let’s hope, it would be poetic justice for someone to do to him what he’s been doing to the country!
After he lost the mayoral election, the Congressman allegedly returned $400,000 to the donor that the campaign had not used, and arranged for Educational Advancement Alliance (EAA), a non-profit entity that he founded and controlled, to repay the remaining $600,000 using charitable and federal grant funds that passed through two other companies, including one run by an associate.
To conceal the contribution and repayment scheme, the defendants and others allegedly:
<><> created sham contracts, and,
<><> made false entries in accounting records, tax returns and campaign finance disclosure statements.
In addition, after his defeat in the mayoral election, he sought to extinguish approximately $130,000 in campaign debt owed to a political consultant by agreeing to arrange for the award of federal grants of tax dollars to the consultant.
The Congressman directed the consultant to apply for a tax dollars in the form of a $15 million grant (which he did not ultimately receive), on behalf of a then non-existent non-profit entity.
In exchange for the award of the funds to the non-profit, the consultant allegedly agreed to forgive the debt owed by the Congressman's campaign.
The Congressman also misappropriated funds from his mayoral and congressional campaigns to repay his son’s student loan debt. To execute the scheme, arrangements for his campaigns to make payments to a political consulting company, which the company then used to lessen the son’s student loan debt.
Between 2007 and 2011, the consultant made 34 successful loan payments on behalf of the Congressman's son, totaling approximately $23,000.
In another alleged scheme, beginning in 2008, the Congressman communicated with individuals in the legislative and executive branches in an effort to secure an ambassadorship or an appointment to the U.S. Trade Commission. In exchange, the putative appointee provided money and other items of value to the Congressman.
As part of this scheme, the indictment alleges that the defendants sought to conceal an $18,000 bribe payment by disguising it as a payment for a car sale that never actually took place. Finally, the indictment alleges that one insider obtained $50,000 in federal grant funds that supposedly claimed would be used by EAA to support a conference on higher education. The conference never took place.
Instead, the insider used the tax dollar grant funds to pay $20,000 to a political consultant and $10,000 to her attorney, and profited herself by riting several checks to herself from EAA’s operating account.