“Former congressman William J. Jefferson was convicted of corruption charges Wednesday in a case made famous by the $90,000 in bribe money stuffed into his freezer and a legal battle over the raid of his Washington office that reached the highest levels of the U.S. government,” reports The Washington Post. “Federal jurors found the Louisiana Democrat guilty of using his congressional office as a criminal enterprise to enrich himself, soliciting and accepting hundreds of thousands of dollars in bribes to support his business ventures in Africa.”
The FBI raided Jefferson’s freezer in 2005 and found the frozen cash, but he was re-elected anyway in 2006. Finally ousted from Congress in the 2008 election and now convicted, Jefferson faces 150 years in prison. Our republic would be better off if that happened to more of his cohorts on Capitol Hill.
