Prosecutors Lay Out Case Against Rep. William Jefferson (D., La.)

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Source: Washington Post

Prosecutors Lay Out Case Against Jefferson
By Allan Lengel
Washington Post Staff Writer
Saturday, September 29, 2007; Page A03

Before searching Rep. William J. Jefferson's New Orleans home in August 2005, FBI agents confronted him with a video that showed him accepting $100,000 from a government informant, according to a prosecution document filed yesterday in federal court in Alexandria. Afterward, the Louisiana Democrat sank back into a couch in his living room and "with total dejection remarked 'what a waste,'" according to the government account, which did not elaborate on his comment.

Jefferson then "questioned how his reputation could survive" and expressed concern whether the search warrant affidavit could be permanently sealed to keep the information from being made public, according to the document.

Meanwhile, on the same day, FBI agents found $90,000 of the $100,000 in marked bills in Jefferson's freezer at his Capitol Hill home. The government alleged that Jefferson took the money from a Virginia businesswoman who was working as an informant, to bribe a Nigerian official in a business deal.

The pretrial document provides a glimpse into the public corruption investigation's early months. It was among 14 answers filed yesterday by the U.S. Attorney's Office in Alexandria in response to motions filed this month by Jefferson's lawyers.

Jefferson, 60, the former co-chairman of the congressional caucus on Nigeria and African trade faces a 16-count indictment that includes allegations that he used his position to solicit hundreds of thousands of dollars in bribes for himself and his family, falsely reported trips to Africa as official business, sought to bribe a former Nigerian vice president and promoted U.S. financing for a sugar factory in Nigeria whose owners paid fees to a Jefferson family company in Louisiana....

Read more: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/09/28/AR2007092801948.html?hpid=moreheadlines