Source:
Times-PicayuneRemarks cast doubt on him, defense says
Saturday, June 20, 2009
By Bruce Alpert
Washington bureau
ALEXANDRIA, VA. -- ... Agents had also swooped in on Jefferson's homes in New Orleans and Washington, D.C., revealing a probe that would eventually produce a 16-count public corruption indictment against the nine-term congressman.
"Wouldn't you get, um, affected?" Tony LeDimh, an executive from Siemens, asked Jackson on Aug. 4, 2005.
"Uh, no," Jackson said. "And what do you mean, am I affected?"
He goes on to tell LeDimh, whose company at one time had a contract to manufacture some iGate telecommunications equipment, that he is "cooperating" with the investigation and expresses no concern he could be implicated ...
Read more:
http://www.nola.com/news/?/base/news-2/1245476161241890.xml&coll=1
JUNE 16, 2009
Jefferson Day One: Hiding $90,000 From the Help
... Trout calmly explained that the $90,000 stashed in the freezer, while perhaps odd, was actually a sign of Jefferson’s innocence. He acknowledged that Jefferson had taken the money from Mody. But Trout argued that the bribe had been Mody’s idea to begin with, and that she and the FBI grew determined to trap Jefferson.
The FBI “wrote the script,” Trout said. “They directed the action. And she came to love the starring role they had assigned her.”
But Jefferson in fact never wanted to bribe the vice president, Trout argued. Trout said he had agreed to the plan in order to placate Mody, who had tried to sell him on the idea over the course of a wine-filled dinner. Jefferson took the briefcase, but had no plan to actually hand it off. Trout pointed out that Jefferson visited the vice president’s home in Maryland on the same weekend he received the money and yet he delivered nothing but a letter.
Jefferson hid the money away in his Washington home, Trout said, because he was getting ready to leave town during Congress’ August recess. He didn’t want his housekeeper to stumble over it ...
http://legaltimes.typepad.com/blt/2009/06/jefferson-day-one-hiding-90000-from-the-help-.htmlWitness: US Rep's bribes hidden as consulting fees
By MATTHEW BARAKAT
... Jackson pleaded guilty in 2006 to paying more than $400,000 in bribes to Jefferson and was sentenced to more than seven years in prison. He stands to receive a reduction in his sentence in exchange for his testimony against Jefferson.
Testifying in a green prison jumpsuit, Jackson told jurors that his relationship with Jefferson began legitimately. Jackson felt he needed some public officials on his side as he sought Army contracts for a technology he invented that purported to move data over copper transmission lines at speeds that rival more advanced fiber optic lines ...
Indeed, Jackson testified that Jefferson set up a meeting with Army officials attended by two other members of Congress, in which the Army agreed to test Jackson's technology with an eye toward purchasing it.
After that meeting, though, Jefferson told Jackson that he could not continue to devote as much time to iGate unless Jackson agreed to hire a business consultant. And Jefferson had a specific consultant in mind: his wife Andrea ...
http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5gAhJ_ijKsVNeqkiH39KhnCUNj-fQD98SMS280JUNE 17, 2009
Jefferson Day Two: The Price of Doing Business
... Prosecutors spent all their time Wednesday questioning Vernon Jackson, the iGate chief executive who pleaded guilty to bribing Jefferson in return for help arranging business deals in West Africa. It was Jackson’s second day on the stand, where he recounted the details of his relationship with Jefferson between 2000 and 2005.
In his testimony on Tuesday, Jackson — a bald, heavyset man with a soft voice and graying goatee — had said that he had hired a consulting firm owned by Jefferson’s wife to promote his fledgling company, knowing full well that he was actually paying for Jefferson’s services as a congressman. Today, prosecutors painstakingly walked through each of the deals Jefferson tried to set up for iGate, which sold hardware to speed Internet access across copper phone lines.
There was the meeting with the Army Corps of Engineers. There was the $44 million deal Jefferson teed up with Nigeria’s NDTV. When that agreement went sour, Jefferson found a new investor, Virginia businesswoman Lori Mody. There were talks about selling the technology to Cameroon.
As the testimony unfolded, Assistant U.S. Attorney Rebeca Bellows presented invoice after invoice, signed by Andrea Jefferson, requesting payment for her consulting firm, ANJ. Each time, Bellows asked whether Mrs. Jefferson or ANJ had performed services that would entitle them to the money. No, said Jackson, they had not ...
http://legaltimes.typepad.com/blt/2009/06/jefferson-day-two-the-price-of-doing-business-.htmlJUNE 18, 2009
Jefferson Day 3: Cross-Examination Begins
... defense attorney Robert Trout .. set out to quiz Vernon Jackson, the Louisville entrepreneur who pleaded guilty in 2006 to bribing Jefferson. Jackson had been on the stand Tuesday describing precisely how his company, iGate, used fake consulting agreements as cover for payments to the congressman’s family.
But during Trout’s questioning, which spanned events reaching back a decade, Jackson’s memory suddenly seemed to become a bit clouded.
In one of his opening questions, Trout asked Jackson how many times he had been interviewed by the FBI. Jackson couldn’t remember. Had it been more than seven times, Trout asked? “I don’t recall,” Jackson said.
Those words quickly became a refrain. Jackson didn’t recall whether he first met Jefferson at a Chicago trade show in 2000. He couldn’t remember what he had discussed at a dinner with Jefferson and his wife, Andrea Jefferson, whose company, A Group, he hired to promote iGate. He did recall dining with the couple on a gambling boat, however ...
http://legaltimes.typepad.com/blt/2009/06/jefferson-day-3-crossexamination-begins.htmlJurors hear tapes in Jefferson trial
By GERARD SHIELDS
Advocate Washington bureau
Published: Jun 19, 2009 - Page: 13A
... Attorneys for Jefferson say he acted as a private businessman in the arrangements and committed no “official acts” for the companies such as appropriating government money, voting or introducing legislation that could aid them.
Mody eventually approached the FBI after saying that she lost the $3.5 million in the deal. She became a cooperating witness and was the one who gave Jefferson $100,000 of marked FBI bills in a briefcase. Agents found $90,000 in his Washington home freezer during a raid in August 2005.
Jackson’s company developed a product that could transmit voice, data and video over copper telephone wire. Jackson said Thursday that a Nigerian business owner who was to partner with Mody alerted him that officials in the country were considering using a similar product from China.
In a taped call, Suleiman Yahyah of Rosecom calls Jackson in a panic telling him that Jefferson has to reach out to the then vice president of Nigeria, Atiku Abubakar. Abubakar governed communication issues in the country, including holding the final word over which projects moved forward, according to Jackson ...
http://www.2theadvocate.com/news/48572452.htmlJUNE 18, 2009, 2:33 PM ET
How Do You Explain $90,000 Stuffed in a Freezer? Here’s How
... Prosecutors claim that Jefferson intended to pay the vice president of Nigeria a $100,000 cash bribe in order to smooth the road for a telecommunications deal involving Louisville-based iGate. After discussing the plan with iGate investor Lori Mody, who at the time was secretly cooperating with the FBI, Jefferson retrieved a briefcase with the money from a Virginia parking lot. The money later ended up in Jefferson’s freezer.
But in the new filing, Jefferson’s legal team argues that the congressman was only placating Mody, fearing that she might otherwise suffer an emotional collapse and jeopardize the otherwise legitimate business deal. Jefferson, they said, had no plans to actually follow through with the bribe ...
http://blogs.wsj.com/law/2009/06/18/how-do-you-explain-90000-stuffed-in-a-freezer-heres-how/
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