William Jennings "Bill" Jefferson (born March 14, 1947) is a former American politician, a convicted felon, and a published author[1] from the U.S. state of Louisiana. He served as a member of the U.S. House of Representatives for nine terms from 1991 to 2009 as a member of the Democratic Party. He represented Louisiana's 2nd congressional district, which includes much of the greater New Orleans area. He was Louisiana's first black congressman since the end of Reconstruction.
Suspecting him of bribery, the FBI raided his Congressional offices in May 2006, but he was re-elected later that year. On June 4, 2007, a federal grand jury indicted Jefferson on sixteen charges related to corruption. Jefferson was defeated by Republican Joseph Cao on December 6, 2008, being the most senior Democrat to lose re-election that year. In 2009 he was tried in Virginia on corruption charges. On August 5, 2009, he was found guilty of 11 of the 16 corruption counts. Jefferson's lawyers have promised to appeal, a gesture which New Orleans former U.S. attorney Harry Rosenberg told the Times-Picayune may work in Jefferson's favor because the jury failed to convict him on all 16 of the indictment counts. Jefferson was sentenced to 13 years on November 13th, 2009, the longest sentence ever handed down to a congressman for bribery.
Early life and family
Jefferson was born in Lake Providence, a small village in East Carroll Parish in far northeastern Louisiana, where he and his eight brothers and sisters worked alongside their father – a farmer and a heavy-equipment operator for the Army Corps of Engineers. The Jeffersons were among the few African-American families in the area who actually owned their land (as opposed to sharecropping), which gave them a certain degree of respectability in the community. Nonetheless, he grew up in an environment of strong poverty.
Although neither of his parents had graduated from high school, Jefferson graduated from G. W. Griffin High School in Lake Providence, Louisiana, in 1965. In 1969 he received a bachelor's degree from Southern University, where he had participated in Army ROTC; in 1969 he led a protest against substandard campus facilities and negotiated a resolution of the complaint with then-Governor John McKeithen. On graduation from Southern University he was commissioned a second lieutenant in the United States Army and served in a reserve capacity until 1975. He earned a J.D. from Harvard Law School in 1972 and a LLM in Taxation from Georgetown University Law Center in 1996. In 1972 and 1973 Jefferson began the practice of law while initially serving as a clerk for Judge Alvin B. Rubin of the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Louisiana. From 1973 to 1975, he was a legislative assistant to U.S. Senator J. Bennett Johnston, Jr., of Louisiana.
Jefferson is married to Andrea Jefferson. Together they have five daughters: Jamila Jefferson-Jones, Jalila Jefferson-Bullock (a former Louisiana State Representative), Jelani Jefferson Exum (a professor of law at the University of Kansas), Nailah Jefferson (a documentary filmmaker), and Akilah Jefferson.
Jamila, Jalila, and Jelani are all graduates of Harvard College and Harvard Law School. Nailah is a graduate of Boston University and Emerson College. Akilah is a graduate of Brown University and now a student at Tulane University School of Medicine.
On June 9, 2009, prosecutors in William Jefferson's corruption trial released a 152-page list of trial exhibits including a list of Jefferson's daughters and the elite colleges they attended, asserting that his daughters and the colleges they attended were the beneficiaries of bribes paid to ANJ Group in exchange for Jefferson's assistance in securing contracts for American companies in western Africa.
Jefferson is the brother of New Orleans assessor Betty Jefferson, a Democratic field operative; convicted felon Mose Jefferson; and of Archie Jefferson and Brenda Jefferson Foster. He is the uncle of Angela Coleman.
In 2009, Betty, Mose, Angela Coleman, and Mose's longtime compainion, former New Orleans City Councilwoman Renée Gill Pratt, were under indictment for violating the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations (RICO) Act. On June 5, 2009, all the defendants pleaded not guilty. Brenda Jefferson Foster is serving as a witness in the government's case against them. Mose Jefferson is also facing a separate trial for bribing Orleans Parish School Board president Ellenese Brooks-Simms. Archie Jefferson is a convicted felon. On July 28, 2009,United States federal judge Ivan L. R. Lemelle delayed the start of the racketeering trial to January 25, 2010. The bribery trial of Mose Jefferson alone was still set to begin on August 10, 2009.
Political Career in New Orleans
Jefferson moved to New Orleans in 1976 and was elected to the Louisiana Senate in 1979, where he served until 1990. He twice unsuccessfully ran for New Orleans mayor, first challenging Dutch Morial in the election of 1982, and then being defeated by Sidney Barthelemy in the mayoral runoff of 1986. During the 1982 mayoral race, Morial attacked Jefferson by calling him "Dollar Bill" – a nickname which has stuck to this day. Still, Jefferson was considered a rising star in Louisiana politics, with some even suggesting he would be his state's second African-American governor.
In 1990, midway through his third term in the state senate, Jefferson ran in the jungle primary for Louisiana's 2nd congressional district seat after 10-term incumbent Lindy Boggs announced her retirement. He finished first in the seven-candidate field with 24 percent of the vote. In the runoff, he defeated Marc Morial, the son of Dutch Morial, with 52 percent of the vote. He was reelected seven times.
In the House, Jefferson joined the Congressional Black Caucus.
Jefferson ran for governor in the 1999 jungle primary, and was the de facto "official" Democratic candidate. However, he lost badly to incumbent Republican Mike Foster, tallying only 29.5 percent of the vote and carrying only New Orleans (which is coextensive with Orleans Parish).
Local influence
Jefferson and his family controlled one of the most sophisticated and effective get-out-the-vote organizations in South Louisiana – the Progressive Democrats – the foil to which is the Black Organization for Leadership Development (BOLD), founded by Jefferson nemeses Ken Carter and Jim Singleton. In 2002, the Progressive Democrats' support helped elect Jefferson's protégée Renée Gill Pratt as a Councilmember. Jefferson's daughter Jalila was defeated by Rosalind Peychaud in a special election for Gill Pratt's District 91 seat in the Louisiana State House, but subsequently defeated Peychaud in the next regular election. Jefferson's Progressive Democrats organization also contributed to the election of Jefferson's sister Betty, as a municipal assessor, in 1998, 2002 and 2006. New Orleans politics substantially changed after Hurricane Katrina in 2005, with many former voters no longer in the city. Laura Maggi has described Mose Jefferson as "the man responsible for running the Progressive Democrats street operation" in New Orleans.
A few days after Hurricane Katrina hit, Jefferson used a National Guard detachment to recover personal effects and belongings from his home. After the truck in which he and the detachment traveled became stuck, the Guard helicopter aided Jefferson's party while rescue operations where still ongoing.
Corruption investigation
The investigation began in mid-2005, after an investor alleged $400,000 in bribes were paid through a company maintained in the name of Jefferson's spouse and children. The money came from a tech company named iGate, Inc., of Louisville, Kentucky, and in return, it is alleged, Jefferson would help iGate's business. Jefferson was to persuade the U.S. Army to test iGate's broadband two-way technology and other iGate products; use his efforts to influence high-ranking officials in Nigeria, Ghana, and Cameroon; and meet with personnel of the Export-Import Bank of the United States, in order to facilitate potential financing for iGate business deals in those countries.
On 30 July 2005, Jefferson was videotaped by the FBI receiving $100,000 worth of $100 bills in a leather briefcase at the Ritz-Carlton hotel in Arlington, Virginia. Jefferson told an investor, Lori Mody, who was wearing a wire, that he would need to give Nigerian Vice President Atiku Abubakar $500,000 "as a motivating factor" to make sure they obtained contracts for iGate and Mody's company in Nigeria.
A few days later, on 3 August 2005, FBI agents raided Jefferson's home in Northeast Washington and, as noted in an 83-page affidavit filed to support a subsequent raid on his Congressional office, "found $90,000 of the cash in the freezer, in $10,000 increments wrapped in aluminum foil and stuffed inside frozen-food containers." Serial numbers found on the currency in the freezer matched serial numbers of funds given by the FBI to their informant.
Late on the night of May 20, 2006, FBI agents executed a search warrant at Jefferson's office in the Rayburn House Office Building. This is "believed to be the first-ever FBI raid on a Congressional office," raising concerns that it could "set a dangerous precedent that could be used by future administrations to intimidate or harass a supposedly coequal branch of the government." The raid led to an irony that one of Democrat Jefferson's staunchest defenders in the turf battle between between the FBI and Congress became Dennis Hastert, who was Speaker of the House and a Republican.
Suspecting him of bribery, the FBI raided his Congressional offices in May 2006, but he was re-elected later that year. On June 4, 2007, a federal grand jury indicted Jefferson on sixteen charges related to corruption. Jefferson was defeated by Republican Joseph Cao on December 6, 2008, being the most senior Democrat to lose re-election that year. In 2009 he was tried in Virginia on corruption charges. On August 5, 2009, he was found guilty of 11 of the 16 corruption counts. Jefferson's lawyers have promised to appeal, a gesture which New Orleans former U.S. attorney Harry Rosenberg told the Times-Picayune may work in Jefferson's favor because the jury failed to convict him on all 16 of the indictment counts. Jefferson was sentenced to 13 years on November 13th, 2009, the longest sentence ever handed down to a congressman for bribery.
Early life and family
Jefferson was born in Lake Providence, a small village in East Carroll Parish in far northeastern Louisiana, where he and his eight brothers and sisters worked alongside their father – a farmer and a heavy-equipment operator for the Army Corps of Engineers. The Jeffersons were among the few African-American families in the area who actually owned their land (as opposed to sharecropping), which gave them a certain degree of respectability in the community. Nonetheless, he grew up in an environment of strong poverty.
Although neither of his parents had graduated from high school, Jefferson graduated from G. W. Griffin High School in Lake Providence, Louisiana, in 1965. In 1969 he received a bachelor's degree from Southern University, where he had participated in Army ROTC; in 1969 he led a protest against substandard campus facilities and negotiated a resolution of the complaint with then-Governor John McKeithen. On graduation from Southern University he was commissioned a second lieutenant in the United States Army and served in a reserve capacity until 1975. He earned a J.D. from Harvard Law School in 1972 and a LLM in Taxation from Georgetown University Law Center in 1996. In 1972 and 1973 Jefferson began the practice of law while initially serving as a clerk for Judge Alvin B. Rubin of the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Louisiana. From 1973 to 1975, he was a legislative assistant to U.S. Senator J. Bennett Johnston, Jr., of Louisiana.
Jefferson is married to Andrea Jefferson. Together they have five daughters: Jamila Jefferson-Jones, Jalila Jefferson-Bullock (a former Louisiana State Representative), Jelani Jefferson Exum (a professor of law at the University of Kansas), Nailah Jefferson (a documentary filmmaker), and Akilah Jefferson.
Jamila, Jalila, and Jelani are all graduates of Harvard College and Harvard Law School. Nailah is a graduate of Boston University and Emerson College. Akilah is a graduate of Brown University and now a student at Tulane University School of Medicine.
On June 9, 2009, prosecutors in William Jefferson's corruption trial released a 152-page list of trial exhibits including a list of Jefferson's daughters and the elite colleges they attended, asserting that his daughters and the colleges they attended were the beneficiaries of bribes paid to ANJ Group in exchange for Jefferson's assistance in securing contracts for American companies in western Africa.
Jefferson is the brother of New Orleans assessor Betty Jefferson, a Democratic field operative; convicted felon Mose Jefferson; and of Archie Jefferson and Brenda Jefferson Foster. He is the uncle of Angela Coleman.
In 2009, Betty, Mose, Angela Coleman, and Mose's longtime compainion, former New Orleans City Councilwoman Renée Gill Pratt, were under indictment for violating the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations (RICO) Act. On June 5, 2009, all the defendants pleaded not guilty. Brenda Jefferson Foster is serving as a witness in the government's case against them. Mose Jefferson is also facing a separate trial for bribing Orleans Parish School Board president Ellenese Brooks-Simms. Archie Jefferson is a convicted felon. On July 28, 2009,United States federal judge Ivan L. R. Lemelle delayed the start of the racketeering trial to January 25, 2010. The bribery trial of Mose Jefferson alone was still set to begin on August 10, 2009.
Political Career in New Orleans
Jefferson moved to New Orleans in 1976 and was elected to the Louisiana Senate in 1979, where he served until 1990. He twice unsuccessfully ran for New Orleans mayor, first challenging Dutch Morial in the election of 1982, and then being defeated by Sidney Barthelemy in the mayoral runoff of 1986. During the 1982 mayoral race, Morial attacked Jefferson by calling him "Dollar Bill" – a nickname which has stuck to this day. Still, Jefferson was considered a rising star in Louisiana politics, with some even suggesting he would be his state's second African-American governor.
In 1990, midway through his third term in the state senate, Jefferson ran in the jungle primary for Louisiana's 2nd congressional district seat after 10-term incumbent Lindy Boggs announced her retirement. He finished first in the seven-candidate field with 24 percent of the vote. In the runoff, he defeated Marc Morial, the son of Dutch Morial, with 52 percent of the vote. He was reelected seven times.
In the House, Jefferson joined the Congressional Black Caucus.
Jefferson ran for governor in the 1999 jungle primary, and was the de facto "official" Democratic candidate. However, he lost badly to incumbent Republican Mike Foster, tallying only 29.5 percent of the vote and carrying only New Orleans (which is coextensive with Orleans Parish).
Local influence
Jefferson and his family controlled one of the most sophisticated and effective get-out-the-vote organizations in South Louisiana – the Progressive Democrats – the foil to which is the Black Organization for Leadership Development (BOLD), founded by Jefferson nemeses Ken Carter and Jim Singleton. In 2002, the Progressive Democrats' support helped elect Jefferson's protégée Renée Gill Pratt as a Councilmember. Jefferson's daughter Jalila was defeated by Rosalind Peychaud in a special election for Gill Pratt's District 91 seat in the Louisiana State House, but subsequently defeated Peychaud in the next regular election. Jefferson's Progressive Democrats organization also contributed to the election of Jefferson's sister Betty, as a municipal assessor, in 1998, 2002 and 2006. New Orleans politics substantially changed after Hurricane Katrina in 2005, with many former voters no longer in the city. Laura Maggi has described Mose Jefferson as "the man responsible for running the Progressive Democrats street operation" in New Orleans.
A few days after Hurricane Katrina hit, Jefferson used a National Guard detachment to recover personal effects and belongings from his home. After the truck in which he and the detachment traveled became stuck, the Guard helicopter aided Jefferson's party while rescue operations where still ongoing.
Corruption investigation
The investigation began in mid-2005, after an investor alleged $400,000 in bribes were paid through a company maintained in the name of Jefferson's spouse and children. The money came from a tech company named iGate, Inc., of Louisville, Kentucky, and in return, it is alleged, Jefferson would help iGate's business. Jefferson was to persuade the U.S. Army to test iGate's broadband two-way technology and other iGate products; use his efforts to influence high-ranking officials in Nigeria, Ghana, and Cameroon; and meet with personnel of the Export-Import Bank of the United States, in order to facilitate potential financing for iGate business deals in those countries.
On 30 July 2005, Jefferson was videotaped by the FBI receiving $100,000 worth of $100 bills in a leather briefcase at the Ritz-Carlton hotel in Arlington, Virginia. Jefferson told an investor, Lori Mody, who was wearing a wire, that he would need to give Nigerian Vice President Atiku Abubakar $500,000 "as a motivating factor" to make sure they obtained contracts for iGate and Mody's company in Nigeria.
A few days later, on 3 August 2005, FBI agents raided Jefferson's home in Northeast Washington and, as noted in an 83-page affidavit filed to support a subsequent raid on his Congressional office, "found $90,000 of the cash in the freezer, in $10,000 increments wrapped in aluminum foil and stuffed inside frozen-food containers." Serial numbers found on the currency in the freezer matched serial numbers of funds given by the FBI to their informant.
Late on the night of May 20, 2006, FBI agents executed a search warrant at Jefferson's office in the Rayburn House Office Building. This is "believed to be the first-ever FBI raid on a Congressional office," raising concerns that it could "set a dangerous precedent that could be used by future administrations to intimidate or harass a supposedly coequal branch of the government." The raid led to an irony that one of Democrat Jefferson's staunchest defenders in the turf battle between between the FBI and Congress became Dennis Hastert, who was Speaker of the House and a Republican.
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