neighborhood children.
In 1992, using the slogan "We Can Do Better," she challenged veteran Senator Bill Owens in the Democratic primary and pulled off a surprising victory. Owens, who in 1974 became the first African-American elected to the state Senate, was backed by a wide array of black leaders, and Wilkerson's victory was seen as ushering in a new era in urban politics.
Almost immediately her name was floated as a future mayor or congresswoman.
"I remember seeing Dianne before she entered politics," said Senator Jack Hart, a Boston Democrat. "I thought she was an extraordinary figure with great promise, talented, articulate, bright. I always thought that she was somebody I had great admiration for. It's just tragic to see all of this happen."
Yet from the beginning of her career as an elected official, she was dogged by her seeming indifference to the most basic of civic obligations: paying bills.
She frequently played the role of victim, even when it was painfully obvious that she had misstepped, and implied that her critics were motivated by her race.
She defaulted on a $10,000 federally guaranteed student loan in 1987, which became an issue in her first political campaign. She neglected to pay $51,000 in federal income taxes in the early 1990s, charges that she pleaded guilty to in 1997 and for which she served six months in home detention.
In 2000, she faced foreclosure of her condominium after falling behind on her mortgage.
In 2001, the State Ethics Commission fined her $1,000 for failing to report that a bank was paying her $20,000 a year as a consultant. She was also sued that year for not paying $4,671 in condominium fees.
Despite all her personal problems, the good often seemed to outweigh the bad. She appeared to have nine lives, and issues that dogged other politicians were overshadowed by her passionate voice speaking for those who are not normally heard.
"When kids were dying in the streets, Dianne would bury them. When children were hungry, Dianne would feed them," Small said. "It's not that Dianne does no wrong - she's done a lot of wrong. But at the end of the day you had someone whose mission was to help other people."
Over the years, Wilkerson mastered the spider's web of Beacon Hill and developed a reputation for delivering for her district. She fought for reform of the state's criminal records system. She was an advocate for same-sex marriage, particularly in overturning a 1913 law originally aimed at interracial marriage that prohibited out-of-state same-sex couples from marrying in Massachusetts.
She was also one of the early endorsers of Governor Deval Patrick.
"The initial reports are both troubling and sad," Patrick said yesterday in a brief statement, later adding that she should resign if she is convicted. "These are very serious charges, and I will trust the judicial process to take them seriously."
Wilkerson also had a tight relationship with Senate President Therese Murray. The two women started at the same time in a Senate that was controlled by William M. Bulger. One of Murray's top aides, Jerome Smith, ran Wilkerson's successful reelection campaign in 2006.
"I've had better days," a tight-lipped Murray said outside her office yesterday, before announcing she was stripping Wilkerson of her committee chairwomanship and launching a Senate ethics probe. "I'm extremely disappointed."
The 32-page affidavit details meetings where Wilkerson was able to assemble the political muscle needed to get liquor licenses through.
"This woman is extremely powerful," said an unnamed associate in the FBI affidavit. "If she says no, you're [expletive] dead. If she says yes, you're golden."
But her problems continued. In 2004, her car was towed from the South End after she ran up about $1,300 in unpaid parking tickets. In 2006, she failed to gather enough signatures to place her name on the ballot, instead having to run a write-in campaign. In August, Wilkerson paid a $10,000 fine to the state attorney general's office and acknowledged campaign finance violations.
Despite all this, she was endorsed by Patrick and Mayor Thomas M. Menino in her reelection campaign this year. She lost the Democratic primary to Sonia Chang-Díaz, a 30-year-old former Jamaica Plain schoolteacher, but was still planning to run a write-in campaign next week.
"I don't think there ever will be a time of complete freedom from this kind of scrutiny," Wilkerson told the Globe in January 2006.
She also said she expected to be the target of more investigations. "Who knows what it will be?" she said.
A year after she made those comments, the federal probe began.
Matt Viser can be reached at maviser@globe.com.
© Copyright 2008 Globe Newspaper Company.
http://www.boston.com/news/local/ma...inst_wilkerson_shock_colleagues_constituents/
Re: Court rules part of Jefferson raid unconstitutional
<font size="5"><Center>
Allegations against Wilkerson shock
colleagues, constituents</font size><font size="4">
Republicans call for her to step down</font size></center>
Dianne Wilkerson celebrated in September 2006 after she retained her Senate seat
in a sticker campaign she was forced to run after failing to file enough nomination
signatures. (Globe Staff/ File Photo / Matthew J. Lee)
Boston Globe
By Matt Viser
Globe Staff
October 29, 2008
From the beginning, she was a determined advocate for civil rights and a tough deal maker.
In 1991, as a lawyer for the NAACP, Dianne Wilkerson secured a nationally acclaimed pact with Mayor Raymond L. Flynn to end decades of discrimination in the city's public housing projects. She successfully pushed insurance companies to stop discriminating in poor neighborhoods. And since her election to the state Senate in 1992, she pressed her colleagues in the Legislature to support gay marriage and racial equality.
But Wilkerson's more recent forays into political deal making, portrayed yesterday in an FBI affidavit that resulted from an 18-month federal investigation, allegedly showed her using her political skills to extort bribes.
Transcripts of telephone calls and recorded conversations allegedly show her relentlessly pursuing a liquor license for a business executive who investigators say was paying her thousands of dollars in cash as she pulled strings at the highest levels of city and state government to get her way.
As a legislative committee received subpoenas and federal agents executed search warrants in her State House office yesterday, the allegations shocked lawmakers on Beacon Hill and constituents in Roxbury and Dorchester who had relied on her to come to their aid. The Senate president stripped her of her committee leadership post. Republicans called on her to resign.
Wilkerson has a track record of ethical and financial troubles, but the allegations of such brazen bribe taking were breathtaking, said observers.
"We've all been walking around with our jaws dropped," said Horace Small, executive director of the Union of Minority Neighborhoods, which is based in Wilkerson's district. "I just felt this incredible sadness. Dianne's personal life was nothing short of a nightmare, but in my interactions with her was as a legislator, she was one of the best. . . . She mastered that building."
Born in a small Arkansas town, Wilkerson moved in 1960 to Springfield, where her father worked as a steel factory laborer. She became pregnant with her first son, Kendall Wayne, while she was a senior at Commerce High. A year later, she gave birth to her second son, Cornell, as she earned a full scholarship to attend American International College in Springfield.
"I'm saddened that this has happened," said Darnell Williams, president of the Urban League of Eastern Massachusetts, who attended AIC with Wilkerson and baby-sat her two children while she attended classes. "My prayers and thoughts go out to her and her family at this time. She's been a strong advocate for this community. This is a sad chapter in her life."
She divorced, went on welfare as a single mother, and started law school at Boston College. She worked for two years as assistant legal counsel for Governor Michael S. Dukakis.
As a respected lawyer and NAACP vice president, she began to lay the groundwork for a career in politics. She spoke out against violence in the community and held meetings to call upon on residents to condemn drug use, reduce teenage pregnancies, and take responsibility for neighborhood children.
In 1992, using the slogan "We Can Do Better," she challenged veteran Senator Bill Owens in the Democratic primary and pulled off a surprising victory. Owens, who in 1974 became the first African-American elected to the state Senate, was backed by a wide array of black leaders, and Wilkerson's victory was seen as ushering in a new era in urban politics.
Almost immediately her name was floated as a future mayor or congresswoman.
"I remember seeing Dianne before she entered politics," said Senator Jack Hart, a Boston Democrat. "I thought she was an extraordinary figure with great promise, talented, articulate, bright. I always thought that she was somebody I had great admiration for. It's just tragic to see all of this happen."
Yet from the beginning of her career as an elected official, she was dogged by her seeming indifference to the most basic of civic obligations: paying bills.
She frequently played the role of victim, even when it was painfully obvious that she had misstepped, and implied that her critics were motivated by her race.
She defaulted on a $10,000 federally guaranteed student loan in 1987, which became an issue in her first political campaign. She neglected to pay $51,000 in federal income taxes in the early 1990s, charges that she pleaded guilty to in 1997 and for which she served six months in home detention.
In 2000, she faced foreclosure of her condominium after falling behind on her mortgage.
In 2001, the State Ethics Commission fined her $1,000 for failing to report that a bank was paying her $20,000 a year as a consultant. She was also sued that year for not paying $4,671 in condominium fees.
Despite all her personal problems, the good often seemed to outweigh the bad. She appeared to have nine lives, and issues that dogged other politicians were overshadowed by her passionate voice speaking for those who are not normally heard.
"When kids were dying in the streets, Dianne would bury them. When children were hungry, Dianne would feed them," Small said. "It's not that Dianne does no wrong - she's done a lot of wrong. But at the end of the day you had someone whose mission was to help other people."
Over the years, Wilkerson mastered the spider's web of Beacon Hill and developed a reputation for delivering for her district. She fought for reform of the state's criminal records system. She was an advocate for same-sex marriage, particularly in overturning a 1913 law originally aimed at interracial marriage that prohibited out-of-state same-sex couples from marrying in Massachusetts.
She was also one of the early endorsers of Governor Deval Patrick.
"The initial reports are both troubling and sad," Patrick said yesterday in a brief statement, later adding that she should resign if she is convicted. "These are very serious charges, and I will trust the judicial process to take them seriously."
Wilkerson also had a tight relationship with Senate President Therese Murray. The two women started at the same time in a Senate that was controlled by William M. Bulger. One of Murray's top aides, Jerome Smith, ran Wilkerson's successful reelection campaign in 2006.
"I've had better days," a tight-lipped Murray said outside her office yesterday, before announcing she was stripping Wilkerson of her committee chairwomanship and launching a Senate ethics probe. "I'm extremely disappointed."
The 32-page affidavit details meetings where Wilkerson was able to assemble the political muscle needed to get liquor licenses through.
"This woman is extremely powerful," said an unnamed associate in the FBI affidavit. "If she says no, you're [expletive] dead. If she says yes, you're golden."
But her problems continued. In 2004, her car was towed from the South End after she ran up about $1,300 in unpaid parking tickets. In 2006, she failed to gather enough signatures to place her name on the ballot, instead having to run a write-in campaign. In August, Wilkerson paid a $10,000 fine to the state attorney general's office and acknowledged campaign finance violations.
Despite all this, she was endorsed by Patrick and Mayor Thomas M. Menino in her reelection campaign this year. She lost the Democratic primary to Sonia Chang-Díaz, a 30-year-old former Jamaica Plain schoolteacher, but was still planning to run a write-in campaign next week.
"I don't think there ever will be a time of complete freedom from this kind of scrutiny," Wilkerson told the Globe in January 2006.
She also said she expected to be the target of more investigations. "Who knows what it will be?" she said.
A year after she made those comments, the federal probe began.
Matt Viser can be reached at maviser@globe.com.
© Copyright 2008 Globe Newspaper Company.
http://www.boston.com/news/local/ma...inst_wilkerson_shock_colleagues_constituents/
<font size="5"><Center>
Allegations against Wilkerson shock
colleagues, constituents</font size><font size="4">
Republicans call for her to step down</font size></center>
Dianne Wilkerson celebrated in September 2006 after she retained her Senate seat
in a sticker campaign she was forced to run after failing to file enough nomination
signatures. (Globe Staff/ File Photo / Matthew J. Lee)
Boston Globe
By Matt Viser
Globe Staff
October 29, 2008
From the beginning, she was a determined advocate for civil rights and a tough deal maker.
In 1991, as a lawyer for the NAACP, Dianne Wilkerson secured a nationally acclaimed pact with Mayor Raymond L. Flynn to end decades of discrimination in the city's public housing projects. She successfully pushed insurance companies to stop discriminating in poor neighborhoods. And since her election to the state Senate in 1992, she pressed her colleagues in the Legislature to support gay marriage and racial equality.
But Wilkerson's more recent forays into political deal making, portrayed yesterday in an FBI affidavit that resulted from an 18-month federal investigation, allegedly showed her using her political skills to extort bribes.
Transcripts of telephone calls and recorded conversations allegedly show her relentlessly pursuing a liquor license for a business executive who investigators say was paying her thousands of dollars in cash as she pulled strings at the highest levels of city and state government to get her way.
As a legislative committee received subpoenas and federal agents executed search warrants in her State House office yesterday, the allegations shocked lawmakers on Beacon Hill and constituents in Roxbury and Dorchester who had relied on her to come to their aid. The Senate president stripped her of her committee leadership post. Republicans called on her to resign.
Wilkerson has a track record of ethical and financial troubles, but the allegations of such brazen bribe taking were breathtaking, said observers.
"We've all been walking around with our jaws dropped," said Horace Small, executive director of the Union of Minority Neighborhoods, which is based in Wilkerson's district. "I just felt this incredible sadness. Dianne's personal life was nothing short of a nightmare, but in my interactions with her was as a legislator, she was one of the best. . . . She mastered that building."
Born in a small Arkansas town, Wilkerson moved in 1960 to Springfield, where her father worked as a steel factory laborer. She became pregnant with her first son, Kendall Wayne, while she was a senior at Commerce High. A year later, she gave birth to her second son, Cornell, as she earned a full scholarship to attend American International College in Springfield.
"I'm saddened that this has happened," said Darnell Williams, president of the Urban League of Eastern Massachusetts, who attended AIC with Wilkerson and baby-sat her two children while she attended classes. "My prayers and thoughts go out to her and her family at this time. She's been a strong advocate for this community. This is a sad chapter in her life."
She divorced, went on welfare as a single mother, and started law school at Boston College. She worked for two years as assistant legal counsel for Governor Michael S. Dukakis.
As a respected lawyer and NAACP vice president, she began to lay the groundwork for a career in politics. She spoke out against violence in the community and held meetings to call upon on residents to condemn drug use, reduce teenage pregnancies, and take responsibility for neighborhood children.
In 1992, using the slogan "We Can Do Better," she challenged veteran Senator Bill Owens in the Democratic primary and pulled off a surprising victory. Owens, who in 1974 became the first African-American elected to the state Senate, was backed by a wide array of black leaders, and Wilkerson's victory was seen as ushering in a new era in urban politics.
Almost immediately her name was floated as a future mayor or congresswoman.
"I remember seeing Dianne before she entered politics," said Senator Jack Hart, a Boston Democrat. "I thought she was an extraordinary figure with great promise, talented, articulate, bright. I always thought that she was somebody I had great admiration for. It's just tragic to see all of this happen."
Yet from the beginning of her career as an elected official, she was dogged by her seeming indifference to the most basic of civic obligations: paying bills.
She frequently played the role of victim, even when it was painfully obvious that she had misstepped, and implied that her critics were motivated by her race.
She defaulted on a $10,000 federally guaranteed student loan in 1987, which became an issue in her first political campaign. She neglected to pay $51,000 in federal income taxes in the early 1990s, charges that she pleaded guilty to in 1997 and for which she served six months in home detention.
In 2000, she faced foreclosure of her condominium after falling behind on her mortgage.
In 2001, the State Ethics Commission fined her $1,000 for failing to report that a bank was paying her $20,000 a year as a consultant. She was also sued that year for not paying $4,671 in condominium fees.
Despite all her personal problems, the good often seemed to outweigh the bad. She appeared to have nine lives, and issues that dogged other politicians were overshadowed by her passionate voice speaking for those who are not normally heard.
"When kids were dying in the streets, Dianne would bury them. When children were hungry, Dianne would feed them," Small said. "It's not that Dianne does no wrong - she's done a lot of wrong. But at the end of the day you had someone whose mission was to help other people."
Over the years, Wilkerson mastered the spider's web of Beacon Hill and developed a reputation for delivering for her district. She fought for reform of the state's criminal records system. She was an advocate for same-sex marriage, particularly in overturning a 1913 law originally aimed at interracial marriage that prohibited out-of-state same-sex couples from marrying in Massachusetts.
She was also one of the early endorsers of Governor Deval Patrick.
"The initial reports are both troubling and sad," Patrick said yesterday in a brief statement, later adding that she should resign if she is convicted. "These are very serious charges, and I will trust the judicial process to take them seriously."
Wilkerson also had a tight relationship with Senate President Therese Murray. The two women started at the same time in a Senate that was controlled by William M. Bulger. One of Murray's top aides, Jerome Smith, ran Wilkerson's successful reelection campaign in 2006.
"I've had better days," a tight-lipped Murray said outside her office yesterday, before announcing she was stripping Wilkerson of her committee chairwomanship and launching a Senate ethics probe. "I'm extremely disappointed."
The 32-page affidavit details meetings where Wilkerson was able to assemble the political muscle needed to get liquor licenses through.
"This woman is extremely powerful," said an unnamed associate in the FBI affidavit. "If she says no, you're [expletive] dead. If she says yes, you're golden."
But her problems continued. In 2004, her car was towed from the South End after she ran up about $1,300 in unpaid parking tickets. In 2006, she failed to gather enough signatures to place her name on the ballot, instead having to run a write-in campaign. In August, Wilkerson paid a $10,000 fine to the state attorney general's office and acknowledged campaign finance violations.
Despite all this, she was endorsed by Patrick and Mayor Thomas M. Menino in her reelection campaign this year. She lost the Democratic primary to Sonia Chang-Díaz, a 30-year-old former Jamaica Plain schoolteacher, but was still planning to run a write-in campaign next week.
"I don't think there ever will be a time of complete freedom from this kind of scrutiny," Wilkerson told the Globe in January 2006.
She also said she expected to be the target of more investigations. "Who knows what it will be?" she said.
A year after she made those comments, the federal probe began.
Matt Viser can be reached at maviser@globe.com.
© Copyright 2008 Globe Newspaper Company.
http://www.boston.com/news/local/ma...inst_wilkerson_shock_colleagues_constituents/
<font size="5"><center>In court, Wilkerson pleads not guilty
Must let officials study documents</font size></center>
Dianne Wilkerson entered US District Court yesterday for her arraignment on
attempted extortion charges. She made no comment to reporters and is free
on a $50,000 unsecured bond. (Globe Staff Photo / Suzanne Kreiter)
Boston Globe
By Jonathan Saltzman and Andrew Ryan
Globe Staff / December 9, 2008
Former state senator Dianne Wilkerson declared her innocence yesterday in US District Court, telling a judge in a firm voice that she was "not guilty" of eight counts of attempted extortion in a bribery investigation that has rocked the State House and Boston City Hall.
Brushing strands of hair from her face as she rose to her feet, Wilkerson entered the plea during a four-minute arraignment on charges stemming from her arrest Oct. 28 and subsequent indictment last month.
US Magistrate Judge Timothy S. Hillman also discussed an agreement that prevents the Roxbury Democrat from destroying documents that might relate to the case.
"There was a concern there might be document destruction in this case," Assistant US Attorney John T. McNeil explained after the hearing.
Under a Nov. 14 court order, Wilkerson must allow prosecutors to review all documents that she removed from her State House and district offices before anything is discarded.
The order relaxes one that Hillman issued the day of Wilkerson's arrest requiring her to preserve all documents.
"She cannot throw anything out without us going through it first," McNeil told reporters. Prosecutors have received a large number of documents, he added, and "really haven't encountered any significant problems" in making sure that potential evidence is preserved.
Dressed in a gray pin-striped suit, Wilkerson, 53, left court without speaking to a crush of reporters. Her lawyer, Max D. Stern, said she would have no comment.
The court has appointed Stern as the publicly funded lawyer for Wilkerson, who says she is indigent. She remains free on a $50,000 unsecured bond.
No new details emerged yesterday about the federal corruption case that has ensnared Wilkerson and Boston City Councilor Chuck Turner, who was arrested Nov. 21 on charges of accepting a $1,000 bribe and then lying about it to the FBI.
Authorities allege that Wilkerson accepted $23,500 in bribes from Roxbury businessman Ron Wilburn, who was an FBI informant, and an undercover FBI agent to help secure a liquor license for a nightclub in her district, and to push legislation paving the way for a development in Roxbury.
Prosecutors have also initiated a forfeiture proceeding against Wilkerson to recover the cash they say she took during the undercover operation.
"We want it back," McNeil said.
Turner has a probable cause hearing scheduled tomorrow in US District Court on the criminal complaint filed last month by prosecutors.
Legal specialists said it is likely that Turner will be indicted before then, making the hearing unnecessary.
Under federal law, prosecutors must file an indictment, or a charging document called an information, within 30 days of a defendant's arrest.
Wilkerson entered her plea before an unusual group of spectators - about a dozen judges, prosecutors, and defense lawyers from Macedonia who were visiting the United States to get a taste of the US judicial system.
Jonathan Saltzman can be reached at jsaltzman@globe.com.
© Copyright 2008 Globe Newspaper Company.
http://www.boston.com/news/local/ma...8/12/09/in_court_wilkerson_pleads_not_guilty/
Must let officials study documents</font size></center>
Dianne Wilkerson entered US District Court yesterday for her arraignment on
attempted extortion charges. She made no comment to reporters and is free
on a $50,000 unsecured bond. (Globe Staff Photo / Suzanne Kreiter)
Boston Globe
By Jonathan Saltzman and Andrew Ryan
Globe Staff / December 9, 2008
Former state senator Dianne Wilkerson declared her innocence yesterday in US District Court, telling a judge in a firm voice that she was "not guilty" of eight counts of attempted extortion in a bribery investigation that has rocked the State House and Boston City Hall.
Brushing strands of hair from her face as she rose to her feet, Wilkerson entered the plea during a four-minute arraignment on charges stemming from her arrest Oct. 28 and subsequent indictment last month.
US Magistrate Judge Timothy S. Hillman also discussed an agreement that prevents the Roxbury Democrat from destroying documents that might relate to the case.
"There was a concern there might be document destruction in this case," Assistant US Attorney John T. McNeil explained after the hearing.
Under a Nov. 14 court order, Wilkerson must allow prosecutors to review all documents that she removed from her State House and district offices before anything is discarded.
The order relaxes one that Hillman issued the day of Wilkerson's arrest requiring her to preserve all documents.
"She cannot throw anything out without us going through it first," McNeil told reporters. Prosecutors have received a large number of documents, he added, and "really haven't encountered any significant problems" in making sure that potential evidence is preserved.
Dressed in a gray pin-striped suit, Wilkerson, 53, left court without speaking to a crush of reporters. Her lawyer, Max D. Stern, said she would have no comment.
The court has appointed Stern as the publicly funded lawyer for Wilkerson, who says she is indigent. She remains free on a $50,000 unsecured bond.
No new details emerged yesterday about the federal corruption case that has ensnared Wilkerson and Boston City Councilor Chuck Turner, who was arrested Nov. 21 on charges of accepting a $1,000 bribe and then lying about it to the FBI.
Authorities allege that Wilkerson accepted $23,500 in bribes from Roxbury businessman Ron Wilburn, who was an FBI informant, and an undercover FBI agent to help secure a liquor license for a nightclub in her district, and to push legislation paving the way for a development in Roxbury.
Prosecutors have also initiated a forfeiture proceeding against Wilkerson to recover the cash they say she took during the undercover operation.
"We want it back," McNeil said.
Turner has a probable cause hearing scheduled tomorrow in US District Court on the criminal complaint filed last month by prosecutors.
Legal specialists said it is likely that Turner will be indicted before then, making the hearing unnecessary.
Under federal law, prosecutors must file an indictment, or a charging document called an information, within 30 days of a defendant's arrest.
Wilkerson entered her plea before an unusual group of spectators - about a dozen judges, prosecutors, and defense lawyers from Macedonia who were visiting the United States to get a taste of the US judicial system.
Jonathan Saltzman can be reached at jsaltzman@globe.com.
© Copyright 2008 Globe Newspaper Company.
http://www.boston.com/news/local/ma...8/12/09/in_court_wilkerson_pleads_not_guilty/
Re: Mass. State Senator; Boston Councilmember - Corruption
<font size="5"><center>
Indictment charges Turner,
Wilkerson with conspiracy</font size></center>
Boston City Councilor Chuck Turner
Boston Globe
December 9, 2008
By Jonathan Saltzman, Donovan Slack, and Andrew Ryan, Globe Staff
City Councilor Chuck Turner and former state Senator Dianne Wilkerson were charged for the first time today with conspiracy, adding another allegation to an ongoing federal bribery sting that has upended City Hall and Beacon Hill.
A federal grand jury issued an indictment alleging that Turner and Wilkerson worked together to extort money from a businessman seeking a liquor license for a nightclub in their district. The 17-page indictment does not describe any new evidence against either politician. It is, however, the first time that the grand jury has jointly charged Turner and Wilkerson in the corruption investigation.
The indictment also charged Turner with three separate counts of making false statements, detailing three specific instances in which he allegedly lied to FBI agents about accepting a $1,000 bribe. He is now charged with five felonies and is expected to be arraigned in US District Court on Wednesday afternoon.
Turner said in a telephone interview late this afternoon that he hadn't been informed of the indictment. After a reporter told him about the additional charge of conspiracy, he laughed.
"As I said before, I'm innocent of all charges, as will be proven in court," Turner said.
Wilkerson, who is accused of accepting eight cash bribes worth $23,500, now faces nine felonies. She has pleaded not guilty to eight of the charges and will be arraigned again on the conspiracy charge. Her lawyer, Max D. Stern, said he had expected the conspiracy charge because of the FBI affidavit released last month when prosecutors filed a criminal complaint against Turner.
"I don’t know of any evidence of a conspiracy between Dianne Wilkerson and Chuck Turner, but I’m not surprised that this is what the government alleges because … it’s always easier for the government to prove a conspiracy case,’’ Stern said.
Prosecutors have greater leeway to present hearsay evidence when they prosecute a defendant who allegedly conspired with another, said legal specialists.
Turner's lawyer, Barry P. Wilson, said his client broke no laws.
"I don't know what they're talking about -- conspiracy," Wilson said. "He didn't attempt to extort anything from anybody. As to the statements to the FBI agents, that's a setup. To me, it's just a lack of real credibility in the case that they go out of their way to create something."
Wilkerson faces up to 20 years in prison, three years of supervised release, and a $250,000 fine for each of the nine charges. Turner faces the same potential sanctions on the extortion and conspiracy charges. If convicted of making false statements, he could be sentenced to up to five years in prison, three years of supervised release, and a $250,000 fine for each count.
http://www.boston.com/news/local/breaking_news/2008/12/indictment_char.html?p1=Well_MostPop_Emailed6
<font size="5"><center>
Indictment charges Turner,
Wilkerson with conspiracy</font size></center>
Boston City Councilor Chuck Turner
Boston Globe
December 9, 2008
By Jonathan Saltzman, Donovan Slack, and Andrew Ryan, Globe Staff
City Councilor Chuck Turner and former state Senator Dianne Wilkerson were charged for the first time today with conspiracy, adding another allegation to an ongoing federal bribery sting that has upended City Hall and Beacon Hill.
A federal grand jury issued an indictment alleging that Turner and Wilkerson worked together to extort money from a businessman seeking a liquor license for a nightclub in their district. The 17-page indictment does not describe any new evidence against either politician. It is, however, the first time that the grand jury has jointly charged Turner and Wilkerson in the corruption investigation.
The indictment also charged Turner with three separate counts of making false statements, detailing three specific instances in which he allegedly lied to FBI agents about accepting a $1,000 bribe. He is now charged with five felonies and is expected to be arraigned in US District Court on Wednesday afternoon.
Turner said in a telephone interview late this afternoon that he hadn't been informed of the indictment. After a reporter told him about the additional charge of conspiracy, he laughed.
"As I said before, I'm innocent of all charges, as will be proven in court," Turner said.
Wilkerson, who is accused of accepting eight cash bribes worth $23,500, now faces nine felonies. She has pleaded not guilty to eight of the charges and will be arraigned again on the conspiracy charge. Her lawyer, Max D. Stern, said he had expected the conspiracy charge because of the FBI affidavit released last month when prosecutors filed a criminal complaint against Turner.
"I don’t know of any evidence of a conspiracy between Dianne Wilkerson and Chuck Turner, but I’m not surprised that this is what the government alleges because … it’s always easier for the government to prove a conspiracy case,’’ Stern said.
Prosecutors have greater leeway to present hearsay evidence when they prosecute a defendant who allegedly conspired with another, said legal specialists.
Turner's lawyer, Barry P. Wilson, said his client broke no laws.
"I don't know what they're talking about -- conspiracy," Wilson said. "He didn't attempt to extort anything from anybody. As to the statements to the FBI agents, that's a setup. To me, it's just a lack of real credibility in the case that they go out of their way to create something."
Wilkerson faces up to 20 years in prison, three years of supervised release, and a $250,000 fine for each of the nine charges. Turner faces the same potential sanctions on the extortion and conspiracy charges. If convicted of making false statements, he could be sentenced to up to five years in prison, three years of supervised release, and a $250,000 fine for each count.
http://www.boston.com/news/local/breaking_news/2008/12/indictment_char.html?p1=Well_MostPop_Emailed6
Monica Conyers Pleads Guilty
Conyers Facing Up To 5 Years In Prison
DETROIT -- City Council member Monica Conyers, the wife of powerful Democratic congressman John Conyers, pleaded guilty Friday to accepting cash bribes in exchange for supporting a sludge contract with a Houston company.
Conyers, 44, was charged with one count of conspiracy to commit bribery for allegedly accepting two payments from a Synagro Technologies official in late 2007, including one in a McDonald's parking lot.
She entered her plea before Judge Avern Cohn at 10 a.m. with her attorney Steven Fishman.
Conyers was solemn in court, having to be asked three times by the judge to speak up.
Conyers is facing three to five years in prison and up to $250,000 in fines. No sentencing date has been set.
Conyers' husband chairs the House Judiciary Committee in Congress. He has no role in the case. The couple has two sons.
"This has been a trying time for the Conyers family and, with hope and prayer, they will make it through this as a family," said a spokesman for John Conyers. "Public officials must expect to be held to the highest ethical and legal standards. With this in mind, Mr. Conyers wants to work towards helping his family and city recover from this serious matter."
Sources said Conyers has been identified as "Council Person A" in previous charging documents and accused of taking bribes to approve a $47 million sludge-handling contract for the city.
Conyers was the deciding voice in the 5-4 vote to approve the deal in November 2007.
The charge is outlined in a legal document called a "criminal information," which only can be filed with the defendant's consent and typically signals a plea deal.
The document reads, "Beginning on a date unknown and continuing until in or about December 2007, in the Eastern District of Michigan of Michigan, Monica Ann Conyers did knowingly and voluntarily conspire and agree with an aide and others to corruptly solicit and demand for the benefit of herself and others, and to accept and agree to accept, things of value from persons while an agent of the City of Detroit."
The document states that on Nov. 20, 2007, Conyers "met an individual sent by Rayford Jackson in the parking lot of the Butzel Family Center in Detroit and received an envelope containing cash."
It also states that on Dec. 4, 2007, Conyers and her aide also accepted an "envelope containing cash" in a Detroit McDonald's parking lot.
Sources have identified her former aide as Detroit political consultant Sam Riddle.
"I don't have a clue to what's happening," Riddle said outside the Detroit YMCA. He said he had heard rumors that Conyers was going to plead guilty to "something" but said he didn't know anything else.
"All I know is that I am an independent contractor, consultant, the same as I was when I worked with Conyers on the Detroit City Council," Riddle said. "My status remains unchanged in terms of my frame of mind."
When asked if during his time with Conyers he had ever seen her doing anything illegal, Riddle said, "There have been times when she's not been the model of decorum ... but in terms of illegality, I would really have to reflect on that."
Riddle said he's not here to "beat up on Monica Conyers."
"If Monica Conyers is pleading guilty to something, that thing will have to speak for itself."
Riddle said any investigation involving himself "remains to be seen."
Two people who worked for Synagro have already pleaded guilty: Rayford Jackson and James Rosendall Jr.
Jackson pleaded guilty June 15 to arranging four bribes in 2007 that totaled more than $6,000.
Rosendall pleaded guilty last year, accused of trying to influence city officials by chartering private planes to take them to Las Vegas and Mackinac Island, donating about $200,000 to campaign entities of a city official and paying $25,000 to an unidentified city official's relative.
The city of Detroit and Synagro Technologies called off the million-dollar contract after the corruption investigation began.
http://www.clickondetroit.com/news/19867343/detail.html#
Conyers Facing Up To 5 Years In Prison
DETROIT -- City Council member Monica Conyers, the wife of powerful Democratic congressman John Conyers, pleaded guilty Friday to accepting cash bribes in exchange for supporting a sludge contract with a Houston company.
Conyers, 44, was charged with one count of conspiracy to commit bribery for allegedly accepting two payments from a Synagro Technologies official in late 2007, including one in a McDonald's parking lot.
She entered her plea before Judge Avern Cohn at 10 a.m. with her attorney Steven Fishman.
Conyers was solemn in court, having to be asked three times by the judge to speak up.
Conyers is facing three to five years in prison and up to $250,000 in fines. No sentencing date has been set.
Conyers' husband chairs the House Judiciary Committee in Congress. He has no role in the case. The couple has two sons.
"This has been a trying time for the Conyers family and, with hope and prayer, they will make it through this as a family," said a spokesman for John Conyers. "Public officials must expect to be held to the highest ethical and legal standards. With this in mind, Mr. Conyers wants to work towards helping his family and city recover from this serious matter."
Sources said Conyers has been identified as "Council Person A" in previous charging documents and accused of taking bribes to approve a $47 million sludge-handling contract for the city.
Conyers was the deciding voice in the 5-4 vote to approve the deal in November 2007.
The charge is outlined in a legal document called a "criminal information," which only can be filed with the defendant's consent and typically signals a plea deal.
The document reads, "Beginning on a date unknown and continuing until in or about December 2007, in the Eastern District of Michigan of Michigan, Monica Ann Conyers did knowingly and voluntarily conspire and agree with an aide and others to corruptly solicit and demand for the benefit of herself and others, and to accept and agree to accept, things of value from persons while an agent of the City of Detroit."
The document states that on Nov. 20, 2007, Conyers "met an individual sent by Rayford Jackson in the parking lot of the Butzel Family Center in Detroit and received an envelope containing cash."
It also states that on Dec. 4, 2007, Conyers and her aide also accepted an "envelope containing cash" in a Detroit McDonald's parking lot.
Sources have identified her former aide as Detroit political consultant Sam Riddle.
"I don't have a clue to what's happening," Riddle said outside the Detroit YMCA. He said he had heard rumors that Conyers was going to plead guilty to "something" but said he didn't know anything else.
"All I know is that I am an independent contractor, consultant, the same as I was when I worked with Conyers on the Detroit City Council," Riddle said. "My status remains unchanged in terms of my frame of mind."
When asked if during his time with Conyers he had ever seen her doing anything illegal, Riddle said, "There have been times when she's not been the model of decorum ... but in terms of illegality, I would really have to reflect on that."
Riddle said he's not here to "beat up on Monica Conyers."
"If Monica Conyers is pleading guilty to something, that thing will have to speak for itself."
Riddle said any investigation involving himself "remains to be seen."
Two people who worked for Synagro have already pleaded guilty: Rayford Jackson and James Rosendall Jr.
Jackson pleaded guilty June 15 to arranging four bribes in 2007 that totaled more than $6,000.
Rosendall pleaded guilty last year, accused of trying to influence city officials by chartering private planes to take them to Las Vegas and Mackinac Island, donating about $200,000 to campaign entities of a city official and paying $25,000 to an unidentified city official's relative.
The city of Detroit and Synagro Technologies called off the million-dollar contract after the corruption investigation began.
http://www.clickondetroit.com/news/19867343/detail.html#
source: msnbc
WILLIAM JEFFERSON FOUND GUILTY
Posted: Wednesday, August 05, 2009 5:40 PM by Mark Murray
Former Congressman William Jefferson (D-LA) has been found guilty at his bribery trial of 11 of the 16 counts against him -- but not guilty on the other five. He was found NOT GUILTY of the most spectacular charge: planning to bribe an African official with money that was later found in his freezer.
*** UPDATE *** But the jury still found him guilty of conspiring to pay that bribe, so he stands convicted of one of the charges involving the freezer case.
WILLIAM JEFFERSON FOUND GUILTY
Posted: Wednesday, August 05, 2009 5:40 PM by Mark Murray
Former Congressman William Jefferson (D-LA) has been found guilty at his bribery trial of 11 of the 16 counts against him -- but not guilty on the other five. He was found NOT GUILTY of the most spectacular charge: planning to bribe an African official with money that was later found in his freezer.
*** UPDATE *** But the jury still found him guilty of conspiring to pay that bribe, so he stands convicted of one of the charges involving the freezer case.
Daaamn! forgot about this
1) Whats up with the leadership? (white & black)
2) What happened to going to DC to serve your community, then return to private life?
3) And these are the people who have gotten caught
bump
<font size="4">
William Jefferson gets 13 years in prison</font size>
William Jefferson enters court accompanied by
wife Andrea Jefferson. Photo: AP
Former Democratic Rep. William Jefferson of Louisiana, infamous for
having $90,000 in bribe money hidden in his freezer, was sentenced
to 13 years in prison today after being convicted on a slew of federal
corruption charges.
Jefferson’s sentence was the harshest ever handed out to a former
lawmaker, but Justice Department officials said Jefferson warranted
such a severe sanction because of the unprecedented scale of his
corruption. Jefferson appeared in court Friday afternoon in a black
suit and a red tie, with his five daughters, his wife and his brother.
http://www.politico.com/news/stories/1109/29506.html
William Jefferson gets 13 years in prison</font size>
William Jefferson enters court accompanied by
wife Andrea Jefferson. Photo: AP
Former Democratic Rep. William Jefferson of Louisiana, infamous for
having $90,000 in bribe money hidden in his freezer, was sentenced
to 13 years in prison today after being convicted on a slew of federal
corruption charges.
Jefferson’s sentence was the harshest ever handed out to a former
lawmaker, but Justice Department officials said Jefferson warranted
such a severe sanction because of the unprecedented scale of his
corruption. Jefferson appeared in court Friday afternoon in a black
suit and a red tie, with his five daughters, his wife and his brother.
http://www.politico.com/news/stories/1109/29506.html
<font size="4">
William Jefferson gets 13 years in prison</font size>
William Jefferson enters court accompanied by
wife Andrea Jefferson. Photo: AP
Former Democratic Rep. William Jefferson of Louisiana, infamous for
having $90,000 in bribe money hidden in his freezer, was sentenced
to 13 years in prison today after being convicted on a slew of federal
corruption charges.
Jefferson’s sentence was the harshest ever handed out to a former
lawmaker, but Justice Department officials said Jefferson warranted
such a severe sanction because of the unprecedented scale of his
corruption. Jefferson appeared in court Friday afternoon in a black
suit and a red tie, with his five daughters, his wife and his brother.
http://www.politico.com/news/stories/1109/29506.html
DAMN!!!!!!!!! 13 YEARS!!!!
<font size="5"><center>
Will ethics problems add to Democrats' woes?</font size></center>
Congressman Rangel has gotten into an ethical pickle
McClatchy Newspapers
By William Douglas and
David Lightman
Thursday, March 4, 2010
WASHINGTON — Unethical behavior by lawmakers helped Democrats win control of the Capitol in the 2006 elections, and the same issue could come back to haunt the party this November.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, faced with new and ongoing allegations of ethical lapses by some Democrats, vigorously defended her party's record Thursday and said that she'd taken strong steps to clean up the House of Representatives during her three-year tenure.
Watchdog groups say, however, that Pelosi's actions have fallen woefully short of House Democrats' promise to "drain the swamp" of unethical behavior, a vow they emphasized when they won control of the House in 2006 after Republican corruption scandals centered on disgraced lobbyist Jack Abramoff. Now Republicans see an important campaign issue emerging for November's congressional elections.
Last week the House ethics committee admonished Rep. Charles Rangel, D-N.Y., for taking two corporate-paid trips to the Caribbean in 2007 and 2008, but it didn't force him to step aside as the chairman of the powerful tax-writing Ways and Means Committee. As Republicans called for his ouster, Rangel stepped aside Wednesday in a bid to neutralize the issue before it damaged his party.
Also last week, the House ethics committee:
"The ethics committee is operating as before, which is nonfunctioning," said Melanie Sloan, the executive director of Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, a watchdog group. "Representative Charlie Rangel was pushed out, not that Pelosi wasn't supporting him. Rangel was crowding out the news, which is what they (Democrats) don't want in an election year."
Pelosi proclaimed Thursday that the House has come "a long way" in dealing with ethics problems. She pointed to Rangel's decision to step down as an example.
"Some of the issues that you reference in terms of the issues that transpired in the last few days, they are behind us. They are behind us," she said. "We have a new ... acting chair of the Ways and Means Committee. That's a very big change."
Rep. Sander Levin, D-Mich., became the acting chairman Thursday as Democrats bypassed Rep. Pete Stark, D-Calif., who'd been next in line but was dogged by a long history of controversial behavior.
Pelosi also said that until Wednesday, she didn't know about the latest ethics claim against a House Democrat, a nearly month-old allegation that freshman Rep. Eric Massa of New York had sexually harassed an aide.
Massa, 50, announced his retirement from Congress earlier this week, saying that he's suffering from non-Hodgkin's lymphoma. Massa denied the harassment allegation. The House Committee on Standards of Official Conduct — the official name of the ethics committee — is looking into the matter.
Pelosi maintained that she's fulfilling the House Democrats' 2006 pledge to change the ethical climate in Washington. She cited the 2007 establishment of the Independent Office of Congressional Ethics, which examines complaints before sending them to the ethics committee, as one of her accomplishments.
"I established something unprecedented, an outside group to receive complaints and, if they saw fit, to convey them to the ethics committee," she said. "We have a functioning ethics committee, which is independent, bipartisan and now functioning."
Watchdog groups say, however, that the power of the Independent Office of Congressional Ethics — whose board includes former George W. Bush administration CIA Director Porter Goss and former Clinton White House Counsel Abner Mikva — is limited because it doesn't have subpoena power and the ethics committee isn't required to follow its findings.
"The big part of the problem in Congress is that it is loath to police itself, even with the OCE, which has done a good job," said Mary Boyle, a spokeswoman for Common Cause, a watchdog group. "Without self-policing, you're going to continue to have problems, regardless of who is speaker. Members don't want to police themselves; they don't want to tell on each other. Congress is like a club.
http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2010/03/04/89865/amid-democratic-stumbles-on-ethics.html
Will ethics problems add to Democrats' woes?</font size></center>
Congressman Rangel has gotten into an ethical pickle
McClatchy Newspapers
By William Douglas and
David Lightman
Thursday, March 4, 2010
WASHINGTON — Unethical behavior by lawmakers helped Democrats win control of the Capitol in the 2006 elections, and the same issue could come back to haunt the party this November.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, faced with new and ongoing allegations of ethical lapses by some Democrats, vigorously defended her party's record Thursday and said that she'd taken strong steps to clean up the House of Representatives during her three-year tenure.
Watchdog groups say, however, that Pelosi's actions have fallen woefully short of House Democrats' promise to "drain the swamp" of unethical behavior, a vow they emphasized when they won control of the House in 2006 after Republican corruption scandals centered on disgraced lobbyist Jack Abramoff. Now Republicans see an important campaign issue emerging for November's congressional elections.
Last week the House ethics committee admonished Rep. Charles Rangel, D-N.Y., for taking two corporate-paid trips to the Caribbean in 2007 and 2008, but it didn't force him to step aside as the chairman of the powerful tax-writing Ways and Means Committee. As Republicans called for his ouster, Rangel stepped aside Wednesday in a bid to neutralize the issue before it damaged his party.
Also last week, the House ethics committee:
- Cleared Rep. John Murtha, D-Pa., who died Feb. 8, and six other members of the House Defense Appropriations Subcommittee of charges that they'd taken campaign money in exchange for legislative favors. The committee reviewed reports that the members had influenced earmarks — funding for special projects — for clients of the one-time lobbying firm PMA Group. The ethics committee said the lawmakers were more interested in the local impact of the projects than in campaign money.
- Issued a "public admonishment" to Dawn Kelly Mobley, former counsel to the late Rep. Stephanie Tubbs Jones, D-Ohio, who was then the chairwoman of the ethics panel. It found that Mobley had worked in 2007 to skirt House travel restrictions in order to smooth the way for Rangel and other Congressional Black Caucus members to take corporate-paid trips to the Caribbean.
"The ethics committee is operating as before, which is nonfunctioning," said Melanie Sloan, the executive director of Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, a watchdog group. "Representative Charlie Rangel was pushed out, not that Pelosi wasn't supporting him. Rangel was crowding out the news, which is what they (Democrats) don't want in an election year."
Pelosi proclaimed Thursday that the House has come "a long way" in dealing with ethics problems. She pointed to Rangel's decision to step down as an example.
"Some of the issues that you reference in terms of the issues that transpired in the last few days, they are behind us. They are behind us," she said. "We have a new ... acting chair of the Ways and Means Committee. That's a very big change."
Rep. Sander Levin, D-Mich., became the acting chairman Thursday as Democrats bypassed Rep. Pete Stark, D-Calif., who'd been next in line but was dogged by a long history of controversial behavior.
Pelosi also said that until Wednesday, she didn't know about the latest ethics claim against a House Democrat, a nearly month-old allegation that freshman Rep. Eric Massa of New York had sexually harassed an aide.
Massa, 50, announced his retirement from Congress earlier this week, saying that he's suffering from non-Hodgkin's lymphoma. Massa denied the harassment allegation. The House Committee on Standards of Official Conduct — the official name of the ethics committee — is looking into the matter.
Pelosi maintained that she's fulfilling the House Democrats' 2006 pledge to change the ethical climate in Washington. She cited the 2007 establishment of the Independent Office of Congressional Ethics, which examines complaints before sending them to the ethics committee, as one of her accomplishments.
"I established something unprecedented, an outside group to receive complaints and, if they saw fit, to convey them to the ethics committee," she said. "We have a functioning ethics committee, which is independent, bipartisan and now functioning."
Watchdog groups say, however, that the power of the Independent Office of Congressional Ethics — whose board includes former George W. Bush administration CIA Director Porter Goss and former Clinton White House Counsel Abner Mikva — is limited because it doesn't have subpoena power and the ethics committee isn't required to follow its findings.
"The big part of the problem in Congress is that it is loath to police itself, even with the OCE, which has done a good job," said Mary Boyle, a spokeswoman for Common Cause, a watchdog group. "Without self-policing, you're going to continue to have problems, regardless of who is speaker. Members don't want to police themselves; they don't want to tell on each other. Congress is like a club.
http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2010/03/04/89865/amid-democratic-stumbles-on-ethics.html
Why?
<font size="5"><center>
Texas Dem Breaks Rules,
Gives Scholarships to Relatives</font size></center>
CBS News
by Stephanie Condon
August 30, 2010
A Democratic congresswoman from Texas has admitted to inappropriately giving thousands of dollars in college scholarships to four of her own relatives and her top aide's two children, the Dallas Morning News first reported.
Rep. Eddie Bernice Johnson initially denied violating any rules of the scholarship program facilitated by the the Congressional Black Caucus Foundation, the Morning News reports. She later acknowledged violating the rules "unknowingly" and said she would work with the foundation to "rectify the financial situation."
The Congressional Black Caucus Foundation gives every member of the CBC $10,000 each year to award in scholarships to students in their districts. Members decide for themselves how to distribute the money.
From 2005 to 2008, according to the Morning News, Johnson awarded nine to 11 scholarships a year -- with three or four scholarships each year going to either her relatives or the relatives of her district director, Rod Givens. Those awards violated the scholarship program's anti-nepotism rules, as well as the requirement that recipients live or study within the member's district.
The CBC Foundation's general counsel, Amy Goldson, told the Morning News that those scholarship awards violated eligibility rules and are "of great concern."
Johnson, who is expected to win her 10th term in Congress, told the Morning News that no favoritism was involved, and she "probably wouldn't have given it" to her own relatives had there been more "very worthy applicants in my district."
Other CBC members have come under scrutiny this year, including Rep. Maxine Waters (D-Calif.) and Rep. Charlie Rangel (D-N.Y.), who will both stand trial on ethics charges this fall.
http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-503544_162-20015054-503544.html
Texas Dem Breaks Rules,
Gives Scholarships to Relatives</font size></center>
CBS News
by Stephanie Condon
August 30, 2010
A Democratic congresswoman from Texas has admitted to inappropriately giving thousands of dollars in college scholarships to four of her own relatives and her top aide's two children, the Dallas Morning News first reported.
Rep. Eddie Bernice Johnson initially denied violating any rules of the scholarship program facilitated by the the Congressional Black Caucus Foundation, the Morning News reports. She later acknowledged violating the rules "unknowingly" and said she would work with the foundation to "rectify the financial situation."
The Congressional Black Caucus Foundation gives every member of the CBC $10,000 each year to award in scholarships to students in their districts. Members decide for themselves how to distribute the money.
From 2005 to 2008, according to the Morning News, Johnson awarded nine to 11 scholarships a year -- with three or four scholarships each year going to either her relatives or the relatives of her district director, Rod Givens. Those awards violated the scholarship program's anti-nepotism rules, as well as the requirement that recipients live or study within the member's district.
The CBC Foundation's general counsel, Amy Goldson, told the Morning News that those scholarship awards violated eligibility rules and are "of great concern."
Johnson, who is expected to win her 10th term in Congress, told the Morning News that no favoritism was involved, and she "probably wouldn't have given it" to her own relatives had there been more "very worthy applicants in my district."
Other CBC members have come under scrutiny this year, including Rep. Maxine Waters (D-Calif.) and Rep. Charlie Rangel (D-N.Y.), who will both stand trial on ethics charges this fall.
http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-503544_162-20015054-503544.html
`
Dallas Morning News – Rep. Eddie Bernice Johnson awarded eight scholarships
last year to her grandsons and a top aide’s children -- bringing to 23 the number
of scholarships she handed out since 2005 in violation of Congressional Black Caucus
Foundation eligibility rules.
A previously undisclosed list, provided Monday afternoon by the foundation, shows
that Johnson’s grandsons Kirk and David Johnson, along with the children of her district
director in Dallas, Rod Givens, each received two scholarships last year, under two
competitions run by the foundation.
`
Dallas Morning News – Rep. Eddie Bernice Johnson awarded eight scholarships
last year to her grandsons and a top aide’s children -- bringing to 23 the number
of scholarships she handed out since 2005 in violation of Congressional Black Caucus
Foundation eligibility rules.
A previously undisclosed list, provided Monday afternoon by the foundation, shows
that Johnson’s grandsons Kirk and David Johnson, along with the children of her district
director in Dallas, Rod Givens, each received two scholarships last year, under two
competitions run by the foundation.
`
RACIAL DISPARITY
All Active Ethics Probes Focus on Black Lawmakers
<img src="http://i56.tinypic.com/24ez613.jpg" width="356" height="267" />
<img src="http://images.politico.com/global/johnbredgnahan.jpg" width="150" height="150" />
by John Bresnahan
November 3, 2009
http://www.politico.com/news/stories/1109/29055.html
The House ethics committee is currently investigating seven African-American lawmakers — more than 15 percent of the total in the House. And an eighth black member, Rep. Jesse Jackson Jr. (D-Ill.), would be under investigation if the Justice Department hadn’t asked the committee to stand down.
<SPAN STYLE="background-color:YELLOW"><b>
Not a single white lawmaker is currently the subject of a full-scale ethics committee probe. </b></span>
The ethics committee declined to respond to questions about the racial disparity, and members of the Congressional Black Caucus are wary of talking about it on the record. But privately, some black members are outraged — and see in the numbers a worrisome trend in the actions of ethics watchdogs on and off Capitol Hill.
“Is there concern whether someone is trying to set up [Congressional Black Caucus] members? Yeah, there is,” a black House Democrat said. “It looks as if there is somebody out there who understands what the rules [are] and sends names to the ethics committee with the goal of going after the [CBC].”
African-American politicians have long complained that they’re treated unfairly when ethical issues arise. Members of the Congressional Black Caucus are still fuming over Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s decision to oust then-Rep. William Jefferson (D-La.) from the House Ways and Means Committee in 2006, and some have argued that race plays a role in the ongoing efforts to remove Rep. Charles Rangel (D-N.Y.) from his chairmanship of that committee.
Last week’s actions by the House ethics committee are sure to add fuel to the fire.
The committee — which has one African-American lawmaker, Rep. G.K. Butterfield (D-N.C.), among its 10 members — on Thursday considered three referrals from the recently formed Office of Congressional Ethics. It dismissed a case against Rep. Sam Graves (R-Mo.), who is white, but agreed to open full-blown investigations of California Democratic Reps. Maxine Waters and Laura Richardson, both of whom are black.
The committee was already investigating five other African-Americans. Rangel is the subject of two different probes, one involving a host of issues he has put before the committee and another involving allegations that corporate funds may have been used improperly to pay for members’ trips to the Caribbean in 2007-08. Reps. Carolyn Kilpatrick (D-Mich.), Bennie Thompson (D-Miss.) and Donald Payne (D-N.J.) and Del. Donna Christensen (D-U.S. Virgin Islands) are also included in the second of those investigations.
<SPAN STYLE="background-color:YELLOW"><b>
A document leaked to The Washington Post last week showed that nearly three dozen lawmakers have come under scrutiny this year by either the House ethics committee or the Office of Congressional Ethics, an independent watchdog created in 2008 at the insistence of Pelosi. While the list contained a substantial number of white lawmakers, the ethics committee has not yet launched formal investigative subcommittees with respect to any of them — as it has with the seven African-American members. </b></span>
The OCE has also been a particular target of ire for the Congressional Black Caucus. Black lawmakers, including CBC Chairwoman Barbara Lee (D-Calif.), met with OCE officials earlier this year to raise their concerns. Spokesmen for Lee and the OCE both declined to comment.
A number of CBC members opposed the resolution establishing the OCE, arguing that it was the wrong response to the Jack Abramoff lobbying scandal, which helped Democrats seize control of the House in 2006.
Setting up the OCE “was a mistake,” Rep. Emanuel Cleaver (D-Mo.) told The Hill newspaper recently. “Congress has a long and rich history of overreacting to a crisis.”
Cleaver, though, now finds himself part of the four-member subcommittee that will investigate Waters, who voted against the OCE. Waters is being probed over her intervention with the Treasury Department on behalf of a minority-owned bank in which her husband served on the board and owned at least $250,000 in stock.
While she has flatly denied engaging in any unethical or improper behavior in her dealings with OneUnited, Waters was described by colleagues and Democratic aides as “livid” over the ethics committee’s decision to investigate her.
“She was hopping mad,” a Democratic lawmaker said of Waters. “She feels this is a complete miscarriage of justice.”
Another CBC member said black lawmakers are “easy targets” for ethics watchdog groups because they have less money — both personally and in their campaign accounts — to defend themselves than do their white colleagues. Campaign funds can be used to pay members’ legal bills.
“A lot of that has to do with outside watchdog groups like [Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington] that have to have a level of success to justify OCE,” the CBC member said. The good-government groups were strong backers of the OCE’s creation.
But these same groups won’t go after Rep. Jane Harman (D-Calif.), this lawmaker claimed, “because she has plenty of money to defend herself,” and the outside groups don’t want to take a risk. The Democrat said the ethics committee would be going up against Harman’s lawyers and “going up against” the powerful American Israel Public Affairs Committee if they push the OCE to pressure the ethics committee to act.
In fact, CREW filed a complaint against Harman with the OCE.
Harman was allegedly recorded on a 2005 federal wiretap discussing with an Israeli operative her bid to become Intelligence Committee chairwoman. Harman has denied any wrongdoing, but an attempt by the ethics committee to get a transcript of the taped call was rebuffed by the Justice Department.
What especially galled black lawmakers was that the ethics committee voted to move forward with the Waters and Richardson probes following the OCE referrals, while Graves — who OCE also thought should be investigated by the ethics committee — saw his case dismissed.
Even worse, the ethics committee issued a 541-page document explaining why it wouldn’t look into allegations that Graves invited a witness to testify before the Small Business Committee — on which he sits — without revealing his financial ties to that witness.
“It is kind of crazy,” said an aide to one senior black Democrat. “How can it be that the ethics committee only investigates African-Americans? It doesn’t make sense.”
White lawmakers have certainly been the subject of ethics committee investigations before. Former Majority Leader Tom DeLay (R-Texas) was admonished by the committee for his dealings with corporate lobbyists, while ex-Rep. Mark Foley (R-Fla.) was the target of an investigation over his dealings with teenage male House pages in late 2006. Foley resigned after the sex scandal was revealed.
And the document leaked to the Post last week shows that a number of white lawmakers — including senior House Appropriations Committee members John Murtha (D-Pa.), Pete Visclosky (D-Ind.), Alan Mollohan (D-W.Va.) and Jim Moran (D-Va.) — have drawn the attention of the committee and the OCE.
The two congressional ethics watchdogs are looking into these members’ ties to the PMA Group, a now-defunct lobbying firm that won tens of millions of dollars in earmarks from members of the Appropriations Committee. The lawmakers who arranged for the earmarks received hundreds of thousands of dollars in campaign contributions from PMA’s lobbying clients.
But it seems unlikely that the PMA case will become the subject of a full-blown ethics committee investigation. The Justice Department is also looking into the PMA allegations; the FBI raided PMA’s office last year, and Visclosky and his former chief of staff have been served with document subpoenas. And under ethics committee rules, the panel cannot conduct an investigation of any member or staffer already being probed by a law enforcement agency.
The nation’s only black senator, Roland Burris of Illinois, is currently under investigation by the Senate Ethics Committee. It’s not clear whether that committee is currently investigating any white members, although Sen. John Ensign (R-Nev.) is likely to be in its sights if the Justice Department doesn’t pre-empt a committee investigation.
<hr noshade color="#FF0000" size="10"></hr>
Maxine Waters the Democrat's Sacrificial Lamb
by Earl Ofari Hutchinson
August 3rd 2010
http://www.americanchronicle.com/articles/view/173938
The headlines in several major dailies blared "Maxine Waters under scrutiny for bank ties." "Waters Helped Bank whose stock she once owned." "What is the Maxine Waters scandal all about?" The reports painted the embattled California Congresswoman who is one of the most influential and outspoken elected officials as a corrupt, influence peddling, deal making politician who schemed to get millions in TARP bailout money for a bank that her husband had stock in. Waters, readers were told, faced possible ethics charges in the House.
There's a problem, no several problems, with this. Start with the headlines that trumpeted Water's woes. They are a year and half old. The House Ethics Committee, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, the Congressional Black Caucus, and in fact all House Democrats reported and hashed over the allegations against her at the time. Apart from the allegation that she arranged a meeting on behalf of the National Bankers Association, a minority banking group, with treasury officials, and her husband had an interest in one of the banks, the allegation is not new. During that time legions of bankers and Wall Street financial house reps met with treasury officials. They all came with hat in hand for bailout funds. Waters did not attend the meeting in question and had no input in the decision by the treasury to eventually shell out $12 million in bailout funds to minority banks. On the strength of an old charge, a single meeting, and no proof that Waters arm twisted treasury officials to fork over money to the bank in question or any other minority bank, Waters muscled aside Charles Rangel as the poster politician for Congressional thievery and malfeasance.
It's no accident that Waters has been dumped on the political hot seat three months before the 2010 mid-term elections. House Democrats are scared stiff that the GOP will erase their majority. What better way to prove that they can police their own, and make good on Pelosi's oft quoted vow to cleanse the swamp in Congress than to make sacrificial lambs out of a handful of wayward Democrats. And chose those who are the most identifiable, outspoken, and vulnerable, and that's African-American Democrats. The choice of Waters and Rangel has little to do with the actual charges and their alleged transgressions, or even whether they have merit or not. It's politics, pure and simple.
The list of white Republicans and Democrats that engage in influence peddling, conflict of interest, bed ties with lobbyists, nepotism, commit campaign financial violations and improprieties, would fill up a small telephone directory. There are occasions when a few of them get hand slap punishments for their sins. Almost always when they are so over the top they can't be ignored. <SPAN STYLE="background-color:YELLOW"><b>But black politicians that are accused of wrongdoing, or actually do wrong, are called on the carpet far out of proportion to their numbers.</b></span>
<SPAN STYLE="background-color:YELLOW"><b>The pattern was set more than two decades ago. Between 1983 and 1988, the Reagan Justice Department initiated 465 political corruption probes of elected officials. A disproportionate percentage of the investigations were against black elected officials even though they comprised only three percent of US elected officials.</b></span>
<SPAN STYLE="background-color:YELLOW"><b>A decade later the pattern was repeated. Then half of the 26 members of the Congressional Black Caucus were the subjects of federal investigations. To put the racial magnitude of the investigations in perspective, this was equivalent to bringing charges against 204 of the 409 white congressional representatives. </b></span>
Reagan and Bush Sr. officials hotly denied that there was any racial bias or animus in the top heavy number of black elected officials hit with investigations and in some cases charges. Administrations officials said the investigations simply were intended to root out political corruption. There is a yes and no to that. Taking money and political cronyism is a time-honored tradition in American politics. A number of white politicians have been indicted, convicted and imprisoned, both Democrats and Republicans. But timing and partisan politics can't be separated from who gets targeted for prosecution or hit with ethics charges. In the case of Rangel and now Waters, they are not rank and file Democrats, they are two of the highest profile, nationally known Democrats, and apart from the fact they're African-American, this gives even greater veneer of credence to Pelosi and ranking Democrats contention that they'll go after any Democrats no matter their party rank and stature that cross the ethics line.
Pelosi and the Democrats should hold to that high standard. But they should hold to it with all Democrats. Waters and Rangel may face trial, and the betting odds are that every effort will be made to lay out their dirty ethics laundry. If convicted, the Democrats will crow that their penalties will serve as warning that the Democrats are staunch standard keepers of the ethical flame in the House. Waters is the perfect sacrificial lamb for them to make that case.
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Oh well.
If they're violating the rules, they deserve every piece of scrutiny they receive!Just listen to this idiot
Rep. Maxine Waters Cleared By House Ethics Committee
Rep. Maxine Waters (D-Calif.) and her husband Sidney Williams
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs...5d346c2-03f3-11e2-8102-ebee9c66e190_blog.html
WASHINGTON -09/21/2012
A House ethics panel has determined there is no evidence that Rep. Maxine Waters (D-Calif.) violated congressional rules when she called Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson in 2008 on behalf of minority-owned banks, despite her husband’s financial stake in one troubled institution.
The finding concludes an investigation into Waters’s actions that was disrupted by allegations of misconduct within a previous committee probing her conduct. A new panel created to review Waters’s actions ultimately took the highly unusual step of hiring an outside lawyer to conduct the inquiry.
At a rare public hearing Friday, members of the committee indicated they were prepared to accept the findings of the outside lawyer. The attorney, Billy Martin, found that Waters believed she was intervening on behalf of all minority-owned banks—and not directly on behalf of OneUnited Bank of Boston, in which her husband held stock.
He therefore found no evidence that she knowingly violated House rules. When she learned that OneUnited, on whose board her husband once sat, was seeking federal bailout funds, she ended her involvement, Martin concluded.
OneUnited ultimately received $12 million through the federal Troubled Asset Relief Program to help offset losses from investments in Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. Waters’s actions occurred during the height of the financial crash, when many banks were facing difficulties because of investments in the federal housing agencies.
The conclusion of the investigation was delayed after it was revealed that two staff attorneys to the committee had leaked information in 2010 to Republican committee members. House Speaker John A. Boehner (R-Ohio) appointed the six lawmakers who met Friday in 2011 to restart the probe.
Martin also found that the leaks did not violate Waters’s due process rights. Waters has long maintained that she wanted to clear the her name quickly and that the long delay has been unfair. She had repeatedly requested a public hearing like the one held Friday.
But with her name already cleared, the Friday panel discussion has instead been devoted to the question of whether her grandson, chief of staff Mikael Moore, violated House rules by continuing to work on OneUnited’s behalf even after Waters informed him of her husband’s interest and instructed him not to do so.
Moore is publicly testifying Friday that he did not know of Waters’s husband’s investment in the bank when he intervened on its behalf in September 2008. The panel is currently deliberating whether to press ahead with a finding that his claims are not credible and he should face sanctions.
The long-awaited end of the ethics probe clears the way for Waters to become the ranking Democrat on the key Financial Services Committee in the next Congress, after the retirement of Rep. Barney Frank (D-Mass.).
Jesse Jackson Jr., wife agree to plead guilty
Jesse Jackson Jr., wife agree to plead guilty
By PETE YOST | Associated Press – 21 hrs ago
WASHINGTON (AP) — In a spectacular fall from political prominence, former U.S. Rep. Jesse Jackson Jr. and his wife agreed Friday to plead guilty to federal charges growing out of what prosecutors said was a scheme to use $750,000 in campaign funds for lavish personal expenses, including a $43,000 gold watch and furs.
Federal prosecutors filed one charge of conspiracy against the former Chicago congressman and charged his ex-alderman wife, Sandra, with one count of filing false joint federal income tax returns for the years 2006 through 2011 that knowingly understated the income the couple received. Both agreed to plead guilty in deals with federal prosecutors.
Both face maximum penalties of several years in prison; he also faces hundreds of thousands of dollars in fines and forfeitures. But the government did not immediately release the text of its plea agreements. Such agreements almost invariably call for prosecutors to recommend sentences below the maximum.
The son of a famed civil rights leader, Jackson, a Democrat, entered Congress in 1995 and resigned last November. Sandi, as she's known, was a Chicago alderman, but resigned last month amid the federal investigation.
Jackson used campaign money to buy such things as a $43,350 on a gold-plated, men's Rolex watch and $9,587.64 on children's furniture, according to court papers filed in the case. His wife spent $5,150 on fur capes and parkas, the document said.
"I offer no excuses for my conduct, and I fully accept my responsibility for the improper decisions and mistakes I have made," the ex-congressman said in a written statement released by his lawyers. "I want to offer my sincerest apologies ... for my errors in judgment and while my journey is not yet complete, it is my hope that I am remembered for things that I did right."
Several messages left with Jackson's father, the voluble civil rights leader Jesse Jackson, were not returned Friday. The elder Jackson has often declined to comment about his son's health and legal woes over the past several months.
The government said, "Defendant Jesse L. Jackson Jr., willingly and knowingly, used approximately $750,000 from the campaign's accounts for personal expenses" that benefited him and his co-conspirator, who was not named in the one-count criminal information filed in the case. The filing of a criminal information means a defendant has waived the right to have a grand jury consider the case; it is used by federal prosecutors when they have reached a deal for a guilty plea.
The prosecutors' court filing said that upon conviction, Jackson must forfeit $750,000, plus tens of thousands of dollars' worth of memorabilia items and furs. The memorabilia includes a football signed by U.S. presidents, a Michael Jackson and Eddie Van Halen guitar, a Michael Jackson fedora, Martin Luther King Jr.
memorabilia, Malcolm X memorabilia, Jimi Hendrix memorabilia and Bruce Lee memorabilia — all from a company called Antiquities of Nevada.
The conspiracy charge carries a maximum statutory penalty of up to five years in prison, a fine of up to $250,000, and other penalties. U.S. District Judge Robert L. Wilkins is assigned to the case.
Tom Kirsch, an attorney for Jackson's wife said she has signed a plea agreement with federal prosecutors and would plead guilty to one tax count.
Kirsch said his client and her husband have supported each other. He said the episode has been stressful for Sandi Jackson, but she "expected to be held responsible ... and wants to put (it) behind her and her family."
The charge against Sandi Jackson carries a maximum of three-year prison sentence. But Kirsch says the agreement "does not contemplate a sentence of that length."
The court papers said that Jackson filed false financial reports with the U.S. House of Representatives in an attempt to conceal his and his wife's conversion of campaign funds for their personal benefit.
A black and red cashmere cape cost $1,500, a mink reversible parka cost $1,200 and a black fox reversible cost $1,500, prosecutors wrote.
According the government's court papers:
—Jackson and his wife carried out the scheme by using credit cards issued to Jackson's re-election campaigns to pay personal credit card bills for $582,772.58 in purchases by Jackson. Jackson provided his wife and a long-time campaign treasurer $112,150.39, solely for having the two carry out transactions that personally benefited Jackson.
—In a false filing with the House, the owner of an unidentified Alabama-based company issued a $25,000 check to pay down a balance on one of Jackson's personal credit cards. Jackson's financial disclosure statement with the House omitted the payment made on Jackson's behalf.
—In a false campaign filing with the Federal Election Commission, an unidentified treasurer for Jackson's campaigns reported that the campaign spent $1,553.09 at a Chicago Museum for "room rental-fundraiser." In fact, said the court papers, Jackson spent those funds to buy porcelain collector's items.
Jackson's resignation ended a once-promising political career tarnished by unproven allegations that he was involved in discussions to raise campaign funds for imprisoned former Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich in exchange for appointment — which never came — to President Barack Obama's vacated U.S. Senate seat. The House Ethics Committee, which no longer has any power over Jackson, may choose to issue a report on the matter.
Jackson denied any wrongdoing in the Blagojevich matter. But the suspicions, along with revelations that he had had an extramarital affair, derailed any aspirations for higher political office. It wasn't clear from the court papers whether the woman with whom he had the affair was among the half dozen people identified the documents by letters of the alphabet rather than by their names.
Since last June, Jackson has been hospitalized twice at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minn., for treatment of bipolar disorder and other issues, and he stayed out of the public eye for months, even during the November elections.
http://news.yahoo.com/jesse-jackson-jr-wife-agree-plead-guilty-224949313--politics.html
Jesse Jackson Jr., wife agree to plead guilty
By PETE YOST | Associated Press – 21 hrs ago
WASHINGTON (AP) — In a spectacular fall from political prominence, former U.S. Rep. Jesse Jackson Jr. and his wife agreed Friday to plead guilty to federal charges growing out of what prosecutors said was a scheme to use $750,000 in campaign funds for lavish personal expenses, including a $43,000 gold watch and furs.
Federal prosecutors filed one charge of conspiracy against the former Chicago congressman and charged his ex-alderman wife, Sandra, with one count of filing false joint federal income tax returns for the years 2006 through 2011 that knowingly understated the income the couple received. Both agreed to plead guilty in deals with federal prosecutors.
Both face maximum penalties of several years in prison; he also faces hundreds of thousands of dollars in fines and forfeitures. But the government did not immediately release the text of its plea agreements. Such agreements almost invariably call for prosecutors to recommend sentences below the maximum.
The son of a famed civil rights leader, Jackson, a Democrat, entered Congress in 1995 and resigned last November. Sandi, as she's known, was a Chicago alderman, but resigned last month amid the federal investigation.
Jackson used campaign money to buy such things as a $43,350 on a gold-plated, men's Rolex watch and $9,587.64 on children's furniture, according to court papers filed in the case. His wife spent $5,150 on fur capes and parkas, the document said.
"I offer no excuses for my conduct, and I fully accept my responsibility for the improper decisions and mistakes I have made," the ex-congressman said in a written statement released by his lawyers. "I want to offer my sincerest apologies ... for my errors in judgment and while my journey is not yet complete, it is my hope that I am remembered for things that I did right."
Several messages left with Jackson's father, the voluble civil rights leader Jesse Jackson, were not returned Friday. The elder Jackson has often declined to comment about his son's health and legal woes over the past several months.
The government said, "Defendant Jesse L. Jackson Jr., willingly and knowingly, used approximately $750,000 from the campaign's accounts for personal expenses" that benefited him and his co-conspirator, who was not named in the one-count criminal information filed in the case. The filing of a criminal information means a defendant has waived the right to have a grand jury consider the case; it is used by federal prosecutors when they have reached a deal for a guilty plea.
The prosecutors' court filing said that upon conviction, Jackson must forfeit $750,000, plus tens of thousands of dollars' worth of memorabilia items and furs. The memorabilia includes a football signed by U.S. presidents, a Michael Jackson and Eddie Van Halen guitar, a Michael Jackson fedora, Martin Luther King Jr.
memorabilia, Malcolm X memorabilia, Jimi Hendrix memorabilia and Bruce Lee memorabilia — all from a company called Antiquities of Nevada.
The conspiracy charge carries a maximum statutory penalty of up to five years in prison, a fine of up to $250,000, and other penalties. U.S. District Judge Robert L. Wilkins is assigned to the case.
Tom Kirsch, an attorney for Jackson's wife said she has signed a plea agreement with federal prosecutors and would plead guilty to one tax count.
Kirsch said his client and her husband have supported each other. He said the episode has been stressful for Sandi Jackson, but she "expected to be held responsible ... and wants to put (it) behind her and her family."
The charge against Sandi Jackson carries a maximum of three-year prison sentence. But Kirsch says the agreement "does not contemplate a sentence of that length."
The court papers said that Jackson filed false financial reports with the U.S. House of Representatives in an attempt to conceal his and his wife's conversion of campaign funds for their personal benefit.
A black and red cashmere cape cost $1,500, a mink reversible parka cost $1,200 and a black fox reversible cost $1,500, prosecutors wrote.
According the government's court papers:
—Jackson and his wife carried out the scheme by using credit cards issued to Jackson's re-election campaigns to pay personal credit card bills for $582,772.58 in purchases by Jackson. Jackson provided his wife and a long-time campaign treasurer $112,150.39, solely for having the two carry out transactions that personally benefited Jackson.
—In a false filing with the House, the owner of an unidentified Alabama-based company issued a $25,000 check to pay down a balance on one of Jackson's personal credit cards. Jackson's financial disclosure statement with the House omitted the payment made on Jackson's behalf.
—In a false campaign filing with the Federal Election Commission, an unidentified treasurer for Jackson's campaigns reported that the campaign spent $1,553.09 at a Chicago Museum for "room rental-fundraiser." In fact, said the court papers, Jackson spent those funds to buy porcelain collector's items.
Jackson's resignation ended a once-promising political career tarnished by unproven allegations that he was involved in discussions to raise campaign funds for imprisoned former Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich in exchange for appointment — which never came — to President Barack Obama's vacated U.S. Senate seat. The House Ethics Committee, which no longer has any power over Jackson, may choose to issue a report on the matter.
Jackson denied any wrongdoing in the Blagojevich matter. But the suspicions, along with revelations that he had had an extramarital affair, derailed any aspirations for higher political office. It wasn't clear from the court papers whether the woman with whom he had the affair was among the half dozen people identified the documents by letters of the alphabet rather than by their names.
Since last June, Jackson has been hospitalized twice at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minn., for treatment of bipolar disorder and other issues, and he stayed out of the public eye for months, even during the November elections.
http://news.yahoo.com/jesse-jackson-jr-wife-agree-plead-guilty-224949313--politics.html
source: Miami Herald
Lt. Gov. Jennifer Carroll resigns amid state, federal probe of non-profit veterans group
Lt. Gov. Jennifer Carroll abruptly resigned Tuesday after law enforcement officials questioned her about ties to a purported veterans charity organization at the center of a $300 million multi-state racketeering investigation.
Florida law enforcement officials would not say if Carroll, 53, is facing possible criminal charges in connection with the case. Gov. Rick Scott also would not comment. Scott said he would not name Carroll’s replacement until the end of the annual legislative session in May.
“She resigned, and she did the right thing for her state and for her family,” Scott said.
At issue is Carroll’s connections to Allied Veterans of the World, a Florida nonprofit that operates a chain of Internet sweepstakes cafes as a pseudo-charity. Nearly 60 people associated with the company were arrested this week on various charges, including illegal gambling, racketeering and money laundering.
Carroll owned a public relations firm that represented Allied Veterans, and as a member of the Florida House of Representatives, did work for the company. She later filmed an advertisement promoting Allied Veterans while serving as lieutenant governor.
Carroll resigned in a two-sentence letter after meeting with the governor’s chief of staff, Adam Hollingsworth, and general counsel Pete Antonacci. She did not meet with Scott.
It’s a quick and remarkable fall for someone who had been seen as important figure in the Florida Republican Party.
Born in Trinidad, Carroll, a former U.S. Navy lieutenant commander, was the first African-American Republican woman elected to the Legislature and the first African-American woman elected lieutenant governor. She was considered a favorite to be named Charlie Crist’s lieutenant governor in 2006 before Scott selected her four years later.
She was a delegate to the Republican National Convention in 2012 and led a task force studying Florida’s “Stand Your Ground” laws. She could not be reached Wednesday.
“Lt. Gov. Carroll resigned yesterday in an effort to keep her former affiliations with the company from distracting from our important work on behalf of Florida families,” Scott said. “We appreciate her willingness to step up and serve our state. She was a tireless advocate for Florida’s military and our mission to create more jobs. We are grateful for her service.”
Carroll attended Scott’s March 5 State of the State address but did not speak. Her last major public remarks came March 3, where she spoke at a dinner honoring Scott sponsored by the Florida Federation of Republican Women.
Her official calendar for Wednesday — which was released Tuesday evening — listed no public events.
The investigation into Allied Veterans started in 2009, according to law enforcement officials, who said Allied Veterans tried to scheme and defraud the public and governmental agencies by misrepresenting how much of its proceeds were donated to charities affiliated with Veterans Administration.
So far, nearly 60 people have been arrested in 23 Florida counties.
Carroll’s public relations firm, 3 N. and J.C. Corporation, is currently inactive, according to the Florida Division of Corporations. But the company’s primary source of income in 2009 and 2010 was Allied Veterans, financial disclosure forms show.
While serving in the state House in 2010, Carroll introduced legislation to legalize sweepstakes games such as those in cafes operated by Allied Veterans. Carroll later withdrew the proposed law, saying it was filed erroneously and that she wasn’t interested in legalizing Internet cafes, which operate in a legal gray area.
Internet sweepstakes cafes are big business in Florida. Since 2007, as many as 1,000 have popped up across the state, according to industry estimates, raking in $1 billion a year.
To play games at one of the Internet cafes, a customer gets a prepaid card and then goes to a computer to play "sweepstakes." The games, with spinning wheels similar to slot machines, have names such as "Captain Cash," ’’Lucky Shamrocks" and "Money Bunny," according to the IRS. Winners go back to a cashier with their cards and cash out. The games of chance have been the subject of much debate in Florida and some are legal as long as most of the profits are donated to charity.
Allied is a big player in Florida. In 2011, it had 40 locations statewide. Allied has spent hundreds of thousands of dollars on state lobbyists.
Carroll’s time as lieutenant governor has not been without controversy.
Former travel aide Carletha Cole said she was fired in 2011 after complaining about Carroll in the media. Cole, who was later charged with sharing an illegal recording, said she once walked in on Carroll and a female staffer engaged in what appeared to be a sex act. The governor’s office has described Cole’s allegations as “outrageous.”
Carroll’s travel as lieutenant governor also has been an issue. Scott’s office placed Carroll on a $10,000-a-month fixed travel budget after her travel costs ballooned to nearly $300,000 in 2011.
With Scott’s consent, Carroll also was assigned for protection a lower-ranking and less-expensive corporal from the Florida Highway Patrol.
Lt. Gov. Jennifer Carroll resigns amid state, federal probe of non-profit veterans group
Lt. Gov. Jennifer Carroll abruptly resigned Tuesday after law enforcement officials questioned her about ties to a purported veterans charity organization at the center of a $300 million multi-state racketeering investigation.
Florida law enforcement officials would not say if Carroll, 53, is facing possible criminal charges in connection with the case. Gov. Rick Scott also would not comment. Scott said he would not name Carroll’s replacement until the end of the annual legislative session in May.
“She resigned, and she did the right thing for her state and for her family,” Scott said.
At issue is Carroll’s connections to Allied Veterans of the World, a Florida nonprofit that operates a chain of Internet sweepstakes cafes as a pseudo-charity. Nearly 60 people associated with the company were arrested this week on various charges, including illegal gambling, racketeering and money laundering.
Carroll owned a public relations firm that represented Allied Veterans, and as a member of the Florida House of Representatives, did work for the company. She later filmed an advertisement promoting Allied Veterans while serving as lieutenant governor.
Carroll resigned in a two-sentence letter after meeting with the governor’s chief of staff, Adam Hollingsworth, and general counsel Pete Antonacci. She did not meet with Scott.
It’s a quick and remarkable fall for someone who had been seen as important figure in the Florida Republican Party.
Born in Trinidad, Carroll, a former U.S. Navy lieutenant commander, was the first African-American Republican woman elected to the Legislature and the first African-American woman elected lieutenant governor. She was considered a favorite to be named Charlie Crist’s lieutenant governor in 2006 before Scott selected her four years later.
She was a delegate to the Republican National Convention in 2012 and led a task force studying Florida’s “Stand Your Ground” laws. She could not be reached Wednesday.
“Lt. Gov. Carroll resigned yesterday in an effort to keep her former affiliations with the company from distracting from our important work on behalf of Florida families,” Scott said. “We appreciate her willingness to step up and serve our state. She was a tireless advocate for Florida’s military and our mission to create more jobs. We are grateful for her service.”
Carroll attended Scott’s March 5 State of the State address but did not speak. Her last major public remarks came March 3, where she spoke at a dinner honoring Scott sponsored by the Florida Federation of Republican Women.
Her official calendar for Wednesday — which was released Tuesday evening — listed no public events.
The investigation into Allied Veterans started in 2009, according to law enforcement officials, who said Allied Veterans tried to scheme and defraud the public and governmental agencies by misrepresenting how much of its proceeds were donated to charities affiliated with Veterans Administration.
So far, nearly 60 people have been arrested in 23 Florida counties.
Carroll’s public relations firm, 3 N. and J.C. Corporation, is currently inactive, according to the Florida Division of Corporations. But the company’s primary source of income in 2009 and 2010 was Allied Veterans, financial disclosure forms show.
While serving in the state House in 2010, Carroll introduced legislation to legalize sweepstakes games such as those in cafes operated by Allied Veterans. Carroll later withdrew the proposed law, saying it was filed erroneously and that she wasn’t interested in legalizing Internet cafes, which operate in a legal gray area.
Internet sweepstakes cafes are big business in Florida. Since 2007, as many as 1,000 have popped up across the state, according to industry estimates, raking in $1 billion a year.
To play games at one of the Internet cafes, a customer gets a prepaid card and then goes to a computer to play "sweepstakes." The games, with spinning wheels similar to slot machines, have names such as "Captain Cash," ’’Lucky Shamrocks" and "Money Bunny," according to the IRS. Winners go back to a cashier with their cards and cash out. The games of chance have been the subject of much debate in Florida and some are legal as long as most of the profits are donated to charity.
Allied is a big player in Florida. In 2011, it had 40 locations statewide. Allied has spent hundreds of thousands of dollars on state lobbyists.
Carroll’s time as lieutenant governor has not been without controversy.
Former travel aide Carletha Cole said she was fired in 2011 after complaining about Carroll in the media. Cole, who was later charged with sharing an illegal recording, said she once walked in on Carroll and a female staffer engaged in what appeared to be a sex act. The governor’s office has described Cole’s allegations as “outrageous.”
Carroll’s travel as lieutenant governor also has been an issue. Scott’s office placed Carroll on a $10,000-a-month fixed travel budget after her travel costs ballooned to nearly $300,000 in 2011.
With Scott’s consent, Carroll also was assigned for protection a lower-ranking and less-expensive corporal from the Florida Highway Patrol.
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