Free Republic

Mayor calls on Thomas to resignFederal prosecutors on Thursday charged council member Harry Thomas Jr. with stealing more than $350,000 from the District and failing to report income on his tax returns, bringing closure to a drawn-out saga that reached unprecedented heights in the halls of D.C. government. Documents filed in U.S. District Court accuse Mr. Thomas, Ward 5 Democrat, is of intentionally redirecting $353,000 from youth baseball programs to his personal use from April 2007 to at least February 2009 and failing to report additional income on three successive tax returns. The pair of counts were outlined in a...

FBI and IRS agents on Friday raided the Northeast home of D.C. Council member Harry Thomas Jr., a significant uptick in the pace of a criminal investigation into whether the council member used public funds for personal gain. Authorities arrived about 8 a.m. and cordoned off a wide area around Mr. Thomas’s 17th Street home. Agents in windbreakers and vests with FBI and Treasury Department markings could be seen going into and out of the house for most of the day. The most obvious things that were seized was a red motorcycle with yellow detailing and a Chevrolet Tahoe that...

D.C. Council member Harry Thomas Jr. arranged to have more than $300,000 in public funds diverted to groups he controlled, and used the money as a lavish personal account, purchasing an Audi SUV and taking trips to Las Vegas and Pebble Beach, the city’s attorney general said Monday. In releasing a highly anticipated report, Attorney General Irvin B. Nathan alleges that Thomas’s inappropriate “conversion” of the money for personal use was “willful, intentional and knowing.” Nathan has filed a civil lawsuit aimed at forcing Thomas (D-Ward 5) to repay the money and intends to refer his findings to the U.S....