Tag: indictment

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News The Fly-By

The Last Word

In January, city councilman Edmund Ford declared 2007 the year of truth.

Now, we’re not saying it wasn’t a truthful year, but maybe — especially since Congressman Steve Cohen found himself on The Colbert Report — it was the year of what Colbert calls truthiness.

Rickey Peete, under an indictment of bribery, resigned again from the City Council. Ford, facing a similar indictment, decided to stay on the council until his term ended. When the election rolled around, Ford’s son ran and won his father’s former seat.

Below is a month-by-month guide to 2007. Or, in all truthiness, as close as we could get.

January

At his annual New Year’s Day Prayer breakfast, Mayor Willie Herenton proposes building a brand-new football stadium to replace the aging Liberty Bowl Memorial Stadium. Meanwhile, the City Council commits $15 million to upgrade bathrooms and disabled access at the Liberty Bowl.

Memphis Zoo female panda Ya Ya gives Le Le the cold shoulder when he tries to impress her by doing handstands, apparently a panda mating ritual.

Memphis-based Stax Records turns 50 and celebrates the big day with a party not in Memphis but in New York City.

February

A national survey ranks Memphis number one in the amount of time we spend watching television.

City Council member Edmund Ford racks up a $16,000 utility bill, but his power stays on. Turns out he and other politicians, like E.C. Jones, Myron Lowery, and Jack Sammons, are on a special VIP list.

Memphis director Craig Brewer’s Black Snake Moan, starring Samuel L. Jackson and Christina Ricci, premieres. Brewer held off on its release to give people plenty of time to forget that other Samuel L. Jackson film with a serpent title: Snakes on a Plane.

March

Congressman Steve Cohen appears on Comedy Central’s The Colbert Report. Host Steven Colbert asks Cohen if he’s the first Jew from Tennessee.

Church of God in Christ (COGIC) presiding bishop G.E. Patterson dies of heart failure on March 20th. Bishop Charles Blake of the West Angeles COGIC in Los Angeles is named presiding bishop at the annual convocation in November.

Twenty-five-year-old Anna Clifford makes national news after she appears in a mugshot with a 12-inch Mohawk. The attention started after her mugshot, the result of a DUI charge after leaving a Midtown bar, was posted on TheSmokingGun.com.

April

Dale Mardis is sentenced to 15 years in prison for the slaying of code-enforcement inspector Mickey Wright. Mardis admitted to killing Wright, then dismembering and burning the body. Wright’s family becomes outraged that Mardis only received a charge of second-degree murder.

Thieves steal more than $11,000 worth of brass valves from the Sears Crosstown building’s plumbing and fire-control system. It is just one of countless “scrap metal” thefts — air conditioning parts and vehicle catalytic converters are also routinely stolen — across the city during the year.

In Selmer, Tennessee, Mary Winkler is convicted of manslaughter in the shooting death of her preacher husband Matthew Winkler. While on the stand, she showed a pair of white, high-heeled shoes she said her husband forced her to wear.

May

Former Senator John Ford is convicted of bribery. Ophelia Ford — who won John’s vacated state Senate seat — falls off of a barstool in Nashville after informing attendees of a Senate hearing that they “need to get knowledged.”

Zookeepers at the Memphis Zoo artificially inseminate Ya Ya, starting a panda pregnancy watch that ultimately ends with a miscarriage.

After playing “Ice Ice Baby” one time too many, Raiford’s Hollywood Disco closes, only to reopen under new ownership in the fall.

June

Robert F.X. Sillerman, owner of Elvis Presley’s image, announces plans to invest $250 million in upgrades to both sides of Elvis Presley Boulevard around Graceland.

John McCain threatens to name FedEx founder Fred Smith to his cabinet if elected president.

July

The Memphis Light Gas and Water board decides to sell Memphis Networx to Colorado-based Communications Infrastructure Investments at a more than $28 million loss.

August

A Raleigh man grabs national headlines when he became the victim of a gunshot wound — inflicted by his dog.

An overzealous Elvis fan steals one of the King’s firearms from a museum across the street from Graceland but “dumps” the pistol in a nearby port-a-potty.

September

Local Air America station trades liberal politics for sports scores.

An FBI report says Memphis is the most dangerous city in the country. U of M football player Taylor Bradford is shot on campus in a botched robbery attempt and later dies at the Med.

October

Noted photographer Ernest Withers dies.

A Memphis high school student shoots his friend during an English class. The friend recovers; the Memphis city school district asks its schools to beef up security.

November

Bruce Thompson is indicted on corruption charges. The former county commissioner allegedly received $260,000 in consulting fees as part of an MCS construction job.

Though Mayor Willie Herenton once vowed he would conduct a national search for a new president of MLGW, after being reelected for his gazillionth term, Herenton appoints the city’s public works director, Jerry Collins, to the job.

New evidence in the West Memphis Three case points to animal attacks to explain evidence once considered signs that the young victims were part of a Satanic ritual.

December

While waiting for outdoor retailer Bass Pro to move forward with plans for The Pyramid, county commissioners hear an alternative reuse plan: a $250 million indoor theme park with a 300- to 400-room hotel and a shopping mall.

Local Scientologists put their Midtown mansion on the market.

Justin Timberlake’s family buys the Big Creek golf course in Millington and promises a new clubhouse, new golf carts, and maintenance to the course itself. He’s bringing BigCreek back!

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Politics Politics Feature

Thompson Takes On Fox News

From Huffington Post: In a heated exchange this morning on Fox News Sunday, former Sen. Fred Thompson took host Chris Wallace to task for what he claims is a “constant mantra” of attacks on Thompson from Fox News.

Thompson reacted to two clips from Fox News contributors Charles Krauthammer and Fred Barnes sharply criticizing Thompson’s candidacy.

“I don’t know if Fox has been going after you,” Wallace said, defending his network’s coverage.

But Thompson insisted — “From day one, they said I got in too late –” only to have Wallace interrupt. “Well, there are a lot of people besides Fox who said that.”

For more, check out HuffPost.

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Politics Politics Feature

POLITICS: New Game, Different Name

When Bruce Thompson, freshly charged with extortion and mail fraud, called a press conference last week to respond, the former county commissioner struck an unusual note of defiance, chastising My Harrison, the FBI’s local agent in charge, for the “same game, different name” remark with which she had characterized his place in the ever-burgeoning series of federal indictments of local officials.

His life was no game, Thompson said, making the issue personal, and since the distinguished defense attorney Leslie Ballin stood at his elbow when he said it, lending his considerable legal imprimatur to the statement, what Thompson said smacked less of pique than of considered strategy. Indeed, it seemed overtly political, the response of one contender to another in a heated public debate.

And make no mistake: Though both Thompson’s legal defenders and the prosecutorial team representing U.S. attorney David Kustoff will presumably offer abundant briefs, proofs, and exhibits in evidence as they join the issue, there is something political about not only this trial but the whole series of recent ones based on operations with catchy code names like Tennessee Waltz, Main Street Sweeper, and suchlike.

There had already been sporadic, mainly sub rosa efforts within the ranks of local Democrats to challenge the series of Justice Department prosecutions as partisan ones aimed at their party’s power structure. The presence of a nominal Republican, former East Tennessee legislator Chris Newton, among the Tennessee Waltz indictees, had done little to dispel the accusation, since Newton’s GOP colleagues had always considered him a fellow traveler with the General Assembly’s Democrats.

The conservative Thompson, a bona fide upscale Gucci-wearing Republican with strong connections in the local business community, would seem to be a different matter. Yet it can be argued, at no prejudice to the legal merits of either case, that both Thompson’s prosecution and that of former MLGW head Joseph Lee, currently under indictment for improper collusion with city councilman Edmund Ford Sr., are inherently political.

Rather than instances of out-and-out bribery, conveniently staged and videotaped by the government itself, these two cases are not stings but the results of real ex nihilo investigations of actions initiated by the principals themselves. What connects them to the prior cases is that they expressly target the freedom-of-action of public officials.

The prosecutions of Thompson and, even more obviously, Lee are aimed at what had previously been a no-man’s-land of politics, the domain where favors are done in return for favors, where one hand washes the other, and where if you scratch my back, I’ll sure as hell scratch yours.

Did MLGW president Lee choose to look the other way at Ford’s thousands of dollars’ worth of unpaid bills because the councilman changed his mind on Lee’s acceptability as the utility’s head, and because, even more crucially, Ford headed Lee’s oversight committee? It might once have been said: That’s just politics. But Harrison and Kustoff have now declared that statement inoperative, as chief prosecutor Tim DiScenza shortly will in court.

Thompson’s case is even more ambivalent. Before he went to work on getting the Memphis school board to approve a school-construction contract for a West Tennessee company (for an ultimate fee of $250,000 for himself), the then commissioner sought — and got — the formal sanction of county attorney Brian Kuhn.

No conflict of interest, said Kuhn, who reaffirmed again Monday his belief that Thompson, distanced by the state’s funding formula both from city-school spending per se and from oversight of specific school construction, was within his rights to act as an advocate for the company.

That was on pure conflict-of-interest grounds, stressed Kuhn, who eschewed any judgment about various potential illegalities associated with other aspects of the case. Asked whether the Thompson and Lee cases could be interpreted as incursions by federal authorities onto turf previously regarded as exclusively and flexibly political, Kuhn allowed — unofficially and informally, you understand — that he understood how somebody could see it that way.

In an interview with the Flyer back in 1994, when he was first running for the Senate, current presidential hopeful Fred Thompson mused on the then ongoing Whitewater investigation into President Bill Clinton‘s private finances and, at some passionate length, expressed regret at what he saw as the creeping criminalization of politics.

Locally as well as nationally, what Thompson then lamented seems now to be the very name of the game.

Categories
Politics Politics Feature

New Game, Different Name

When Bruce Thompson, freshly charged with extortion and mail fraud, called a press conference last week to respond, the former county commissioner struck an unusual note of defiance, chastising My Harrison, the FBI’s local agent in charge, for the “same game, different name” remark with which she had characterized his place in the ever-burgeoning series of federal indictments of local officials.

His life was no game, Thompson said, making the issue personal, and since the distinguished defense attorney Leslie Ballin stood at his elbow when he said it, lending his considerable legal imprimatur to the statement, what Thompson said smacked less of pique than of considered strategy. Indeed, it seemed overtly political, the response of one contender to another in a heated public debate.

And make no mistake: Though both Thompson’s legal defenders and the prosecutorial team representing U.S. attorney David Kustoff will presumably offer abundant briefs, proofs, and exhibits in evidence as they join the issue, there is something political about not only this trial but the whole series of recent ones based on operations with catchy code names like Tennessee Waltz, Main Street Sweeper, and suchlike.

There had already been sporadic, mainly sub rosa efforts within the ranks of local Democrats to challenge the series of Justice Department prosecutions as partisan ones aimed at their party’s power structure. The presence of a nominal Republican, former East Tennessee legislator Chris Newton, among the Tennessee Waltz indictees, had done little to dispel the accusation, since Newton’s GOP colleagues had always considered him a fellow traveler with the General Assembly’s Democrats.

The conservative Thompson, a bona fide upscale Gucci-wearing Republican with strong connections in the local business community, would seem to be a different matter. Yet it can be argued, at no prejudice to the legal merits of either case, that both Thompson’s prosecution and that of former MLGW head Joseph Lee, currently under indictment for improper collusion with city councilman Edmund Ford Sr., are inherently political.

Rather than instances of out-and-out bribery, conveniently staged and videotaped by the government itself, these two cases are not stings but the results of real ex nihilo investigations of actions initiated by the principals themselves. What connects them to the prior cases is that they expressly target the freedom-of-action of public officials.

The prosecutions of Thompson and, even more obviously, Lee are aimed at what had previously been a no-man’s-land of politics, the domain where favors are done in return for favors, where one hand washes the other, and where if you scratch my back, I’ll sure as hell scratch yours.

Did MLGW president Lee choose to look the other way at Ford’s thousands of dollars’ worth of unpaid bills because the councilman changed his mind on Lee’s acceptability as the utility’s head, and because, even more crucially, Ford headed Lee’s oversight committee? It might once have been said: That’s just politics. But Harrison and Kustoff have now declared that statement inoperative, as chief prosecutor Tim DiScenza shortly will in court.

Thompson’s case is even more ambivalent. Before he went to work on getting the Memphis school board to approve a school-construction contract for a West Tennessee company (for an ultimate fee of $250,000 for himself), the then commissioner sought — and got — the formal sanction of county attorney Brian Kuhn.

No conflict of interest, said Kuhn, who reaffirmed again Monday his belief that Thompson, distanced by the state’s funding formula both from city-school spending per se and from oversight of specific school construction, was within his rights to act as an advocate for the company.

That was on pure conflict-of-interest grounds, stressed Kuhn, who eschewed any judgment about various potential illegalities associated with other aspects of the case. Asked whether the Thompson and Lee cases could be interpreted as incursions by federal authorities onto turf previously regarded as exclusively and flexibly political, Kuhn allowed — unofficially and informally, you understand — that he understood how somebody could see it that way.

In an interview with the Flyer back in 1994, when he was first running for the Senate, current presidential hopeful Fred Thompson mused on the then ongoing Whitewater investigation into President Bill Clinton‘s private finances and, at some passionate length, expressed regret at what he saw as the creeping criminalization of politics.

Locally as well as nationally, what Thompson then lamented seems now to be the very name of the game.

Categories
News The Fly-By

Same Game, New Name

Former county commissioner Bruce Thompson was indicted by a federal grand jury this week in connection with a city schools construction contract.

Under the indictment, Thompson, 48, faces one count of extortion and three counts of mail fraud. According to the document, Thompson received more than $260,000 from H&M Construction Company, Inc., to purportedly influence a contract to build three city schools.

H&M joined with minority contractor Salton-Fox Construction to contract with the Memphis City Schools system.

“[Thompson] would falsely represent to representatives of the joint venture described above, that by reason of his position as a Shelby County Commissioner, he had the ability to control the votes of members of the Memphis City School Board,” read the indictment.

The indictment also said that Thompson, who served on the commission from 2002 to 2006, told representatives of the joint venture that he had made commitments to give campaign contributions to members of the city school board and that without those payments the venture would not get the contract for the three schools.

In 2004, Thompson gave Kirby Salton a check for $7,000 purportedly for campaign contributions to school board members.

“What can I say? What can I possibly say? Same game, different name,” FBI special agent in charge My Harrrison said. “Those persons who feel they are entitled — whether you are North, South, East, or West — we’re here and we’re watching.”

Last month, the grand jury subpoenaed Memphis City School documents relating to building projects begun between 2000 and 2004.

“We will continually, aggressively prosecute these matters,” said U.S. attorney David Kustoff. “The grand jury investigation is ongoing.”

Thompson did not run for re-election in 2006.

Categories
News

Thompson to Feds: This Is No Game

Less than an hour after pleading not guilty to federal corruption charges Wednesday, former county commissioner Bruce Thompson, who is a competitive tennis player, took a few swings at the style and substance of the government’s case.

“This is not a game,” Thompson said in media appearance in attorney Leslie Ballin’s office. “This is my life. This is my freedom that is on the line here.”

That was a swipe at FBI Special Agent in Charge My Harrison who said Tuesday, “Same game, different name,” after the indictment was handed up.

The phrase proved irresistible to print and broadcast media outlets, and Thompson said he resented it. He said his case has nothing in common with Tennessee Waltz, that he is entitled to the presumption of innocence, that he plans to go to trial, and that he expects to be found innocent.

“I have done nothing wrong, as I have said from the beginning,” said Thompson, who was a commissioner from 2002-2006.

The indictment alleges that Thompson extorted $263,000 from H&M Construction by “falsely representing” that he could influence school board members to award the company a $46 million contract, and that the company would stand little chance without his influence.

Thompson, 48, left the media appearance without taking questions.

He and Ballin made it clear that part of their defense will hang on an opinion issued by Shelby County Attorney Brian Kuhn in a memorandum in 2004. The opinion, which was actually given twice in slightly different form in February and again in August, was requested by Thompson.

“In my opinion, it would not be a conflict of interest for you to act as a consultant for a large public company in aiding them to try to get business and/or contracts with the Memphis City Schools or the Shelby County Schools,” Kuhn wrote.

The opinion does not say whether or not it would be legal. Ballin told reporters that if he had been asking for the opinion as an attorney he would have gotten Kuhn to be specific about the legality as well as the conflict of interest question.

Ballin said the dollar amounts reported as being paid to Thompson in the indictment are accurate. But he disputed the part of the indictment that involves Thompson in the payment of $7,000 in apparent campaign contributions or other payments to school board members via minority contractor Kirby Salton.

Ballin said that $263,000 would be a reasonable fee — roughly one half of one percent of the contract — for helping H&M get the business. He said Thompson had other consulting clients at the time, but he declined to name them.

The case has been assigned to U.S. District Judge Jon McCalla. Ballin said he thinks it could go to trial as early as next February.

Earlier Wednesday afternoon, Thompson formally entered a plea of not guilty in a brief appearance at the federal building. He faces a maximum sentence of 20 years on each of the four counts on which he was indicted.

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News

Burning Questions After the Bruce Thompson Indictment

Ten questions in the wake of the indictment of former Shelby County commissioner Bruce Thompson. Sorry, the questions are better than the answers at this stage of the game.

Is Memphis in some kind of Gilded Age of Corruption? Or are federal prosecutors just looking harder and calling them closer?

I would say both. Statistically, there were more indictments for political corruption from 2003-2007 than any period I can remember in my 25 years as a reporter in Memphis. It seemed like everyone had some kind of deal going. Big contracts for FedExForum, school construction, and Tenn-Care services opened the door to self-styled consultants.

Some politicians and government employees became envious when they saw what people they considered less influential than themselves were making off of those projects. Remember the taped comments of Roscoe Dixon and Barry Myers on this subject. And, as I wrote last week, I think minority participation was perverted from a worthy goal to an excuse for corruption.

On the other hand, I think federal prosecutors are calling them closer. The office runs in cycles, from high-volume, quick-turnover cases to time-consuming public corruption cases. We’re in the latter stage now. No way do I believe the indictments of former MLGW chief executive Joseph Lee (for cutting Edmund Ford some slack on his utility bill) and Michael Hooks Jr. (for perjury and rigging invoices for less than $10,000 to Juvenile Court) would have been sought in other years.

What’s the difference between John Ford and Bruce Thompson?

Media villain and media darling, for one thing. Ford allegedly got more than $800,000 from Tenn-Care contractors. Thompson allegedly got more than $260,000 from H&M Construction. It’s interesting that the federal indictment of Ford, which came out of Nashville, not Memphis, says the public was deprived of his honest services. But the indictment of Thompson makes it sound like H&M was the victim because Thompson “falsely” purported to be able to influence votes on the Memphis school board. U.S. Attorney David Kustoff did nothing to clear this up in his brief press conference announcing the Thompson indictment.

Did the Feds need to get a white Republican?

They’ll never say it, but of course they did. At the national and Memphis level, the Feds are under pressure for allegedly (hah!) having a bias against blacks and Democrats and those who are not loyal to George W. Bush. I’m not saying there is a quota system or anything, but prosecutors are human like the rest of us.

Did the FBI “miss” Thompson in Tennessee Waltz?

There are indications that Thompson got a hard look in the Tennessee Waltz investigation. His name came up in a taped conversation between an E-Cycle Management executive (in reality, an FBI agent) and Charles Love, a Chattanooga bag man. If you look at the timeline, 2004 was a critical year. Tennessee Waltz got underway in 2003 and became public in May, 2005. After May, 2005, any public official who took chances had to be reckless or crazy.

Who is the victim?

Again, I think that is one of the questions that Thompson and his attorneys are likely to raise. Thompson allegedly got $263,000 for helping H&M get a $46 million contract. Real estate agents and investment brokers can relate to that kind of “commission.” Thompson got an opinion from Shelby County attorney Brian Kuhn that it was all right for him to consult for H&M, although the specifics of what Kuhn was told about the arrangement by Thompson are likely more complicated than that. And I’ll bet Kuhn hedged his advice.

From 2002-2006, Thompson was a high-profile commissioner and an up-front advocate of privatization. After his term ended, he continued to stay in the public eye on politics and do occasional commentary. He didn’t act like someone with something to hide. And to my knowledge, he is pretty well-to-do and doesn’t need money. In other words, I don’t get it.

When is a campaign contribution a bribe?

n the minds of some people, they’re synonymous. But a contribution within the legal limit that is reported is not a crime, as far as I can see. Even if it’s in cash. In a sense, every contribution is intended to buy some access, influence, or official action (or inaction) down the road. When prosecutors start going after campaign contributions just because their timing was suspect or they weren’t reported, they will have gone too far in my opinion.

What happened to the $7,000 to Kirby Salton?

Salton was H&M’s minority partner. He has been quoted fairly extensively in The Commercial Appeal and apparently cooperated with prosecutors. The Thompson indictment is vague about the $7000 — and so was Kustoff in the press conference. It still is not clear whether any or all of it got to school board members and/or their associates. And there is an obvious imbalance if Thompson got $263,000 for consulting and one or more board members who actually voted on the construction contract got $7000 in campaign contributions. I would think H&M has to be savvy enough to ask what the hell was going on with their money.

Would Thompson’s actions have been illegal if he were not a commissioner?

The way the indictment reads, I would say no. The indictment uses the word “extortion” in a way that is probably unfamiliar to most people who associate it with guns, fists, and dirty looks. This came up in the John Ford trial, where the jury was puzzled by it and ultimately didn’t convict Ford on some counts. As used in the Ford and Thompson indictments, extortion (to oversimplify and avoid legalese) means using your official position unlawfully to get someone to do something.

There’s a pretty simple test for public officials. Would anyone consult with you for money if were not a public official? Is what’s right for you also right for all of your colleagues? And were you (or are you) a consultant before (or after) your political career?

What’s the deal with mail fraud?

Part of me thinks prosecutors use this junky charge to complicate the lives of reporters. Come on, say what you mean, Feds. We know you have to make it a federal case, but tell us this, in plain language: What is the underlying crime? Nobody sets out to commit mail fraud by sending money or a check or letter through the U.S. mail.

Are school board members out of the woods?

Probably not. Kustoff said the investigation is “ongoing” and he sounded like he meant it. The board changed its mind on the contractor award for three schools, or, perhaps more accurately, went along with the administration’s recommendation to change to H&M. What went down between the first vote and the second vote? Thompson will probably get a chance to shed some light on this.

Categories
News

Feds Indict ex-Commissioner Bruce Thompson

Former Shelby County commissioner Bruce Thompson was indicted Tuesday by a federal grand jury on four charges connected to his work as a consultant to a Jackson, Tennessee construction company.

The indictment was announced at a press conference by United States Attorney David Kustoff and FBI Special Agent in Charge My Harrison.

“What can I say? What can I possibly say?” said Harrison. “Same game, different name.”

Harrison warned that public officials who think they are “entitled” to more than their salary are on the FBI’s watch list.

“Whether you’re north, south, east, or west we’re watching,” she said.

The investigation of school construction contracts is ongoing, Kustoff said. A grand jury has been hearing testimony about campaign contributions and other matters. According to the indictment, Thompson did not actually have the power to influence votes on the Memphis school board but “falsely represented” to H&M Construction and its joint-venture partner Salton-Fox Construction that he could help them win a contract to build three city schools. The commission appropriates money to fund schools in Shelby County, including the Memphis City School system.

The indictment says Thompson, 48, received $263,992 from H&M in two payments in 2005 after the school board awarded the firm the contract, reversing a previous vote that gave the contract to another firm. The indictment says that Thompson “did cause to be placed a check in the amount of $7,000 addressed to Kirby Salton from H&M Construction in the custody of an interstate common carrier” on November 16, 2004. That is the technical description of a mail-fraud charge.

Both the wording of the indictment and Kustoff’s remarks, however, left it unclear whether the $7,000 was passed on to board members and exactly what Thompson was supposed to do for his $263,992, which is nearly nine times the annual salary of a county commissioner.
“Thompson would falsely represent to representatives of the joint venture that by reason of his position as a Shelby County commissioner he had the ability to control the votes of members of the Memphis City School Board in connection with the awarding of a contract to construct three schools,” the indictment says.

Thompson, a white Republican from East Memphis, was a commissioner from 2002-2006 when he decided not to seek another term. His name came up in the Tennessee Waltz investigation when FBI agents posing as executives of E-Cycle Management said they wanted to meet him. The first Tennessee Waltz indictments were made public in May of 2005, putting public officials on notice to be careful about their business dealings, especially with regard to consulting. Thompson’s contacts with H&M regarding the three school construction jobs began in 2004, according to the indictment.
Thompson initial court appearance is scheduled for Wednesday.

Categories
Opinion

Another John Ford Trial?

The John Ford saga isn’t over, but some friends of the former senator would probably breathe easier if it were.

Ford plans to appeal his conviction on a federal bribery charge in the Tennessee Waltz investigation. Last week, he was sentenced to 66 months in prison. The FBI’s undercover sting operation has withstood previous challenges, and jury verdicts are seldom overturned. But the appeal could give Ford some leverage with federal prosecutors in Nashville, where he faces a November 6th trial date on charges related to his consulting work for TennCare contractors between 2001 and 2005.

“If I were his defense attorney, I would be going to the U.S. attorney up there and saying, ‘You all have already convicted my client, and he got 66 months, so what [would happen] if we dropped our appeal?'” said Hickman Ewing, former U.S. attorney in Memphis. “Maybe they would say that if he would plead guilty to one count they would make it concurrent to what he already got. The bottom line is how strong they think their case is.”

In the Tennessee Waltz, Ford’s “business partners” were undercover FBI agents posing as executives of E-Cycle Management while they secretly taped him. Ford was paid $55,000. In the Nashville case, Ford’s main business partners were TennCare contractors Doral Dental and Omnicare Health Plan, renamed UAHC Health Plan of Tennessee. Those companies, unlike E-Cycle, are very real and paid Ford more than $800,000.

If the Nashville case goes to trial, prosecutors will have to get a conviction the old-fashioned way, because there are apparently no secret tapes. The Nashville indictment came 18 months after Ford was indicted in Tennessee Waltz and delayed the start of his Memphis trial a few months. Further complicating things, there has been a change in command in the Nashville office this year. In 2006, Craig Morford was both U.S. attorney and Ford prosecutor, but this year he moved to Washington, D.C., where he is number-two man in the attorney general’s office.

Morford said the indictment revealed “an appalling willingness to violate [Ford’s] duty by using his public position for personal gain.”

Whether his successors share that hunger to prosecute — especially now that Ford has been convicted and sentenced — is not known. In a brief meeting with this reporter, assistant U.S. attorney Eli Richardson, one of the prosecutors in the Ford case along with Paul O’Brien, would only say that there is a hearing in September and a trial date in November. The trial already has been postponed several times since Ford was indicted on December 13, 2006.

According to the indictment, Ford owned a 40 percent interest in Managed Care Services Group (MCSG). The other owners were “Individual A” and “Individual B” in the indictment, but they have since been identified as Osbie Howard, former treasurer for the city of Memphis, and Ronald Dobbins.

Howard was one of 13 character witnesses at Ford’s sentencing hearing last week. Most of them got off the stand without being challenged, but not Howard. Assistant U.S. attorney Tim DiScenza accused him of making a false statement to an FBI agent earlier this year about Ford’s income tax return. Howard took the Fifth Amendment when DiScenza tried to question him further.

According to court documents filed in Nashville, Ford earned $470,414 in 2004 and $470,938 in 2003. The indictment says Ford formed MCSG to get payments from Doral Dental and hid that fact while working as a state senator and head of a TennCare committee. As a $10,000-a-month “consultant” to UAHC, Ford allegedly sponsored legislation benefiting them and met with other state officials on their behalf.

A Nashville trial could be embarrassing to other Ford “consulting” clients and business associates, including the Oseman Insurance Agency of Memphis, the Armstrong Allen law firm, Hospice USA, Connie Matthews (the mother of two of Ford’s children), and former Shelby County Commission member Bridget Chisholm, among others. If the case goes to trial, it could clarify what local and state elected part-time officials who claim that their full-time occupation is “consultant” can and cannot do.

Ewing said one option for federal prosecutors is to move to dismiss the case, provided Ford cooperates regarding other people. Despite his hefty income, Ford has pleaded indigence and is being represented by federal public defenders. If Nashville prosecutors don’t think he has money to pay fines that might be imposed, that could influence their decision about whether to try him again, Ewing said.

Categories
Politics Politics Feature

The Appeal of John Ford

The John Ford saga isn’t over, but some friends of the former senator would probably breathe easier if it were.

Ford plans to appeal his conviction on a federal bribery charge in the Tennessee Waltz investigation. This week he was sentenced to 66 months in prison. But the FBI’s undercover sting operation has withstood previous challenges and jury verdicts are seldom overturned, so Ford’s appeal looks like a Hail Mary pass.

But the appeal could give Ford some leverage with federal prosecutors in Nashville, where he faces a November 6th trial date on charges related to his consulting work for Tenn-Care contractors between 2001-2005.

“If I were his defense attorney, I would be going to the U.S. attorney up there and saying, ‘you all have already convicted my client and he got 66 months, so what if we dropped our appeal?'” said Hickman Ewing, former United States attorney in Memphis. “Maybe they would say that if he would plead guilty to one count they would make it concurrent to what he already got. The bottom line is how strong they think their case is. I don’t know that they have got any videotapes. If they had not had videotapes here, it would have been a lot harder case.”

The Nashville case is complicated by several other factors. Different federal prosecutors are in charge of the Memphis and Nashville offices. Ford’s Nashville indictment came 18 months after he was indicted in Tennessee Waltz and delayed the start of his Memphis trial a few months.

On top of that, there has been a change in command in Nashville this year. The United States attorney in Nashville in 2006 was Craig Morford, who is now the number-two man in the Attorney General’s office in Washington. When the indictment was announced, Morford said it revealed “an appalling willingness to violate (his) duty by using his public position for personal gain.”

Whether his successors share that hunger to prosecute is not known. In a brief meeting in Nashville this week with this reporter, Assistant U.S. Attorney Eli Richardson, who is one of the prosecutors in the Nashville case along with Paul O’Brien, would only say that there is a hearing in September to discuss a motion to suppress certain evidence. He said he could not discuss the case other than to confirm the November 6th trial date — the latest in a series postponements and reschedulings since Ford was indicted in Nashville on December 13th, 2006.

In Tennessee Waltz, Ford’s “business partners” were undercover FBI agents posing as executives of E-Cycle Management. He was paid $55,000. In the Nashville case, Ford’s main business partners were Tenn-Care contractors Doral Dental and Omnicare Health Plan, which was renamed UAHC Health Plan of Tennessee. Those companies, unlike E-Cycle, are very real. And Ford was paid more than $800,000 by them over a period of nearly four years.

According to the indictment, Ford owned a 40-percent interest in Managed Care Services Group (MCSG). The other owners were “Individual A” and “Individual B” in the indictment, but they have since been identified as Osbie Howard, former treasurer for the city of Memphis, and Ronald Dobbins.

Howard, former CEO of UAHC, testified as a character witness at Ford’s sentencing hearing last week. Assistant U.S. attorney Tim DiScenza challenged his testimony about Ford’s income and accused Howard of making a false statement to an FBI agent earlier this year about Ford’s income tax return. Howard took the Fifth Amendment when DiScenza tried to question him further. Ironically, he said his current occupation is ‘consultant, which means I don’t do much.”

According to court documents filed in Nashville, Ford earned $470,414 in 2004 and $470,938 in 2003. The indictment says Ford formed MCSG to get payments from Doral Dental and hid that fact while working as a state senator and head of a Tenn-Care committee. According to the indictment, Ford had another relationship with UAHC to be a “consultant” for $10,000 a month. He allegedly sponsored legislation benefiting UAHC and its predecessor and met with other state officials on their behalf.

A Nashville trial could be embarrassing or worse to other Ford “consulting” clients and business associates. According to case documents, they included the Oseman Insurance Agency of Memphis, the Armstrong Allen law firm, Hospice USA, Unum Life Insurance, Connie Matthews (the mother of two of Ford’s children), and former Shelby County Commission member Bridget Chisholm among others.

In summary, the Nashville case cuts to the heart of John Ford’s everyday business as a consultant. If the case goes to trial, it could go a long way toward clarifying what local and state elected part-time officials who claim that their full-time occupation is “consultant” can and cannot do. If it is dismissed, consulting will continue to be a gray area.

Ford has already received what is quite possibly a political death sentence. He is 65 years old and, assuming he does not begin serving his sentence until 2008, he would be 71 or older by the time he gets out. DiScenza made a point of urging sentencing judge Daniel Breen to give Ford a long sentence so he could not stage a political comeback and commit another crime, as former Memphis City Councilman Rickey Peete did.

Ewing said one option for federal prosecutors is to move to dismiss the case, provided he cooperates regarding other people. But he did not think that federal budget considerations would weigh on that, as a front-page article in Friday’s Wall Street Journal about the U.S. Justice Department suggested. Parodying a famous credit card commercial, he said, “Additional trial, $30,000. Appeal, $15,000. Getting a corrupt public official out of office, priceless.”

Despite his former $470,000 a year income, Ford has pleaded indigence and is being represented by federal public defenders now. He was not fined or ordered to make restitution in the Tennessee Waltz case, although DiScenza suggested his state pension should be used to pay for the cost of his incarceration. In the Nashville case Ford is charged with getting more than $800,000, but if prosecutors don’t think he has the money, that could influence their decision about whether to try him again, Ewing said.