Posted on 06/19/2008 5:38:08 AM PDT by Diana in Wisconsin
(Undercover agent paid $900 bribe, he testifies)
In a stark piece of evidence, jurors saw a video recording Wednesday of former Milwaukee Ald. Michael McGee taking what an undercover federal agent said was $900 in cash in connection with the transfer of a liquor license.
As the exchange is made, agent Dan Rabu is heard asking McGee to “remember” him when the matter comes before the Common Council.
McGee’s response: “I got you.”
Meanwhile, in an audio recording of an earlier meeting with Rabu, McGee declared, “I am the gatekeeper” when it comes to licensing matters in his north side district.
Both meetings between Rabu and McGee were arranged by Adel “Jack” Kheirieh, a longtime central city business owner who was close to McGee but had begun working for the FBI as it built an extensive case against McGee, then an alderman.
And another business owner testified Wednesday that Kheirieh also arranged for him to meet with McGee to seek support for a development in McGee’s district. In a video recording of McGee during that meeting, also played Wednesday, the business owner is told that support would cost $20,000.
Kheirieh is considered the key witness against McGee in the federal case, as well as in many of the charges in a separate state case.
A state trial is pending.
At the federal level, testimony continues today, with Kheirieh expected to be called to the stand.
On Wednesday, Rabu provided key testimony against McGee, as did Mohammed Abdulrahim, operator of a central city grocery store, and two other businessmen.
Abdulrahim testified that he made a $5,000 payment to McGee in connection with obtaining a license to sell beer at his store — and that last year McGee came back to him seeking another $5,000.
His testimony was bolstered by an audio recording of several calls from McGee, whose phone was being monitored by the FBI.
The testimony from the undercover agent focused on incidents that happened late in the investigation, which came to an abrupt end in May 2007 when, prosecutors say, McGee was heard on a call conspiring to have a man beaten.
That led to the state arrest, and a period in which the FBI interviewed many of the store owners who had come up in the investigation.
Rabu said he works as a police officer in “the southern part of the United States.” As an Arab-American, fluent in Arabic, he was recruited to join a special task force after the 9-11 terrorist attacks.
Investigators here asked him to play the role of a businessman seeking to buy a store in McGee’s district. Kheirieh, a link for McGee to many of the Arab-American-owned business in the central city, facilitated the meetings.
The first was a sit-down at Kheirieh’s store. The two later attended a McGee fund-raiser on March 8, 2007, at an east side restaurant. It was there that Rabu recorded the video of McGee.
Rabu testified he had brought $1,000 in cash to the event, giving up $100 when a collection was taken.
The recording showed the two talking about various aspects of obtaining a liquor license, with Rabu at one point asking about “the donation thing.” McGee did not appear to respond directly.
Rabu said he gave the $900 to McGee at the end of the event. He said he took McGee’s statement — “I got you” — to mean McGee would back his liquor license request.
McGee attorney Calvin Malone challenged Rabu several times on why the money in the exchange was not visible on the tape and whether McGee had initiated any conversation about a payment.
When Malone argued that additional tapes should be played, Assistant U.S. Attorney Joseph Wall noted that the defense hasn’t claimed McGee was entrapped.
U.S. District Judge Charles Clevert allowed one segment to be played, but it was difficult to follow without a transcript. Even Rabu said he had trouble making it out.
In later testimony, Abdulrahim — the grocery store owner — flatly stated he had agreed to pay McGee a total of $10,000 for his support in obtaining the license: $5,000 that was collected in 2006 by McGee associate Dennis Walton, and another $5,000 to be paid later.
Prosecutors say Walton, still being sought for questioning, functioned as McGee’s “bag man.”
The phone calls, all from April 2007, include McGee saying, “Didn’t we make an agreement last year?” and, after noting the $10,000 figure, asking: “So when we gonna get the other piece?”
McGee said several times he needed help with a move, at one point noting he needed some “real money.”
In further testimony Wednesday, gas station owner Jasjeet Singh told Wall that he paid McGee several hundred dollars after McGee backed him in a March 2007 nuisance complaint that could have cost Singh his license to operate 24 hours a day.
Another business owner, Anup Khullar, testified that early in 2007 Kheirieh arranged for him to meet McGee at a restaurant to seek support for a proposed gas station, dry cleaners and car wash at E. Capitol Drive and N. Richards St.
City approval of the development was denied after McGee opposed it at a meeting of the city’s Board of Zoning Appeals several months earlier, Khullar told Law.
In a video recording of McGee at that meeting made by Kheirieh and played in court Wednesday, Khullar is told it would cost him $20,000 for McGee’s support for the project.
“I was shocked,” said Khullar, who never paid McGee and who never received city approval for the project.
Stupid Socialists.
Certainly makes you wonder what's going on behind the scenes in your mid-sized American City, does it not?
Maybe so McGee, but the State Correctional Office is the Keymaster. And I don't think they're going to unlock any doors for you anytime soon once you're in their custody.
Is this the same McGee nutjob who was threatening race war in the early 1990s?
And the (D) list gets longer and longer.
Corruption in public officials, it’s not possible, I don’t believe it, it can’t be true.
But on the other hand...
This is the son...more of a thug than his father. The old man had a radio show in town, but lost it when he rejoiced on air about a leading conservative radio critic’s mother dying.
Trash in both cases.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.