A federal grand jury indicted Rep. Jefferson (D-La.) on 16 counts...
A federal grand jury indicted Rep. Jefferson (D-La.) on 16 counts including money laundering, obstruction of justice, bribery and racketeering for using his elected position to assemble telecom deals in Africa, the Justice Dept. said Mon. Jefferson led official…
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delegations to Africa to tout telecom deals in Nigeria, Ghana and elsewhere, plus oil concessions in Equatorial Guinea and satellite transmission contracts in Botswana, Guinea and the Republic of Congo, the indictment said. “The schemes charged are complex, but the essence of this case is simple: Mr. Jefferson corruptly traded on his good office, and on the Congress where he served as a member of the U.S. House of Representatives, to enrich himself and his family through a pervasive pattern of fraud, bribery and corruption,” said U.S. Attorney Chuck Rosenberg, Eastern District of Va. Jefferson sought and/or received “hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of bribes” on behalf of business interests and relatives, the filing alleged. In July 2005, he met with a Nigerian at the official’s home in Potomac, Md., offering a bribe to get commitments from the govt.-controlled telecom service provider in Nigeria. A month later, Jefferson “secreted in his freezer $90,000 of the $100,000 in cash” a cooperating witness had provided to pay the Nigerian, the Justice Dept. said: “The cash was separated into $10,000 increments, wrapped in aluminum foil, and concealed inside various frozen food containers.” Jefferson faces a maximum of 235 years in prison if convicted on all counts, Justice said.