Posted on 07/14/2007 5:00:17 AM PDT by GailA
When long-defiant former state Sen. Kathryn Bowers finally admits as expected Monday to taking bribes, the once-improbable Tennessee Waltz will have all but played out.
She will become the 11th of 12 defendants in the FBI's undercover Waltz corruption sting to be found guilty.
After Bowers, only one minor defendant remains, a former school board member.
Prosecutors are undefeated -- 11-0 -- and they've scored victories against some of the biggest names in Tennessee politics.
From Memphis powerhouse John Ford to his venerable East Tennessee colleague Ward Crutchfield and former Shelby County Commissioner Michael Hooks -- heir to the one of the state's great political dynasties -- the mighty have truly fallen.
Like Ford, a former state senator who faces up to 41/2 years in prison when he's sentenced later this month, three others were convicted in jury trials. The rest pleaded guilty, giving up without a fight.
Already the Waltz's impact can be felt. From Memphis, where a culture of bribery had thrived for years and where most of the Waltz defendants lived, to Nashville, where the General Assembly revamped the state's ethics laws, to Chattanooga, another city rocked by Waltz indictments, change is in the air.
"We certainly hope it changed the political landscape,'' said Asst. U.S. Atty. Tim DiScenza, the government lawyer who prosecuted the Waltz cases.
DiScenza said he doesn't send messages through indictments yet conceded that a message was heard loud and clear.
"No matter what your status and reputation for power is, if that power is wrongfully exercised law enforcement will hold you accountable,'' he said.
There was a time when the success of Operation Tennessee Waltz seemed in doubt, and not just because of the state's deep-seated corruption. For years conventional wisdom had it that a Memphis jury would never convict certain politicians who, as DiScenza put it, felt "insulated from being held accountable.''
Yet armed with damning undercover tapes that let jurors see politicians firsthand taking cash and agreeing to corrupt deals, prosecutors shook conventional wisdom to its core.
"People made assumptions about the people of Memphis, that they were incapable of setting aside prejudice and emotion,'' DiScenza said. "The Tennessee Waltz proved those assumptions wrong. That's very empowering.''
The public first heard of the Waltz in the early hours of May 26, 2005, in Nashville, where the mundane of state legislators wrapping up for the week gave way to the electrifying .
Ford had just been led away from his hotel in handcuffs, the reports stated.
FBI agents were roaming Legislative Plaza. Former senator Roscoe Dixon, by then working as a $101,000-a-year aide to Shelby County Mayor A C Wharton, was nabbed in Memphis.
Dixon, 57, is now serving five years in a Louisiana prison.
After a sensational trial in which tapes showed him stuffing wads of cash in his pockets and bragging of his prowess with state contractors and women, Ford, 65, is set to sentenced July 31.
"Those tapes made it look that the people's interests weren't being served, but the politicians' interests were,'' said Dr. Larry Moore, a University of Memphis business professor who teaches about the Waltz sting in a course on the interaction of politics and business.
"It made it even more damaging.''
The Waltz came in answer to years of complaints about public corruption in Memphis and Nashville. When it hit, it was the perfect storm.
Undercover agents posing as corrupt businessmen in search of state and local government contracts told lawmakers they ran a company -- really a sham -- called E-Cycle Management Inc. The firm ostensibly was in the business of recycling used computer and electronic parts. With fake business cards, an Internet Web site and convincing cover stories, agents gained their targets' trust and entered a world seldom seen outside a small circle of insiders.
"What's mine is yours,'' Ford said on one tape to his newfound friend -- an undercover agent -- to whom he offered the affections of a longtime girlfriend and from whom he took $55,000 in cash.
Seeing what happened to Ford and the others who went to trial affected Bowers' decision to plead guilty , said her attorney, William Massey.
"If John can't beat it and Roscoe can't beat it -- and these are two very popular people -- then the odds are you're not going to beat it either,'' the U of M's Moore said of the influence of the jury verdicts.
Moore said only time will tell if the Waltz is a lasting deterrent. Since the Waltz, two Memphis city councilmen have been indicted on corruption charges, as has the former president of Memphis Light, Gas & Water.
Yet one thing is clear, Moore said: The day of open, in your face corruption, a la John Ford, are gone.
"Politicians won't be bragging publicly about their ability to be rainmakers,'' he said.
--Marc Perrusquia: 529-2545
Tennessee Waltz
12 arrests; 11 convictions, guilty pleas, expected to plead guilty; 1 awaiting trial
Kathryn Bowers, former state senator, scheduled to plead guilty Monday
Darrell Catron, former juvenile court aide, pleaded guilty, awaits sentencing
William Cotton, former Hamilton Co commissioner, convicted, serving three years
Ward Crutchfield, state senator, pleaded guilty Thursday, awaits sentencing
Roscoe Dixon, former state senator, convicted, serving five years
John Ford, former state senator, convicted, awaits sentencing
Michael Hooks Jr., former Memphis city school board member, awaits December trial
Michael Hooks Sr., former county commissioner, pleaded guilty, begins 26 month prison term Friday
Charles Love, former Hamilton County school board member, pleaded guilty, awaits sentencing
Barry Myers, consultant, pleaded guilty, awaits sentencing
Chris Newton, former state representative from Cleveland, pleaded guilty, served one year
Calvin Williams, former county commission aide, convicted, sentenced to 33 months
HMMMMMM...After scimming through the article I was unable to find the party affiliation....HMMMMM, wonder why?
.......The day of open, in your face corruption, a la John Ford, are gone......
Jr is sly. He takes the bag from the trash can down the street where he makes you hide it. He’s still out there.
Uh...in this entire article discussing the corruption of TN politics, I can spot no mention of party affiliation. Talk about a media cover-up!
Our world breathlessly awaits: Is it ‘R’ or ‘D’?
Two RINOS, the rest are DemoRATS mostly minority which is why there has been cries of racisim deluxe.
The sad thing is that the mind has to wonder how much of this is going on all across America and which will never see the light of day.
And former Senators so this reaches the halls of Congress (it isn’t “just state politics”). Howard Dean’s going to need a new bumper sticker slogan for 2008. “The culture of corruption” can no longer be used to smear the GOP as an “exclusive” trait.
Ahhh, the old race/victum card defense.
BTW this reporter is one of the best at digging up dirt and actually reporting it.
They all were state or local level critters. The only connection to the federal congress was via John Ford being the uncle of then US Rep Harold Ford, JUNIOR.
didn’t TN have that governor (Blanton?) who sold those pardons leaving office 10 years ago or so? Whatever happened to him, because the only long-term effect of it I can see is that Clinton thought it was such a good idea, he used it himself. This stuff doesn’t matter to the Democrat electorate, and hasn’t since the days of Adam Clayton Powell 40+ years ago. And probably long before that.
The Tennessee Waltz is good start, but there is still corruption 'a plenty in Nashville. I'd LOVE to see some light shined on Representative Bill Harmon - D - Dunlap.
About 10 years ago when Mr. Harmon was County Executive in Sequatchie County he tried to push through a scheme to use eminent domain to allow a private, for profit company to seize properties, including mine, for a pump storage electricity generation facility that was neither needed nor wanted. Mr. Harmon wanted to seize lands not only for the reservoirs, but for the power line corridors, eleven of them, emanating like spokes of a wheel from the proposed generation facility. These supposed power line corridors were 2000' wide and several of them just happened to run along the bluff of Walden's Ridge, which is now some of the most valuable real estate in the county.
TVA had studied this proposal several years earlier and produced a report called "TVA 2020" which concluded that the project was not viable or needed. The company, Armstrong Energy Resources, Inc., was supposed to build the project, but had absolutely no track record of completing such projects. In fact, quite the opposite was true. They had tried one such project in PA, but it failed miserably.Millions of dollars in Federal grant money was wasted. Sound familiar?
As County Executive, Mr. Harmon chose to pledge my house and land, along with my neighbor's houses and their lands, without bothering to ask us what we thought. It was only after overwhelming public outrage after we showed beyond a shadow of doubt that the project would result in hundreds of millions of dollars of debt and would never, ever pay for itself that the project was defeated. (and without the help of fence sitter US Representative Zach Wamp - R)
It was more like 30 or so years ago. Blanton died some time back as well. And strangely enough, in a roundabout way, the scandal launched the film career of Fred Thompson...
WHOA!...woe.
I guess it just can't simply be corruption deluxe within the minority political community? It says something about the intelligence of those playing the race card, that even in the face of the damning videotape evidence, they play the card anyway. Sad.
Blanton was Governor of TN from 1975-79. Lamar Alexander took over for him after the scandal
Yes on Blanton..have no idea what happened to him, that was before I moved to Tennessee.
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