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Testimony links firm to Jefferson probe In papers filed with the FBI, Suleiman YahYah, a Nigerian businessman listed as a target in the ongoing probe of Rep. William Jefferson, D-New Orleans, said that one of the 2004 meetings he attended with Jefferson and iGate Inc. CEO Vernon Jackson, occurred in the Washington offices of Worldspace Inc., an international satellite radio provider. YahYah's statement is the first to provide any kind of link between iGate and Worldspace, whose CEO, Noah Samara, said in a June filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission that he turned over documents and gave testimony to...

Ky. businessman gets 7 years for bribe to JeffersonBy MATTHEW BARAKAT Associated Press Writer A Kentucky telecommunications executive who admitted paying more than $400,000 in bribes to Rep. William Jefferson was sentenced Friday to more than seven years in prison. Vernon Jackson, 54, of Louisville, is a key figure in the federal investigation of Jefferson, D-La., who has not been charged. But in court papers, prosecutors have alleged that they caught Jefferson on videotape taking a $100,000 cash bribe. Most of that money later turned up in a freezer in Jefferson's home. Jefferson was never mentioned by name in Friday's...

The FBI is focusing on at least eight different suspected bribery schemes as part of its corruption probe of Rep. William J. Jefferson (D-La.), according to a federal affidavit and sources familiar with the investigation. A key part of the FBI probe has centered around Jefferson's dealings with a Louisville high-tech company, iGate Inc., that was marketing broadband technology for the Internet and cable television in Africa. But an affidavit used in last weekend's controversial search of Jefferson's Capitol Hill office stated that authorities are looking at "at least seven other" bribery schemes in which Jefferson "sought things of value...