This is not good news:
A member of Congress and four of his associates were indicted today for their roles in a racketeering conspiracy involving several schemes that were intended to further the political and financial interests of the defendants and others by, among other tactics, misappropriating hundreds of thousands of dollars of federal, charitable and campaign funds.
Congressman Chaka Fattah Sr., 58, of Philadelphia; lobbyist Herbert Vederman, 69, of Palm Beach, Florida; Fattah’s Congressional District Director Bonnie Bowser, 59, of Philadelphia; and Robert Brand, 69, of Philadelphia; and Karen Nicholas, 57, of Williamstown, New Jersey, were charged today in a 29-count indictment with participating in a racketeering conspiracy and other crimes, including bribery; conspiracy to commit mail, wire and honest services fraud; and multiple counts of mail fraud, falsification of records, bank fraud, making false statements to a financial institution and money laundering.
Assistant Attorney General Leslie R. Caldwell of the Justice Department’s Criminal Division, U.S. Attorney Zane David Memeger of the Eastern District of Pennsylvania, Special Agent in Charge Edward J. Hanko of the FBI’s Philadelphia Division and Special Agent in Charge Akeia Conner of the Internal Revenue Service-Criminal Investigation (IRS-CI) Philadelphia Field Office made the announcement.
“As charged in the indictment, Congressman Fattah and his associates embarked on a wide-ranging conspiracy involving bribery, concealment of unlawful campaign contributions and theft of charitable and federal funds to advance their own personal interests,” said Assistant Attorney General Caldwell. “When elected officials betray the trust and confidence placed in them by the public, the department will do everything we can to ensure that they are held accountable. Public corruption takes a particularly heavy toll on our democracy because it undermines people’s basic belief that our elected leaders are committed to serving the public interest, not to lining their own pockets.”
I liked him- thought he was funny and charming.
trnc
Somebody must have their facts all wrong. There’s no way Obummer and his obamabot attorney general would investigate and prosecute another socialist. It’s unpossible.
Betty Cracker
I can never hear his name without acquiring this earworm. But if he’s a crook, I hope he gets what he deserves.
Carl Nyberg
Either use “honest services fraud” against cops & prosecutors or get rid of it.
I’m sick of DOJ saying it doesn’t have the power to act against killer cops and accessory prosecutors when they have the “honest services fraud” statute.
rikyrah
Sad to read this
dr. bloor
Sociopaths often are.
catclub
Why do I suspect Fattah is from a district with 79% or so democratic voters? And said district was set up that way by GOP gerrymanders.
Yatsuno
If he has CI on his ass he should enjoy his time in Club Fed. CI is like everywhere else in the IRS: short on money and manpower. They don’t have time to chase losing cases like this.
I'mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet
BooMan’s take.
FWIW.
Cheers,
Scott.
Another Holocene Human
@I’mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet: Voters loooooove them some narcissistic personalities, do’.
Eric
I used to live in his district. As much as I agreed with him on most things it always grated on me that he ran unopposed in both the primary and the general. Hopefully, this spurs some new blood to step up and run. The 2nd District of PA will remain safely D at least until after the next census.
Joel
I say it’s good news. Lets put this another way: plenty of democrats at Goldman Sachs.
Bobby Thomson
Cleaning house is good news.
ruemara
Indicting a criminal is a good idea at all times.
mike with a mic
He’s a big city D, of course he is the most corrupt of the corrupt. Small town conservative corruption has nothing on big city liberal corruption, it’s what we do! And the Washington to Boston area takes the cake. We do corruption like nobody else! That’s sort of of our thing… that and robbing the rest of the nation blind.
RSR
Looks like it’s time for another blogger ethics panel.
Ryan J. Reilly @ryanjreilly
Surprising that Chaka Fattah’s news anchor wife, AKA “Person E,” wasn’t indicted as well:
https://twitter.com/ryanjreilly/status/626433603220688896
1:54 PM – 29 Jul 2015 · Details
themann1086
@catclub: you would be correct!
RSR
The Congressman’s son is also under indictment for fraud related to siphoning money from the local school district, btw.
http://articles.philly.com/2015-06-03/news/62968862_1_chaka-fattah-jr-new-trial-date-fraud-trial
Cervantes
@rikyrah:
Yes, it is.
When he was first elected to the House in the early ’90s, he was a new broom.
Not any more, it appears.
FlipYrWhig
Per Betty C above: was “Chaka Con” too obvious a headline?
The Moar You Know
I thought he would have had better upper body musculature, what with him stealing everything that isn’t nailed down.
That is quite an indictment.
Ian
@mike with a mic:
Does not logically compute with the states that give the most money to the federal government to the states that recieve the most.
Phil Perspective
@RSR: Because they didn’t want to pile on? Jim Gardner leads the ratings here, and has for 30 years. I didn’t watch the 6pm news to see if they put her on paid vacation or how Channel 10(the local NBC channel .. owned by Comcast!!) covered it.
Phil Perspective
@RSR: After reading the pic attached to Reilly’s tweet, Channel 10 has to fire her.
theronware
Fattah is screwed.
mclaren
Meanwhile, the total number of Wall Street financial crime lords and giant robosigning banks indicted for criminal fraud remains: zero.
As the saying goes, “A good prosecutor could indict a ham sandwich.”
Obama simply does not want to piss off the wealthy thieves who run America from Wall Street. They might decide not to fund Obama’s presidential library.
Irony Abounds
I don’t care what party they belong to, all the crooks in Washington need to be shown the door…to their cells. There are a precious few Senators and Representatives in Washington who aren’t in it just for the money they can make in the future (or in Fattah’s case, the present). Fuck’em all, they deserve to burn. Moreover this puts a lie to any claims that Obama’s administration is just going after political enemies.
EconWatcher
Forget it, Jake. It’s Philadelphia.
That town is just corrupt to the core. I lived there five years; a Russian lawyer I knew said the atmosphere felt like home. The feds have to come in every so often and clean out the local courts of corrupt judges, much as you would set a routine schedule for mucking the stables. Some of the local unions there–particularly Johnny Dock’s Elecrtical Workers–seem bent on emobodying every TeaPartier’s nastiest image of corrupt organized labor. The mob is still there, although the center of gravity has probably shifted to the Russians in the northern reaches, from the Italians in South Philly.
I’m not knocking it as a place to live: On that score, it’s actually vastly underrated. But if you’re into good, clean government, best to move along.