One Word…. Good.
Via Nola.com:
In the 16-count indictment, Jefferson was charged with soliciting bribes and other crimes for a series of schemes in which he helped American businesses broker deals in West African in exchange for payments or financial considerations to companies controlled by members of his family, including his brother Mose, his wife, Andrea, their five daughters and a son-in-law.
William Jefferson - Shakedown Artist
Jefferson, 62, who represented the New Orleans-based 2nd Congressional District for nine terms, will now face sentencing by Judge T.S. Ellis III, who earlier meted out stiff sentences for lesser figures in the case. According to the U.S. attorney’s office, Jefferson faced 235 years in prison if convicted on all counts, and will still face substantial prison time.
Prosecutors asked that Jefferson be held as a flight risk, but the judge allowed him to remain free pending his sentencing scheduled for Oct. 30. A forfeiture hearing will be held Thursday to decide what assets Jefferson will have to surrender.
The verdict comes four years after the Aug. 3, 2005 raids of Jefferson’s homes in New Orleans and Washington, D.C., in which the FBI found $90,000 in cash hidden in the freezer of his D.C. home, money the government said Jefferson was going to deliver as a bribe to Atiku Abubakar, then vice president of Nigeria, to gain his help with a telecommunications deal in Nigeria being pursued by Lori Mody, a Northern Virginia businesswoman.
The money was the lion’s share of $100,000 in FBI cash that the congressman was videotaped receiving packed in a briefcase days earlier in a suburban Virginia parking lot from Mody, who, beginning in March of 2005, had become a cooperating witness for the FBI, secretly taping her conversations with Jefferson.
The jury did not find him guilty on the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, which was the count linked to the money in the freezer.
While Mody did not testify at the trial, the jury heard segments of her taped conversations with Jefferson along with more than six weeks of testimony from government witnesses, including iGate Inc. CEO Vernon Jackson and Mody financial adviser Brett Pfeffer, both of whom are serving time after pleading guilty to their involvement in the bribe schemes, and hoped to see their sentences reduced in exchange for their testimony against Jefferson.
Jefferson did not testify in his own defense and his formal defense lasted only about two hours. In his closing argument, lead defense attorney Robert Trout presented his client as a man whose dealings had placed him in an ethical “gray” area, but who had not broken the law.
I will simply say this; as a non-partisan Conservative blogger who knows full well that there is corruption on both sides of the aisle, I will simply say this. I am very pleased that this man was caught. I only hope now that it does not stop this guy; but rather continues with others that are extremely corrupt up on capital hill.
Exit question: How long till the race baiters like Al Sharpton come out saying that this bust was racially motivated?
Others: Gateway Pundit, Michelle Malkin, , Macsmind, Flopping Aces, Blue Crab Boulevard Wizbang, Patterico’s Pontifications,