William Jefferson D-La deals all in the family, feds say (Brother Mose always gets a cut)

Jefferson deals all in the family, feds say
Brother always gets a cut, indictment says
Saturday, June 16, 2007
By Bill Walsh

WASHINGTON -- Throughout a 94-page federal indictment, prosecutors repeatedly describe scenes of Rep. William Jefferson telling business executives that there is an important condition to be met before he would use his influence on their behalf: A certain family member would have to be compensated with cash, contracts or a stake in the business.

And he played hardball, according to the government. While pushing an oil deal in Nigeria in 2002, Jefferson is said to have complained that the relative's stake was "insufficient." And a year later, Jefferson refused to do anything more to promote a private waste-recycling venture in the West African nation until the family share "had been revised to his satisfaction."

The 16-count indictment handed up June 4 refers to the relative only as "Family Member 2," but says he is a member and president of B.E.P. Consulting Services LLC, as well as secretary and treasurer of Jefferson Interests Inc. Louisiana corporate records show those roles belong to Jefferson's older brother, Mose Jefferson.

The relationship between the two brothers is a key part of a government case that charges Jefferson, D-New Orleans, with accepting $500,000 in bribes through companies controlled by the family. The consulting firm controlled by Mose Jefferson got only a small share -- $21,353, according to prosecutors -- but investigators say his role as the funnel for illicit payments in a host of schemes provides the foundation for the racketeering charges against the congressman.

Mose has not been charged and he and his attorney declined to comment for this story. He also isn't believed to be a target of the federal probe.

Gill Pratt didn’t mention her long history of showering millions in taxpayer money on the group — or her ties to its president, Mose Jefferson, with whom she has had a long personal relationship. In an interview, Gill Pratt described Mose Jefferson — the brother of embattled U.S. Rep. William Jefferson, Gill Pratt’s political mentor and former boss — as a friend.

As it turns out, the 11th-hour grant to the housing nonprofit was just one of several deals Gill Pratt made from which she or someone close to her benefited personally.

In another transaction, three days before the primary, Gill Pratt gave another nonprofit group two vehicles that had been donated to the crippled city as a goodwill gesture by car maker DaimlerChrysler. This time the beneficiary was an outfit named Care Unlimited, to which she and the Jefferson family have long-standing ties.

In early June, not long after voters rejected her bid for re-election to the City Council, Gill Pratt took a job with Care Unlimited, and has taken the wheel of one of the cars she gave the group, a $28,266 Dodge Durango sport utility vehicle. She knows the car well, having made personal use of it for eight months in her role as councilwoman after the car maker made the donation.

http://tinyurl.com/33nwlx

During the past 12 years, Gill Pratt and other Jefferson allies have steered at least $5.5 million in public money to Orleans Metropolitan Housing and Care Unlimited. While most of the money came through the long-derided and recently junked Office of Urban Affairs discretionary fund controlled by the Legislature, where she spent a dozen years before joining the City Council, the dismantling of that program has hardly turned off the spigot.

Gill Pratt is no longer able to direct state money, though state Rep. Jalila Jefferson-Bullock, D-New Orleans, the congressman’s daughter, now has the legislative district Gill Pratt once represented. Officials from the Legislature said they were not able to identify the author of the Care Unlimited earmark.

Given the fuzzy aims of such appropriations, it’s nearly impossible to figure out how the $5.5 million funneled to the two nonprofits since 1995 has been spent. There is virtually no state or federal oversight of the money.

taxpayers have spent at least $70,800 in just over three years to rent one of the eight units in a building that Mose Jefferson’s firm bought for $10,000.

Fourth District Assessor Betty Jefferson, another sister of Mose and William Jefferson, lists an office in the building, according to her letterhead. However, Mose Jefferson said the office was used only during her campaign and was paid for with campaign funds.

While Gill Pratt said she had no idea she would be working for Care Unlimited when she donated a city vehicle to it, she acknowledges that she has long, close ties to the organization.

The corporation, according to newspaper accounts, was founded nearly 20 years ago by Bennie Jefferson, one of the congressman’s three brothers and the husband of Civil District Judge Carolyn Gill-Jefferson. Gill-Jefferson served as notary when Gill Pratt signed the four city vehicles over to the nonprofits.

As for Orleans Metropolitan, while it has dabbled in real estate, its main aim, according to Mose Jefferson, is to perform minor repairs to homes — “renovation and weatherproofing, windows and doors . . . some cleanups of lots, painting.”

He said the organization has helped hundreds of people over the years. Asked for the names of people the organization has helped, Jefferson said the group’s records are in a shambles because of Katrina.

“Most everything got wrecked,” he said.

One of the companies, ANJ Group LLC, listed Andrea Jefferson, the congressman’s wife, as manager. Mose Jefferson, his brother, acted as manager and registered agent of another company, B.E.P. Consulting Services LLC. In all, the indictment refers to five unnamed, unindicted family members.

In New Orleans, where Jefferson is the power behind one of the city’s most influential political machines, the Progressive Democrats, the 60-year-old congressman and his family have long been dogged by allegations of blurring lines between public office and self-interest.

“State payrolls, parish payrolls, local payrolls, contracts, they’ve been there, at all levels of government,” said Bernie Pinsonat, a Louisiana political pollster. “There’s been a buildup to this.”

Peggy Wilson, a Republican former City Council president, tells a story about Jefferson dating to the early 1990s when he called her to his office to discuss a possible run for mayor.

“I said, ‘Why do you want to run for mayor?’” Wilson said of the conversation. “And he said, ‘Because you can’t make any money in Washington.’”

In 1989, Mose Jefferson and then-school board member Betty Jefferson were accused of trying to profit in a school uniform deal. Neither was found to have done anything wrong. Betty Jefferson also came under fire for slashing the tax assessment on her congressman brother’s 27-unit apartment complex in 1998, shortly after she took office.

And in 1994, a legislative audit questioned a $50,000 payment to Andrea Jefferson by Grambling State University for teaching a class with a single student. And accusations of political nepotism have been leveled at her for her relationship with the Southern University System, which hired her in 2003 for about $72,000 a year as chief fundraiser as part of a legal settlement. She had sued in 2002 for being removed from a top academic job at the university’s New Orleans campus.

The congressman’s brother-in-law, former state Judge Alan Green, was caught up in an FBI corruption probe of the Jefferson Parish courthouse. Green is serving a 51-month sentence in federal prison for taking bribes from a bail bonds company.

The nonprofits also are the source of another controversy involving Jefferson’s daughter, state Rep. Jalila Jefferson-Bullock, and a former aide, Renee Gill Pratt. Over a dozen years as state lawmakers, the two steered more than $7 million to the nonprofits, according to The Times-Picayune newspaper.

Last year, the FBI began investigating four of the charities, Central City Adult Education Agency, New Orleans Drug Education Intervention, the social services provider Care Unlimited Inc. and housing assistance center Orleans Metropolitan Housing and Community Development Inc.

Taken together, the family’s dealings seem to have formed something of a chain, said Gary Clark, political science professor at Dillard University in New Orleans.

“In hindsight, those appear to have been very, very big red flags,” said Clark.

http://tinyurl.com/2tygke

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