Controversy
In July 2001, Brian Herron (DFL) pleaded guilty to one count of felony extortion. He admitted to accepting a $10,000 bribe from a business owner who faced numerous health and safety inspections violations. Herron served a one year sentence in federal prison.
On November 21, 2002 10 year Council Member Joe Biernat (DFL) was convicted of five federal felony charges, one count of embezzlement, three counts of mail fraud, and one count of making a false statement. Biernat was found not guilty on extortion and conspiracy to extort charges.
In September 2005 Green Party Council Member Dean Zimmermann was served with a federal search warrant to his home by the Federal Bureau of Investigation. The affidavit attached to the warrant revealed that the FBI has Zimmermann on video and audiotape accepting bribes for a zoning change. Zimmermann subsequently lost his re-election campaign, and was convicted in federal court on three counts of accepting cash from a developer and found not guilty of soliciting property from people with business with the city. Zimmermann was released from prison in July 2008.
In 2009, council president Barbara Johnson was accused of misusing campaign funds for personal spending. An administrative hearing was held January 26, 2010. The administrative judges at the hearing dismissed 6 of the 8 charges; it upheld two charges - that AAA services were paid for both her and her husband's vehicle and that not all charges for hairstyling or dry cleaning were reasonably related to the campaign. She paid a $200 fine for these violations, the lowest fine possible.
Read more about this topic: Minneapolis City Council
Famous quotes containing the word controversy:
“Ours was a highly activist administration, with a lot of controversy involved ... but I’m not sure that it would be inconsistent with my own political nature to do it differently if I had it to do all over again.”
—Jimmy Carter (James Earl Carter, Jr.)
“And therefore, as when there is a controversy in an account, the parties must by their own accord, set up for right Reason, the Reason of some Arbitrator, or Judge, to whose sentence, they will both stand, or their controversy must either come to blows, or be undecided, for want of a right Reason constituted by Nature; so is it also in all debates of what kind soever.”
—Thomas Hobbes (1579–1688)