Posted on 10/10/2007 7:36:49 AM PDT by SmithL
A judge rejected Ford's motion to suppress wiretap evidence, giving a green light to prosecutors to use secret recordings of the Memphis Democrat's phone calls at his trial next month.
U.S. District Judge Todd Campbell dismissed arguments by Ford's lawyer that the government improperly used a wiretap in its Memphis-based Tennessee Waltz sting to build a separate criminal case against Ford in Nashville.
In the Waltz sting, Ford, 65, was found guilty earlier this year in Memphis of taking $55,000 in bribes from an undercover agent posing as a corrupt businessman employed by a sham FBI company, E-Cycle Management Inc.
Ford faces separate charges in Nashville of concealing $800,000 in kickbacks from real businessmen who held state contracts through TennCare, the state's expanded Medicaid program. He's scheduled to stand trial Nov. 6.
In his order released Tuesday afternoon, Judge Campbell found that conversations secretly recorded from Ford's cell phone didn't illegally stray from parameters of a Feb. 14, 2005, wiretap order by U.S. District Judge Jon McCalla of Memphis.
"Both the E-Cycle investigation and the subject matter of the pending indictment involve similar factual allegations -- that the Defendant illegally used his elected position in order to obtain money or property for himself,'' Campbell wrote in his order.
Campbell also rejected defense arguments that the FBI's wiretap request lacked proper authorization from the Justice Department, that there wasn't probable cause to tap Ford's phone and that agents failed to minimize interception of innocent phone calls.
Precisely what's on FBI tapes from Ford's phone remains a secret. All records related to the motion to suppress have been sealed.
In his ruling, however, Judge Campbell wrote that transcripts showed some of the conversations involved TennCare contracts and contractors, an FBI subpoena for Ford's tax returns and a Senate Ethics probe of Ford that was under way in early 2005.
During a hearing last month, prosecutor David Rivera, using "blank" instead of repeating an obscenity, read briefly from a transcript of a February 2005 conversation between Ford and his brother, former Congressman Harold Ford Sr.
In the conversation, Harold Ford said that once a grand jury began probing consulting payments John Ford got from TennCare contractors, "It's all over.''
"I mean that TennCare thing got to be the most explosive thing in the world,'' Harold Ford told his brother.
"I don't give a blank what your lawyer's telling you. That's criminal, man.''
Another DemoRat falls to justice. Sounds like they have him with the wiretap evidence... :-)
Once again, the vile partisanship of the Press is obvious.
Not remembering, but by reading through the first paragraph, and then the whole story, there was no mention of party, it became clear without having to check, that the Congressman was a Democrat.
TennCare is a sacred cow. Al Gore’s cousin/uncle former Gov. Ned Ray McWheter gave us the debacle as a parting gift.
” . . . That’s criminal man!”
Great tagline looking for a home.
Almost as good as:
“Bitch set me up!”
I still laugh at that one. I’d surely like to hear the original tape of Marion Berry saying that on tape.
......Former state senator John Ford......
Isn’t he “convicted felon John Ford”?
Didn’t he lose a recent trial?
Yes and Yes.
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