Corruption Case
Suspecting Jefferson of bribery, the FBI raided his Congressional offices in May 2006, but he was re-elected later that year. On June 4, 2007, a federal grand jury indicted Jefferson on sixteen felony charges related to corruption. Jefferson was defeated by Republican Joseph Cao on December 6, 2008, being the most senior Democrat to lose re-election that year. In 2009, he was tried in Virginia on corruption charges. On August 5, 2009, he was found guilty of eleven of the sixteen corruption counts. Jefferson's lawyers have promised to appeal, a gesture which New Orleans former U.S. attorney Harry Rosenberg told the Times-Picayune may work in Jefferson's favor because the jury failed to convict him on all sixteen of the indictment counts. Jefferson was sentenced to thirteen years on November 13, 2009, the longest sentence yet handed down to a congressman for bribery or any other crime.
On March 26, 2012, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit affirmed Jefferson's conviction and sentence on ten of the eleven counts on which he was convicted. The Court of Appeals vacated and remanded the conviction on one count of the indictment, involving alleged wire fraud, holding that venue on that count was improper in the federal court in Virginia.
On April 20, 2012, U.S. District Court judge T.S. Ellis revoked Jefferson's bail and ordered that he report to prison to begin serving his thirteen year sentence by May 4, 2012.
On May 4, 2012, Jefferson surrendered to the Bureau of Prisons Beaumont, TX facility to begin serving his 13 year sentence.
Jefferson owes $5 million in legal fees and has filed for bankruptcy.
Read more about this topic: William J. Jefferson
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—D.H. (David Herbert)
“Of all my prosecutors ... not one is my peer, but each and all are my political sovereigns; and had your honor submitted my case to the jury, as was clearly your duty, then I should have had just cause of protest, for not one of those men was my peer; but, native or foreign born, white or black, rich or poor, educated or ignorant, sober or drunk, each and every man of them was my political superior; hence, in no sense, my peer.”
—Susan B. Anthony (1820–1906)