Tag: political

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News

John Ford Guilty on Bribery Charge

John Ford became the latest casualty of the FBI’s Tennessee Waltz sting Friday when a jury returned a guilty verdict for bribery, one of five counts the former state senator was charged with.

That was Count Two of the indictment against Ford. The jury could not agree on Count One, a charge of extortion, and presiding Judge Daniel Breen declared a mistrial on that count.

Three other counts, relating to charges of witness intimidation alleged against Ford, resulted in Not Guilty findings.

Sentencing of Ford was set for Tuesday, July 31, at 9 a.m. — a point in time distant enough to allow for an appeal of the verdict by Ford, as well as possible negotiations between himself and the U,.S. Attorney’s office that might involve an offer of cooperation in future prosecutions.

The jury’s deadlock on the Count One extortion charge would seem to mean that defense attorney Mike Scholl gained some traction in his efforts to demonstrate undue inducements on Ford by FBI agents. The senator ultimately was persuaded to accept some $55,000 for legislative aid given the bogus E-Cycle computer firm.

There apparently was no such disagreement on Count Two, alleging bribery. That charge was backed up by countless FBI surveillance videos showing Ford, then an influential state senator, accepting sums of money in 2004 and 2005.

The three intimidation counts were always regarded as the weakest points of the indictment, and, though surveillance evidence was presented in court to substantiate that Ford had issued threats against agent “L.C. McNiel” and undercover informant Tim Willis, it was not corroborated in depth and was clearly subject to alternate interpretations.

How the verdict came

News of a pending verdict was circulated at about 3 p.m., Friday, the third full day of deliberations. The 11th-floor courtroom of Judge Breen was quickly filled up by members of the media, friends and family of ex-Senator Ford, and representatives of the U.S. Attorney’s office and the F.B.I.

A message from the jury,shared with the prosecution and the defense by Judge Breen, quickly established that all counts had been resolved except for one. Sensing victory, chief prosecutor Tim DiScenza moved for acceptance of the available counts and for a declaration of mistrial on the unresolved one. Defense attorney Scholl asked for time to consult with his client.

In the end, DiScenza’s preference would be honored by Judge Breen after the judge had called the jury in and heard from its foreman that no agreement was possible on Count One.

Two circumstances had prefigured the outcome. One was a question had come to Judge Breen late on the evening before asking in effect for a definition of a phrase in the indictment relating to official culpability.

The other indication that a verdict of some sort was imminent came when jurors opted not to go out for lunch on Friday but had food delivered, which they ate quickly before resuming afternoon deliberations.

Ford ‘Disappointed’

Although the accusaed senator had enjoyed a leisurely lunch with members of his immediate and extended family at a downtown grill, his attitude was clearly one of somber apprehension, as was theirs. This was in stark contrast to an air of relaxation, even jauntiness, they had all exhibited during break periods on Wednesday and Thursday.

During that lunch, Ford took time out to insist that he had been the victim of entrapment and to express a wish that more time and attention had been devoted to that subject during the trial.

In a brief statement to members of the media after exiting the Federal Building, former Senator Ford, who remains free on bond, expressed disappointment with the verdict.

Although well-wishers for Ford and family members attended the trial throughout, a striking feature of the former senator’s trial was that it attracted less out-of-town media contingents and fewer demonstrators than had a previous one for Ford’s former state Senate colleague, Roscoe Dixon.

Dixon was convicted of bribery and extortion charges last year and is now serving a term in federal prison. Another local figure,former Shelby County Commissioner Michael Hooks Sr., pleaded guilty to similar charges and has yet to begin his term.

Tennessee Waltz indictees yet to be tried include former state Senator Kathryn Bowers and fortmer Memphis school board member Michael Hooks Jr.

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Opinion

Miami Vice

What happens in Vegas stays in Vegas, but what happened in Miami in 2004 during three days and nights of partying involving John Ford, an undercover FBI agent, and their dates was courtroom fodder this week in Ford’s corruption trial.

Ford’s girlfriend, Mina Nicole Knox, 26, took the witness stand for nearly two hours as the defense closed out its case in short order. Ford did not testify, and the defense presented only three witnesses, including Knox, attorney Allan Wade, and Ford’s friend William Watson.

At Flyer press time, prosecutors were undecided whether to call a rebuttal witness. Otherwise, U.S. district judge Daniel Breen said the two sides would make closing arguments Tuesday afternoon and the case could go to the jury after that. The trial is in its third week.

Knox, who described her relationship with Ford as “personal,” is a petite former model and professional cheerleader and aspiring actress. She answered questions in a sweet, perky voice as defense attorney Michael Scholl and assistant prosecutor Lorraine Craig asked her about details of her weekend with Ford, Tim Willis, and undercover agent L.C. McNeil in Miami in July 2004. The weekend included a party aboard the now famous E-Cycle yacht, which was in fact an FBI prop, where undercover FBI agents smoked cigars, had drinks, and danced salsa with Knox and several of her male and female friends, including Ford.

Under questioning by Scholl, Knox told jurors that McNeil spent the night with one of her girlfriends in a hotel room and a second night with another woman from their party. McNeil testified last week that in his undercover role he “mirrored” Ford’s party style, but he insisted there was no sexual relationship, drug use, or anything “inappropriate” in his role-playing. In real life, McNeil is an ordained minister and specialist in undercover operations who said “it is a challenge to separate the two” lives he leads.

The weekend in Miami is important because it marked the beginning of the buddy-buddy relationship between Ford and McNeil and established the terms by which McNeil would pay Ford $55,000 in what the government says were bribes over the next nine months. Scholl spent more than three days cross-examining McNeil, who made all the payments and recorded them.

When it came his turn to present witnesses, however, Scholl elected to make it short and sweet. Wade, who represents developer Rusty Hyneman, said he never saw Hyneman give Ford an expensive Rolex watch and that Ford did not really save Hyneman any money on a state environmental matter, as Ford boasts on a secret tape. The other witness, a clothing designer who has known Ford for 20 years, also testified about the Rolex.

Then it was Knox’s turn. She said the purpose of the trip to Miami was to attend a black film festival. She did not recall hearing anything about E-Cycle Management. The defense contends Ford was targeted by the FBI and entrapped.

Prosecutors changed tactics by having Craig, instead of assistant U.S. attorney Tim DiScenza, handle the cross-examination. She asked Knox why three versions of the weekend in Miami that she wrote differed in detail, especially about McNeil’s implied romantic involvement. Knox said the first account was written hastily and in broad terms. Her final account of the weekend was written earlier this month just before the trial began. Craig suggested Ford might have coached Knox, but she denied having any help.

Jurors appeared to be listening intently to Knox, in sharp contrast to previous days in which witness testimony dragged on and was often interrupted by private conversations between the judge and lawyers. The courtroom was also unusually crowded with Ford supporters.

After Knox testified, there was a bench conference, after which Breen announced that the proof was complete unless the government decided during the lunch break to produce a rebuttal witness.

The anti-climactic end of the testimony left spectators and reporters guessing about the outcome and offering their opinions about the high and low points of the trial. With Ford declining to take the stand, the role of star witness must fall to either McNeil or undercover informant Tim Willis.

McNeil got the most face time, and the tapes of his payoffs to Ford were devastating, but for my money the trial’s most dramatic testimony came from Willis when he recounted his visit to Ford’s office in February 2005.

Willis was nervous, very nervous.

He had just gotten a call from Ford asking him to come to Ford’s office in downtown Memphis.

The call was short. Ford wanted to talk about one of Willis’ clients. Since Willis had only one client — E-Cycle Management — he could imagine what Ford was going to ask him: Are you working for the FBI?

Say what you will about Willis, he kept Operation Tennessee Waltz alive for three more months until the unveiling of the indictments on May 26, 2005. His commentary from the witness stand on the tape in which Ford threatens to shoot him was the signature moment in the trial.

The meeting at Ford’s office was Willis’ finest hour as an undercover informant. He outfoxed the fox in his own office, nervously shifting a miniature hidden recording device from one pocket to another while making up stories to counter each of Ford’s probes and keeping his nerve when Ford threatened to shoot him if he found out he was being betrayed.

At the time, Tennessee Waltz had been running for 15 months. Ford had been under suspicion since at least April 19, 2004, and had taken $40,000 in payments from an undercover FBI agent. Ford’s Memphis office was on the second floor of a small building on Third Street, with no easy access or interior observation points for FBI agents. Willis was on his own.

“I had a funny feeling about the call,” he testified.

So he called FBI agents Brian Burns and Mark Jackson, who told him to go ahead and to take a recorder with him.

After they talked awhile, Ford got down to business. How well did Willis know L.C. McNeil, the E-Cycle executive who had been paying Ford? What kind of contract did Willis have with E-Cycle? Was it for two years or three years? Where else did the company do business besides Tennessee?

“I’m just trying to figure out why they need a bill,” said Ford.

Then the big question: “Are they legit, man?”

Ford said Roscoe Dixon and two other unidentified people had warned him to be careful. Unknown to Ford, Dixon, hired a month earlier by Shelby County mayor A C Wharton as an administrative assistant, had been secretly taped for more than a year and had already been caught taking bribes from Willis. But Willis did not pay any bribes to Ford and testified that he didn’t even know Ford had been bribed when he went to his office that day.

To each question, Willis made up an answer. E-Cycle, he suggested, was a shell company for a get-rich-quick stock scheme. McNeil and his partner Joe Carson “hated each other,” and McNeil might be trying to sabotage the deal. McNeil grew up on the rough side of Chicago and might have been a drug dealer as a kid.

Ford wasn’t satisfied. The FBI has a lot of shell companies too, he countered.

“Let me ask you,” he said to Willis. “You ain’t workin’ for none of them motherfuckers?”

Ford whispered that he had a gun and said he would use it. Willis, as he had done several times before, broke into nervous laughter.

“He said he would shoot me dead and go tell my wife that I ran off with another woman,” he testified.

Ford was on the right trail but was missing enough pieces that Willis was able to talk his way out of the jam. The truth was worse than Ford suspected. McNeil was an FBI agent and instructor in undercover operations.

“The feds ain’t cut no deal with you?” Ford asked Willis, who had worked in his campaign in 2002.

In fact, that is exactly what they had done. Willis nervously shifted the recorder around in his pockets, sending static through the audiotape played for the jury.

As Willis was leaving, Ford threatened him again, telling him that if he was working for the FBI, “you gonna die right now.” He touched Willis on his shirt — Willis described it as a pat down — to see if he was wired, and Willis lifted up his shirt. As Willis walked down the stairs, Ford said, “It will not ever come back what you and I said.”

Little did he know that Willis would make it all come back. For the next three months, he never met with Ford again without an FBI agent in the room.

“We almost shut down the operation because of the threat,” Jackson testified.

Since he began cooperating with the government in 2003, Willis has been paid approximately $215,000. But on that day in February 2005 in Ford’s office, Willis was worth every dollar the government paid him.

Categories
News The Fly-By

Best in Gun Show?

The Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence grades each state on its laws protecting families from gun crime. The grade represents an average of marks in seven categories, and in 2005, the Volunteer State received a D+ in the Brady group’s assessment.

After student Cho Sueng-Hui went on a shooting rampage at Virginia Tech University last week, many news reports mentioned Virginia’s lax enforcement of its gun laws. The state’s background check failed to turn up Cho’s history of mental illness, and his name was never sent to federal or state databases that listed him as a prohibited buyer.

According to Brady standards, Tennessee has acceptable laws in place to prevent minors from buying or possessing guns, but it goes downhill from there. Tennessee has no child access prevention laws, no safety-lock laws, and no private-gun-sale background checks.

Aside from laws designed to keep guns away from kids, Tennessee has few legal obstacles for adult would-be gun owners. No license is required to purchase a handgun, police are not permitted to maintain gun sale records, firearms can be purchased at gun shows without a background check, and no waiting period exists for firearm purchases anywhere. There are no limitations on assault weapons or the number of handguns that can be purchased at a given time.

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Letters To The Editor Opinion

Letters to the Editor

CREDIT: Tonya Smith, WMC-TV Marketing Dept.

Taking Back Our Neighborhoods

Thank you for the coverage of Action News 5’s “Taking Back Our Neighborhoods” initiative (Fly on the Wall, April 19th issue). This is an effort to broadcast strategies that help reduce crime in the neighborhoods of Memphis and the Mid-South. We’re also telling stories generated by our viewers, including the report about the tent at Preston and Waldorf where 50 burglaries took place in a one-mile radius in the 30 days before our televised report on April 4th.

Action News 5’s top brass meets weekly with our new general manager Lee Meredith to talk about solution-oriented crime-fighting stories. I personally research and report the stories you see each Wednesday night on the 10 o’clock broadcast. My colleagues report other “Taking Back Our Neighborhoods” stories as we learn of them throughout the week. In addition, we presented the first of our quarterly “Taking Back Our Neighborhoods” town-hall meetings on April 10th at Rhodes College.

I am also sending a new photo taken last week. I appreciate the circa-1991 photograph you ran in the Flyer, but as you’ll note, I have made it to the barber’s chair since that snapshot. Joe Birch, WMC Channel 5

Memphis

MLGW

We also had a post-dated bill from MLGW (Letters, April 12th issue). We manage a few rental properties in Midtown. Our monthly MLGW water bill is usually less than $120. Last fall, we received a water bill from MLGW for $1,300! We pay our bills every month on time, so how could this have happened? MLGW said they did not bill us enough for the water our tenants used in the past, so here is a new bill, and if we didn’t pay, they would cut off MLGW services to our tenants. MLGW representatives said you don’t get to dispute the bill, just pay up!

MLGW is absolutely the worst run company in Memphis. Period.

Terron Perk

Memphis

Gibbons Responds

I was surprised and disappointed at the Flyer‘s editorial (April 12th issue) on the state criminal case against Dale Mardis for the killing of Mickey Wright. The editorial was filled with false assumptions and misinformation.

We based our decision on 1) the evidence available to us and 2) state law. Based on the evidence and state law, we could not ethically proceed with a trial for first-degree murder because we could not prove Mardis’ act was premeditated. Had we gone to trial, we would have sought conviction for second-degree murder, which was in fact the disposition of the case. Simply put, the case was resolved in accordance with the proof and the applicable law. In return for Mardis’ guilty plea, we avoided any appeals and the possibility at trial of a verdict for a lesser offense such as voluntary manslaughter or even acquittal.

The editorial states that Mardis was a known racist. Key witnesses in the case would have been Mardis’ African-American business partners. The editorial states that Mardis made explicit threats against Wright. There is no clear indication of that. The editorial assumes a certain sequence of events after Wright was killed. There is no evidence to support this assumption. The editorial states that “unquestionably” the prosecution knew “all the unsavory details” regarding the mutilation of Wright’s corpse. This is not correct. We obtained these details in return for Mardis’ guilty plea.

The editorial states that our no-plea-bargaining policy states that we will “never, never ever — so help us, God — entertain a plea bargain in the case of a capital crime.” In fact, the policy states that we will always reduce or dismiss a case covered by the policy when factual and/or ethical circumstances obligate us to do so. That is exactly what occurred in the Mardis case.

The editorial implies that no prior consultation with Wright’s family occurred. That is not correct. The family did not agree with our conclusions as to our obligations. I understand their frustrations. It is frustrating to us as well — admittedly at a different level — when we cannot proceed as we had hoped. We will continue to make our decisions based on the evidence and the law, without regard to whether or not those decisions are popular.

William L. Gibbons

District Attorney General

Editor’s note: See “Victims: Wrights?” for more on this story and a response from Mickey Wright’s family.

Categories
Letter From The Editor Opinion

Letter from the Editor: Permanent Half-Mast

I was traveling last week, and everywhere I went, American flags were flying at half-mast in response to President Bush’s order to lower the flag in honor of the deaths of 32 students at Virginia Tech University.

In the airports, television screens endlessly replayed video footage of the mass murderer’s “explanation” for his senseless rampage. People watched, shook their heads, and went back to their magazines or paperbacks.

President Bush’s order got a somewhat different response from an Army sergeant named Jim Wilt, who is stationed in Afghanistan. “I find it ironic,” Wilt wrote, “that the flags were flown at half-staff for the young men and women who were killed at VT, yet it is never lowered for the death of a U.S. service member.”

He noted that his post in Bagram obeyed the president’s order even though the flag is not lowered for members of his unit who are killed in combat. He reasoned that it was because “it is a daily occurrence these days to see X number of U.S. troops killed in Iraq or Afghanistan scrolling across the ticker at the bottom of the TV screen.”

Which is true. On the day of the VT massacre, the names of six U.S. servicemen killed in Iraq scrolled across our televisions. You know nothing about these men and women, and neither do I. The only thing we do know is that they died in service to the flag that was flying at half-mast for 32 dead students — whose names and photos were published in most newspapers around the country.

I think lowering the flag for the students was the right action for the president to take. But I find it ironic that he can go to a memorial service for fallen students yet not find the time to attend the funeral of a single soldier who has died in the horrific fiasco he and his minions have created in Iraq.

I understand the impracticality of lowering the flag for each of the 3,700 men and women killed in Iraq and Afghanistan. If we did so, it would be permanently at half-mast.

Which, come to think of it, is probably appropriate these days.

Categories
Opinion The Last Word

The Rant

CREDIT: AP Photo | J. Scott Applewhite

Well, I thought I had made it go away. I stopped reading Google news. I almost stopped reading all newspapers. I stopped watching the television broadcast news. I almost stopped listening to other people’s conversations. But then, like a bad sinus infection that never really goes away, it came back. I didn’t mean

for it to happen. I walked into my den Sunday morning and the television was on and it happened to be on one of the political talk shows, and, while I was certain that it would be focusing on the trials and tribulations of Don Imus, it was a show featuring an interview with none other than Vice President Dick Cheney. It was totally surreal. And it was not surreal because he had been on Air Force One burning a lot of fuel a few days before to go to some kind of weird fund-raiser to make his case for MORE WAR, MORE WAR, MORE WAR. It was surreal because a bird slammed into the plane’s engine while it was landing in Chicago, which can make said engine catch on fire. Anyone else might have been hurt. But not the Dick! The man can have a heart attack once a year and still be fine, albeit with no heart. Well, now, I take that back. He did stop on the way back to Washington with his daughter Liz to shop for one of his granddaughters and, in the process, took time out to let someone take photographs of the spree. I can’t fathom, however, why he was purchasing, according to the Associated Press, a “doll with a Western cowboy hat and get-up.” Now, that is sweet. His plane’s engine gets smacked by a bird (poor bird), he gives a mean speech about the Democrats (who aren’t much better than he is these days), and he still has time to buy one of his granddaughters a cowboy doll. May I remind you that this is the vice president of the United States, the country in which most of you live and whose government rules control much of your life? The only country in the world where someone from Europe is a desirable tourist but someone from one foot south of the Texas border is an “alien.” But now back to cowboy dolls for little girls. Does this seem odd to anyone else? Is Cheney’s nose so far up the ass of someone we all know and not love that he must shove upon his innocent granddaughter a doll in the psychological likeness of “brang ‘im to me did ur aliiiiiive” George Bush? Or maybe it was supposed to represent a border-patrol cowboy trying to save us from them terrible aliens! Or a contract worker hired by a company that Cheney owns! Maybe it was a cowboy doll that keeps people from shooting each other and it was just a damn bit too little too late! At any rate, seeing him on the television show was startling in a way, because normally he stays hunkered down in the basement trying to dodge all of the terrorist rockets that are flying our (or his, I should say) way through the sky every waking moment of the day. And he actually said that he had not spoken to his boyfriend Scooter since Scooter got popped for outing the CIA agent and was sentenced to prison. May I remind you that Scooter was the chief of staff for the vice president of the United States and that, yes, his name is Scooter? Maybe he was buying that cowboy doll for Scooter to ease his guilt and so Scooter could have a little companion while in lockup. A little cowboy to keep him company in his time of trouble. Better than being married to the white-collar man with the most cigarettes, I guess. But can you imagine being in prison and having someone shout your name and it is Scooter? Scooter the Pooter! Make me another shooter! How sad. How sad for us all. But at least the Dick bought the cowboy doll and had it photographed. Ow! (I just slapped my own forehead.) Now I know why he bought the little girl a cowboy doll. It wasn’t for THAT granddaughter!

Categories
Editorial Opinion

A Marshall Plan

Though Memphians at large have not yet had an opportunity to peruse the contents of the so-called Marshall Report commissioned by City Council chairman Tom Marshall and other city-government officials at the onset of the still-raging MLGW scandal, the chairman promises that its details will shortly be posted on the council’s Web site for all to see.

Meanwhile, Marshall took advantage of a speaking opportunity downtown at a Rotary Club meeting on Tuesday to offer not only a sneak preview of that report (one bottom line: utility president Joseph Lee should be ousted for specific transgressions) but a prospectus for revising the way city government is organized. As Marshall made clear on Tuesday, city government is badly in need of some restructuring.

“I believe that morality is standing very low,” Marshall said, by way of assessing the moment. He cited some of the issues: incidences of corruption that have resulted, he says, in “ongoing investigation” by various organs of law enforcement; confusion as to the roles that various officials should be playing; a vague sense of ethical obligations in city government; and a need for redistributing authority.

“We have no authority for policing ourselves,” Marshall said, reminding his audience of a recent vote to suspend or expel two council members after their indictment on corruption charges. That effort was thwarted when the two council members themselves were allowed to vote on the issue — a glaring impropriety for which no legal prohibition seemed to exist.

What is needed, in any case, is an “authority beyond ourselves,” an ethics review board, to be composed of retired judges or some other such impeccable and disinterested group of arbiters.

There needs to be a new “master plan,” the chairman said, to oversee zoning issues. Marshall recalled that after the Gray’s Creek plan for suburban expansion in the greater Cordova area was adopted in the mid-’90s, it was promptly overruled in four consecutive majority votes in cases before the council. A reconstructed master plan should require a two-thirds majority to revise or rescind such a covenant, Marshall said.

Another need was for a redefinition of lines of authority. These, the chairman concluded, were embarrassingly vague as spelled out in the current charter. Marshall noted that when members of the new city Charter Commission asked for guidance in the matter, “we couldn’t even tell them what the current charter said.”

Another recommended change involved altering the “strong mayor” formula that now governs important city issues. In particular, Marshall reminded his listeners of contractual problems both with MLGW and with the “garage-gate” aspect of FedExForum’s construction. Marshall’s proposed remedy? Reassigning all contractual authority from the mayor’s office, where it currently resides, to the City Council.

These are not necessarily the only changes that should be considered by the currently sitting Charter Commission, but they belong on that body’s agenda as matters to be considered. Chairman Marshall is to be commended for having thought through some of these problems in so specific a manner.

Categories
Politics Politics Feature

McCain Redux

The man who electrified much of the nation early in 2000 while running for president made Memphis the stage on Monday for what was billed as the unveiling of his economic program as part of a second campaign for the presidency.

Speaking at the University of Memphis Holiday Inn before an overflow audience of Economics Club members and other spectators, Arizona senator John McCain espoused traditionally conservative fiscal views and promised, if elected, not “to waste money” or “to let the government get in the way of making an honest dollar.”

McCain’s laissez-faire approach to economics also included pledges to restrict government entitlements, to revamp an “unsustainable” Social Security system, to reform the nation’s tax structure, and to oppose protectionist measures, advocating job-retraining programs for laid-off workers in obsolescent industries.

All in all, it was a relatively restrained performance that earned respectful attention and applause from an audience that included FedEx founder (and McCain supporter) Fred Smith, who introduced the candidate, former Texas senator Phil Gramm, and current 9th District congressman Steve Cohen.

McCain still gives off flashes of the candid, irreverent self that, early in the presidential campaign season of 2000, captivated voters across the political spectrum. In a media session with reporters following his ballroom speech, the senator made a point of being courtly, shaking hands with as many of the media attendees as possible.

Asked about his relatively dismal fund-raising so far (he is in third place in Republican ranks, behind both Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney and former New York mayor Rudy Giuliani), the senator said flatly, “Because I didn’t do a better job.” Asked why that was, McCain answered, “Because I’m not competent enough, I guess.”

It was hard to tell whether he was being tongue-in-cheek or merely stating a hard, if unpleasant, fact. He followed that up with the bland-sounding assurance that things were “moving forward” and that he was “very happy with where our campaign is today.”

Under the circumstances, it was impossible not to recall a prediction made at Rhodes College two weeks ago by veteran Democratic pol James Carville, who included among a series of predictions for the campaign year his guess that McCain’s presidential candidacy would be over with by the time of the Iowa caucuses in early 2008.

“He looks tired,” Carville had said. “He’s trying to be an establishment guy but can’t play the role. He hasn’t raised any money, and the Republicans don’t care for him.”

If “tired” was arguably too strong a word to describe McCain during his Memphis appearance, then certainly he appeared relatively unanimated. Perhaps that was due merely to the subject matter he had resolved to focus on (they don’t call economics “the dry science” for nothing). And his Economics Club address had after all been closer to a lecture appearance than a campaign rally.

But there was some ghost of the past that was playing in Monday’s scenario, as well. There was just the slightest shadow there of presidential candidate Bob Dole, circa 1996. Eight years earlier, Dole had run as the straight-talking alternative to his party’s status quo, and he won the Iowa caucuses over the favored Republican candidate, then vice president George Herbert Walker Bush.

A week later, though, Dole’s momentum had been stopped in New Hampshire by a concentrated slash-and-burn attack from Bush that caused Dole to lament that his adversary was “lying about my record.” Bush won big there and went on to gain the Republican nomination and the presidency.

Dole did not resurface as a presidential candidate until eight years later, when he’d made himself a loyal soldier of the Bush administration and, after getting the nomination, ran unsuccessfully as the GOP establishment candidate against the incumbent president, Democrat Bill Clinton.

With the exception that McCain has so far been running behind in his nomination race and that (consistent with Carville’s judgment) he seems still not to have gained much traction with his party’s establishment, McCain’s rerun, eight years after his first presidential try, has an uncanny resemblance to Dole’s experience.

In 2000, the reform-minded McCain, who won New Hampshire in a breeze, seemed almost to rise above issues of party and ideology. He was badly trashed by a disinformation campaign in South Carolina, however, and never quite regained his footing against George W. Bush, son of the former president, who, like his father, went on to win both the GOP nomination and the presidency.

McCain’s response over the next eight years was the same as Dole’s had been — to hunker down and prove himself loyal to the man who had beat him. In McCain’s case, that has included becoming the staunchest defender of the Iraq war at a time when national sentiment has clearly been running against it.

Though he was careful not to minimize the precarious and dangerous state of things in Iraq at the moment, the senator expressed both continued commitment to the military effort there and guarded optimism about the current “surge” effort.

It is too early to pronounce judgment on McCain’s chances in 2008, but the reminders of Dole’s experience are certainly there — even in the slightly cramped posture of the Arizona senator, the heroic survivor of long imprisonment and torture in North Vietnam.

Like Dole, wounded badly during World War Two and partly crippled as a result, McCain wears his heroic personal history — and his pain — in his very being. It remains to be seen how close the parallels to Dole’s political fate will be.

• Meeting in caucus last Thursday, the Democratic members of the Shelby County legislative delegation selected the three Democrats who will serve on the county Election Commission: They are (in order of votes received): Shep Wilbun, holder of several previous public offices; Myra Stiles, a longtime former commissioner; and O.C. Pleasant, holdover from the current commission and another longtime member.

Pleasant, who served as Election Commission chairman for many years, was tied with another aspirant, Joe Young, before Democratic Senate leader Jim Kyle broke the tie in the incumbent commissioner’s favor. The three commissioners-to-be were selected from among an original field of 15 applicants, who were narrowed down to five finalists the week before last. The two Republican commissioners, Nancy Hines and Rich Holden, are returning.

• Circuit Court judge D’Army Bailey is one of three jurists nominated by the state Judicial Selection Commission as prospective members to fill a vacancy in the Tennessee Supreme Court left by the retirement of Justice Adolfo Birch. The other nominees are Judges William Koch of Nashville and Creed McGinley of Savannah.

Governor Phil Bredesen had rejected the first group of candidates sent him by the commission last year as well as a second list that included a holdover from the first group. The state Supreme Court would eventually sustain Bredesen’s insistence on seeing a new list with all new names, and the current list is the result.

Bredesen has promised to name off the candidates from the list, and Bailey’s chances are rated as being good, based on the fact that he, like Birch, is an African American, and some believe the seat should be reserved for a black jurist.

• Another Memphis-based judge to receive a signal distinction of late is U.S. district judge Bernice Donald, who was recently named secretary-elect of the American Bar Association. Donald will be the first African American to become an officer of the A.B.A. if her nomination is approved, as expected, at the organization’s August convention in San Francisco.

Categories
Opinion

Analyzing the Ford Trial

The government “can’t just go trolling for public officials, can they?”

The answer is “absolutely not.” FBI agent Brian Burns said that from the witness stand in John Ford’s trial in response to a question from defense attorney Michael Scholl, just like he said it from the witness stand in Roscoe Dixon’s trial last year in response to a question from assistant U.S. attorney Tim Discenza.

So when the FBI and federal prosecutors set up Operation Tennessee Waltz to root out “systemic corruption” in state government in 2003, they did not target John Ford. And when Captain Quint and Matt Hooper and Chief Brody set out in that fishing boat and started chumming the waters in Jaws, they were not looking for a big shark.

Seven days into the Ford trial, the case for entrapment is as murky as the case for bribery is clear. Jurors have seen and heard tapes of 10 payoffs to Ford, totaling $55,000, in 2004 and 2005. Each one is made in the context of conversations about Ford helping undercover FBI agents posing as business executives get special legislation for E-Cycle Management. Undercover agent L.C. McNeil counts out stacks of $100 bills and passes them across a desk to Ford, who often puts them in his pocket without bothering with an envelope. Some of the videos are shot from multiple angles and are as clear and carefully analyzed as NFL football replays, with McNeil, à la Boomer Esiason, circling the money with a red marker on his computer screen.

“I can walk into a room and get more done than 10 motherfuckers,” Ford says on one tape in a typical example of the former senator’s bravado and ratiocination. Obscenity may be edited out of family newspapers but not federal trials.

The prosecution’s biggest problem is probably also Ford’s best hope: showing that it caught Ford without setting him up. In the current news climate, with the Justice Department and U.S. attorney general Alberto Gonzales under fire for the firing of eight federal prosecutors, possibly for political reasons, establishing that Tennessee Waltz was nonpartisan is especially important.

Here’s an overview of the trial as of Tuesday, April 17th:

Who’s on the stand? Undercover FBI agent L.C. McNeil (not his real name) has been on the stand for most of four days. He was Ford’s running buddy in 2004-2005 and taped hundreds of hours of conversations. He is the government’s key witness because he actually made the payoffs to John Ford in a way that, in hindsight, seems like a dead giveaway to an undercover sting.

“I don’t target anyone,” McNeil said in response to a question from Discenza. “My focus is to go out and conduct a fair and balanced investigation.”

In two days of cross-examination, Scholl has done everything but shout “liar liar pants on fire” in numerous efforts to get McNeil to depict acting as lying.

Who is L.C. McNeil? The short answer is undercover specialist who looks like he could kick anyone in the courtroom’s ass. The long answer is more complicated. In real life, he is 39 years old, African-American, 6’1″, 220 pounds, a former Los Angeles policeman, a graduate of Oral Roberts with a theology degree, and a former full-time minister who was still ministering last year. For some reason, the government got McNeil to divulge most of that information in the Dixon trial but only gave the Ford jury an abbreviated resume and let Scholl flesh out the details.

In his fake identity, McNeil was the single father of a son in Chicago, a music producer and investor in lucrative stock offerings, and a world traveler. On the tapes, he and Ford are partying, talking about women in language that would get a budding Don Imus in trouble, and going to sports events. But McNeil is not nearly as foul-mouthed as Ford. He calls Ford “cat” and “doctor” and almost always ends his phone conversations with “Peace.”

Does he ever slip up? It’s hard to say, but there seems to have been a close call or two. McNeil always refers to his fellow undercover FBI agent Joe Carroll (alias Joe Carson) as simply “Joe.” Inevitably, Ford says something like “who?” And McNeil says, “My partner.” But he never uses his full name, which is perhaps too easy to confuse with his real name. And his fake career in music and movies, by coincidence or design, put him in Los Angeles and New York at the same time that one of Ford’s daughters was trying to break into the business there. He even says he will contact her, but apparently he never did. Nor did Ford check him out, which might have blown the cover.

Was John Ford targeted? At some point, he obviously was, but when and how are key issues in the trial. The FBI and prosecutors had to comply with guidelines for undercover operations and get approvals from higher-ups in Washington. Given the notoriety and history of the Ford family, it seems likely that Gonzales or his predecessor were in the loop, but that has not come out in court.

The jury must decide whether Ford was “predicated” or predisposed to take a bribe or entrapped by overzealous FBI agents. That’s the reason why so much has been made of an April 2004 dinner at Morton’s Steak House in Nashville when Ford and McNeil met for the first time. Kathryn Bowers, who definitely was an early Tennessee Waltz target, arranged the dinner and E-Cycle paid for it.

“I got a brother on City Council and another brother on County Commission and I control the votes in both places,” Ford says. But he was not an eager player. In his cross-examination of McNeil, Scholl played a tape on which Ford said he was too busy to help.

“It takes five months of my time, and I just don’t have time to do it,” he says.

The next day, McNeil and Tim Willis, his undercover informant, visit Ford at his Nashville office in the legislative plaza. Ford wants to talk more about the music business, but McNeil wants to talk about E-Cycle.

“Do you think we’re in good position to do some things?” he asks.

Three months later, Ford travels to Miami to meet Willis and McNeil, supposedly for a black film festival. He gets a tour of E-Cycle’s yacht and an earful of Willis blabbing interminably on his cell phone at lunch one day. Scholl’s tapes, in contrast to the government’s tapes, present Ford as quiet and mainly interested in the music business and women.

The man who came to dinner: The government wants to start the Ford story at the dinner at Morton’s. Ford came to the dinner, apparently without a personal invitation. Other legislators did not. Bowers, like Ford, is a black Democrat from Memphis. The road through Bowers and Dixon, another early target, would logically lead to Ford.

Ford’s self-assessment as political godfather was not shared by everyone. In tapes played at Dixon’s trial, Dixon says to E-Cycle executives that “we’re all leaders in the Senate.” And Bowers says, “The Senate didn’t have no leaders.” Also, Barry Myers, a Dixon understudy who testified against him at trial, says on tape that the powerful Sidney Chism-Willie Herenton Democrats “don’t give a fuck” about the Fords.

What are the risks of the entrapment defense? It’s a chess game, and prosecutors can counter with evidence such as the Rolex watch gift from developer Rusty Hyneman to Ford to bolster their predication argument. It is still early in the trial, and Discenza likely has more witnesses and more evidence that he might not have been able to put before the jury without the entrapment defense. There has already been testimony that Ford was involved in three previous FBI investigations.

Could the bribes be construed as legitimate? The intent is as clear as the video quality. McNeil always brings the conversation around to E-Cycle legislation so there is little, if any, chance of the payment being depicted as a legitimate consulting fee. Ford, of course, drives home the nature of the payments by playing the part of the dutiful legislator in the early tapes and, in the later tapes, threatening anyone who rats him out.

So, it’s a slam-dunk case? Never. That’s for the jury to decide.

Where’s Tim Willis? In the wings. The government will have to put him on the stand to talk about the witness-intimidation charge against Ford. He will take his standard beating from the defense (this will be the third trial in which he has testified) and will be questioned sharply about his moviemaking, which could suggest that he saw the whole thing as a sort of “Tim’s Excellent Adventure” project to advance his career.

Deleted scenes: Like the dozen or so reporters in the courtroom each day, the defense and prosecution are each trying to create a storyline for an audience by selectively choosing quotations, characters, and incidents. Scholl has effectively changed the plotline for now, but his points are sometimes hard to decipher. Discenza works faster and always has his witnesses repeat what he considers to be key statements.

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News The Fly-By

Mission: Physician

A visit to a coastal village on the Eastern Cape of South Africa sounds like a pleasant vacation. A team of Memphis health-care professionals, however, worked harder than ever on a recent trip to Dutywa, a village in the region on the verge of becoming a city.

Local New Direction Christian Church pastor Stacy Spencer and church member Charlsetta Gipson organized the trip to bring medical services to residents of Dutywa and the surrounding area, which lacks medical infrastructure.

Spencer and Gipson recruited family-care physician Twyla Twillie, dentist Steve Ballard, sickle-cell specialist Patricia Graves, and obstetrician Lanetta Anderson-Brooks, along with about 10 registered nurses. The group spent three days last month serving roughly 300 patients a day.

“It was an interesting community to spend time with,” says Anderson-Brooks. “They don’t have any doctors that practice in the community, so the primary goals of this mission are, long-term, to open a clinic, and short-term, to introduce the concept to the community and see how well it would be received.”

The group chose Dutywa because of the village’s importance as a regional education center. “Kids within a 100-mile radius will get their education there,” Anderson-Brooks explains. “Most of the kids are living away from their parents in hostels.”

Dutwya struggles with growing pains. “It’s becoming a city, but there’s no infrastructure,” Anderson-Brooks says. “People have cell phones but no running water. People are suffering from basic health needs that can make or break a community, such as poor nutrition and bad water.”

The group made advance accommodations to ensure access to medicine and basic equipment. “We had a scout team go out six months prior to the trip, and they determined the needs. They knew I would be doing pap smears, so they had a bed that could accommodate a pelvic examination and a light,” says Anderson-Brooks.

While the Memphis group made referrals and hoped to positively impact Dutywa’s public health in the short-term, they realize that one mission is only a beginning.

“One of the biggest barriers to making a long-term change is understanding the cultural differences and then starting to work within those confines,” says Anderson-Brooks. “We have plans for 30-day, 90-day, and then a one-year follow-up. We want to set a new standard in the community.”