Jefferson pleads not guilty.
By on Jun 8th, 2007 at 12:05 pm
Jefferson pleads not guilty.
Rep. William Jefferson (D-LA) pleaded not guilty to using his public office to solicit more than $500,000 in bribes while brokering business deals in Africa. “I am absolutely innocent of the charges that have been leveled against me,” he said. He was released on $100,000 unsecured bond. “As conditions for his release, U.S. District Judge T.S. Ellis III denied the congressman access to shotguns and rifles in his Louisiana home. Jefferson said the guns were used for hunting. Ellis also ordered Jefferson to surrender his passport.”
UPDATE: Jefferson releases his first public statement: “We implore the press and the public to keep an open mind.”
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Fry this corrupt MF.
June 8th, 2007 at 12:07 pmFBI has him on tape talking $100,000 in cash bribe, so he is guilty.
June 8th, 2007 at 12:11 pmDoes he not have better things to do than go hunting? I should think so.
June 8th, 2007 at 12:11 pmtaking not talking > typed too fast for post 2.
June 8th, 2007 at 12:13 pmIf he’s guilty, lock him up.
June 8th, 2007 at 12:13 pmFry all the corrupt politicians!!!
June 8th, 2007 at 12:16 pmUpon paying his $100,000 bond, Jefferson was heard to say, “I’ll give to you a check for 10 G’s, and I’ll pay 90 thousand in cold hard cash.”
June 8th, 2007 at 12:17 pmI’m tired of corrupt politicians. I don’t care what party they belong to, get rid of them!
June 8th, 2007 at 12:18 pmJefferson has the right to plead not guilty.
I think Judge Ellis is correct to make Jefferson surrender his passport, since he seems to have connections in Africa.
June 8th, 2007 at 12:19 pmUPDATE: Jefferson releases his first public statement: “We implore the press and the public to keep an open mind.â€
Dude, you pled not guilty. Now explain the money in your freezer at your trial.
June 8th, 2007 at 12:22 pmIt shows some of his assets weren’t frozen.
June 8th, 2007 at 12:24 pmWhat a waste. He is just as ignorant as the GOP.
June 8th, 2007 at 12:24 pmWell Zooey > Jefferson could pass for African easy, so taking his passport is a good idea.
June 8th, 2007 at 12:24 pmI have an open mind, and believe in innocent until proven guilty, but a few thousand in cold hard cash in the freezer is a little strange.
June 8th, 2007 at 12:25 pmDid the $100k come out of a box of fish sticks in his freezer?
June 8th, 2007 at 12:26 pmI wonder if they will let the distinguished gentleman from Louisiana take his $90,000 in frozen cash to jail with him? He could sit around and count it for several years to make sure the total doesn’t come up smaller
June 8th, 2007 at 12:27 pmLet him have his day in court. When he’s found guilty, which everything seems to indicate he is, I want him impeached, removed from office, and sent to prison for a long time. I want everyone who holds public office, and everyone who is a non-elected official, be they Democrat, Republican, Libertarian or otherwise to have very harsh punishments levied against them. Not a lesser sentence, and more severe sentence. If a “normal” citizen would get 10 years, give him 20. If a “normal” person would get life with a chance at parole, give him life with no parole.
People in positions of power MUST be made to understand that they work for every other citizen in the country. They are held to a much higher standard, and their punishments should reflect that, always. Pardoning Nixon and not pursuing legal action against his legion of cronies (you know, like Dick Cheney, Karl Rove, Henry Kissinger, Paul Wolfowitz, etc, etc.) was one of the biggest mistakes in modern U.S. history. Nixon should have gone to jail until his death.
Please, let us learn from history, not be doomed to repeat it. If we do not bring a powerful display of judicial action against this administration and all of its malfeasance, we will see another push for power by this SAME GROUP and ALL OF ITS CRONIES in another 20-30 years. Again.
June 8th, 2007 at 12:27 pmyeah, bail shouldn’t be a problem.
June 8th, 2007 at 12:27 pmJefferson has never explained what happened to $10,000 cash the FBI sting operation gave him. The FBI recovered $90,000 from his freezer, but he apparently spent $10,000 of it. They were all marked 100 dollar bills, so Jefferson has been caught red-handed. He can claim he got set-up, but he took the cash.
June 8th, 2007 at 12:28 pmA word to the wise: if somebody comes to your house with brand new crisp 100 dollar bills in bundles, and offers it to you, then be aware you are being watched by the FBI in a sting operation. Since you are on tape, refuse the money and tell the person to screw off.
June 8th, 2007 at 12:31 pmJefferson??? I thought it was Conyers. WTF!
June 8th, 2007 at 12:33 pmGood luck with that, congressman. The marked cash in your freezer was just being held by you until you could contact the FBI and report the attempted bribe, right?
June 8th, 2007 at 12:39 pm“Jefferson has never explained what happened to $10,000 cash the FBI sting operation gave him.”
he used it to make the worst-tasting popsicles ever.
June 8th, 2007 at 12:43 pmLOL pgw > Jefferson’s wife thought the foil packet in the freezer was bacon and fried it up for her hubby. I guess he gulped it down fast rushing off to Congress.
June 8th, 2007 at 12:50 pmGood luck with that, congressman. The marked cash in your freezer was just being held by you until you could contact the FBI and report the attempted bribe, right?
Comment by RUCerious
I’d really love to hear Jefferson’s explanation. :D
June 8th, 2007 at 12:52 pmThe whole reason the FBI set up the sting on Jefferson is because one of the guys who bribed him in the past contacted the FBI, because William was getting more greedy and wanted bigger bribes. This is the same reason Rep. Duke Cunningham was taken down > he wanted bigger bribes.
June 8th, 2007 at 12:57 pmWho keeps cash in the freezer? What happened to the mattress?
June 8th, 2007 at 12:57 pmThere all the same
June 8th, 2007 at 1:02 pmNo morals.
Jefferson must have seen a show on TV, or in a movie, where somebody hid cash in a freezer wrapped in tinfoil like meat.
June 8th, 2007 at 1:05 pmJust a joke: Jefferson goes to a store with some of that frozen cash. The cashier asks “Hey buddy why is this 100 dollar bill frozen stiff?”
June 8th, 2007 at 1:12 pmGives new meaning to “Hard Cold Cash” >LOL.
June 8th, 2007 at 1:15 pmCriminals are criminals, take him out of office, lock him up….well, of course we have to go through the whole court thing, but it looks obvious that he is guilty, he should resign. I mean what does he think he is, A REPUBLICAN or something.
Maybe Faux Snooze will run an (R) next to his name by mistake (wink, wink)
IGNORE THE TROLLS – Debate is good – Trolling is bad
June 8th, 2007 at 1:31 pm#17, I disagree with several of your ideas. 1, elected officials should be held to the SAME standards that we should be holding OURSELVES to. I also believe punishment should be equal, whether or not your a repug, or dumbocrat. Clinton’s perjury anf obstruction of just, as well as Berger’s theft of confidential archives both only warranted slaps on the wrist, Libby gets 30 months for even less, and no they want to hand Jefferson 232 years for doing nothing less than what almost all of these greedy greasy politicians do??
We need to overhaul our failing system! Judicial, Legal, AND legislative!
June 8th, 2007 at 1:31 pm#33, I absolutely disagree. When you hold public office, you are in a position that brings with it the levers of power. Those elected (or assigned) to such positions should indeed be held to a HIGHER standard. They are in positions with far more reaching consequences than even those who hold powerful economic positions (i.e. CEOs and their ilk). If you steal money from a company, you are stealing from the owners/shareholders of that company. If you steal from the coffers of government, you steal from all 300 million+ US citizens at once. All of us. You are thus liable for damages to every citizen in the country, not just a handful of us. That fact alone, that such a person is literally stealing from every citizen in the country, justifies harsher sentencing guidelines. Consider it like this: you owe damages to 300 million people, punitive or otherwise, every time you use a position of political power to lie, cheat, steal, or otherwise break the law.
June 8th, 2007 at 1:52 pmCOMPLETE FRIGGIN CROOK
LISTEN DUDE… THESE HOODLUMS LIE SO OFTEN, I CAN’T EVEN KEEP
TRACK OF THEM. FRIST, CUNNINGHAM, HASTERT, BUSH, CHENEY, DELAY
LITERALLY A COMPLETE CRIMINAL CLASS OF FAST SMOOTH TALKING
SWINDLERS, EVERY FRIGGIN ONE OF THEM AND PROBABLY HALF THE
LAWMAKERS ARE JUST SHIFTY EYED WHILE THE OTHER HALF DUDE
ARE OUTRIGHT LAWBREAKERS, JUST HAVEN’T GOTTEN CAUGHT YET
BECAUSE: I SMOOZE YOU AND YOU SMOOZE ME DUDE.. FAST, SMOOTH
SCRATCH ME AND I SCRATCH YOU, SMOOZIN, CRUISIN, WHEELIN, DEALIN
LITERALLY A BUNCH OF HOODLUMS RUNNING THIS COUNTRY DUDE
June 8th, 2007 at 1:52 pmAND DUDE I STAND STRONG
WASHINGTON IS TOTALLY BOUGHT OUT DUDE
WE THE PEOPLE GET FAR SUPERIOR SERVICE AT MCDONALDS
AND NO WE DONOT GET ALL THESE WONDERFUL SERVICES FROM OUR
TRUSTY SERVANTS DUDE
WE
GET
THE
FRIGGIN
GREASEPITS DUDE AND THE DUMP ALONG WITH THAT DUDE
JIMBO DUDE IS ROCK SOLID INTEGRITY
” ” ALWAYS SPEAKS ROCK SOLID TRUTH DUDE
NOW JIMBO DUDE IS CHILLIN OUT WITH CHILL PILL DUDE :)
June 8th, 2007 at 1:55 pm#34, what you are saying is we need to have 2 sets of laws, and 2 sets of punishing guidlines, 1 for politicians, and one for non-politicians. I disagree with that, and I cannot believe the the framers of our constitution wanted that concept either. I do believe that we should hold the politician to a higher standard in their BEHAVIORS, but not in sentencing.
June 8th, 2007 at 2:12 pm#37, Two sets of laws? No. You are simply liable to more parties. It is really that simple. It’s the same reason some of the actions of big business are comparable to the damages a politician gets. If a company knowingly sells a toxic substance to the public, and hides that information, they are liable to everyone who bought that product, and any who were exposed to that product even if they did not purchase it themselves. Sentencing guidelines are scaled in such a way that the more parties you’ve damaged, the harsher the sentence. By default, IMHO, if you are in a political office, a criminal action that is enabled BECAUSE you are in office (i.e. taking bribes in exchange for favoritism in policy, lying to the public to bring economic windfall to yourself and others, lying to take the country to war, etc), you are liable to far more parties.
As it is, the sentencing guidelines are totally skewed in such a way that someone doing damage to just themselves or those in their immediate vicinity (drug dealers/users, prostitutes, etc) often serve vastly more time than those who are damaging far more parties. A drug-dealer might get 10 years for selling a substance that a person is willingly putting into their body. On the other hand, a person obstructing justice to prevent an investigation into whether or not officials lied to get us into a war that has cost billions and billions of taxpayer dollars, caused somewhere between 100,000 to 600,000 lives to be extinguished prematurely, and has allowed war profiteers to line their pockets with our taxpayer dollar AND the money gleaned from the country we invaded on a lie is only getting 30 months. Do you see how the latter has vastly more far-reaching consequences, and should be answerable to far more parties than the former? Yet the former gets a far harsher sentence.
The sentencing guidelines are already skewed in favor of white-collar crimes, or crimes of those in positions of power. White collar crimes and political crimes almost always cause more damage to far more parties than other forms of criminal activity. Not always, obviously, but more often than not. Yet all these bastards usually get is a slap on the wrist, when they should be going to jail, not be allowed into a position of political power ever again, and often have a revolving-door job making big bucks in one of the corporations they took bribes from while in office.
Separate laws and sentencing? No. Fair persecution of laws and sentencing guidelines is all I ask.
June 8th, 2007 at 2:28 pmYou know, it looks pretty bad for this guy, but I’m glad he’s going to have his day in court. If he’s guilty, by all means- kick him out of congress, put him in jail, and I’ll applaud it all.
But so far, he’s only been tried in the press, and I have a certain sense of unease about it- coverage has been _so_ sensationalistic (cash in the freezer! indictment an inch thick!) that I just hope he gets a fair trial. If the evidence is really that clear, it should be obvious at trial.
June 8th, 2007 at 2:32 pmErr, fair prosecution of laws and sentencing guidelines if all I ask, rather.
June 8th, 2007 at 2:33 pmIf only William Jefferson’s last name was Clinton he would’nt have problems like this , but maybe its better this way, at least he is not married to Hillary
June 8th, 2007 at 2:37 pmI should also clarifiy the seeming discrepancy you might attempt to point out in my above post. Sentencing guidelines do scale to accommodate the number of parties damaged by your actions. However, the baseline for such sentences are skewed. The baseline sentence for damaging only your own body or mind, or those of a few (drug use/sales, prostitution, etc) is far, far harsher than the baseline sentence for crimes with a much farther reach, such as embezzlement, selling toxic substances knowingly to the public, taking bribes, voter fraud, etc. Those baseline sentencing guidelines should be switched. It should carry with it, by default, a far harsher sentence if you do the latter type of crime, than it should with the former type of crime.
June 8th, 2007 at 2:40 pm#38/#42 excellent post!!
June 8th, 2007 at 3:06 pmWe need term limits on Senators and Congress Creatures. Like two terms for Senate and six for congress. Drive the corrupt politicians out. They aren’t representing us. They are representing themselves.
June 8th, 2007 at 6:31 pm…Jefferson’s a (you know)…
…he couldn’t possibly have $90,000 dollars…
…that he got…
…legally…
June 8th, 2007 at 6:45 pmBut But I was just acting like a good Democrat why are they after me asks William Jefferson Not Clinton : ( Maybe Hillary will Pardon Me I don’t want to be Bubba’s Girlfriend
June 9th, 2007 at 11:55 pmbig papa he got the money from a guy from Louisville named Vernon Jordan who was convicted 2 years ago and is in Prison . I hope he gets a deal for his testimony
June 9th, 2007 at 11:58 pmHere is another good Democrat that needs to be in Prison
Baby-As-Weapon Mom Wants to Change Plea
By Associated Press
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June 9, 2007, 8:06 PM EDT
ERIE, Pa. — The woman who admitted swinging her 4-week-old son like a bat to hit her boyfriend, fracturing the infant’s skull, wants to withdraw her guilty plea, saying she now remembers events more clearly.
Chytoria Graham asked to withdraw her plea Friday — the day she was to be sentenced to at least five years in prison — because she now believes she was not responsible for the injury that Jarron Troop suffered on Oct. 8.
Under an agreement with prosecutors, Graham pleaded guilty in March to aggravated assault and endangering the welfare of a child. Reckless endangerment and simple assault charges were dropped.
Graham, 27, of Erie, pleaded guilty because she had been drinking that night and, as a caring mother, felt she was responsible for whatever happened to the child, said defense attorney Julia Dudics.
Another defense lawyer, James Pitonyak, said Graham has since recalled events more clearly and now believes that her boyfriend, Deangelo Troop, Jarron’s father, caused the baby’s injuries.
Jarron has recovered.
Graham’s lawyers also said she did not understand the mandatory minimum sentence in her plea bargain. The aggravated assault charge carries a mandatory minimum prison term of five years because the victim was younger than 13 years old.
Assistant District Attorney Raquel Taylor said a transcript of Graham’s plea hearing shows the terms were clearly spelled out to her.
Taylor said authorities have not been able to contact Troop.
Judge William R. Cunningham said he would decide on the withdrawal request soon. Graham remains free on $7,500 bail.
June 10th, 2007 at 12:02 am