Freeze your bribes
Former US congressman Jefferson, famously caught with $90,000 in cash in his freezer, has been sentenced to 13 years for bribery and money laundering. The money, wrapped in foil and hidden in boxes of pie crust, were in fact bribes stored for a later moment. The fridge and freezer rank high in the list of obvious places to hide your dirty money… Really; think of something better. Don’t use the cereal box as well; think of something new.
Prosecutors, who presented more than 40 witnesses at the seven-week trial, told jurors the money in his freezer was meant to bribe the then-vice president of Nigeria to secure his help with a telecommunications venture. They said it was part of a pattern of illicit acts in which Jefferson used his position to direct about $400,000 in bribes, relating to business ventures he helped arrange in Africa, to companies he set up in family members’ names.
Prosecutors played videotapes showing Jefferson meeting with a business associate-turned-FBI informant, who gave him the money in marked bills. It was never delivered to Nigeria, prosecutors said, only because Jefferson couldn’t do so before the FBI found it. Defense attorneys said that Jefferson had been “stupid” and shown “awful judgment” in agreeing to make the payoff to the Nigerian official but that he had not committed a crime.
We have heard that one before after apprehending a suspect in the act: “It was a mistake; it was the first time and you showed me a lesson. Thank you. Can I go now?”. Guess not.
The congresman was re-elected in 2006, even after the corruption scandal had been all over the news. The case was also unique because it was the first in which the FBI raided a congressional office.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/8360059.stm
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/08/05/AR2009080503195_2.html
