DC council chairman charged; will resign seat
Source: Associated Press
By ERIC TUCKER | Associated Press 28 mins ago
WASHINGTON (AP) The chairman of the District of Columbia Council was charged Wednesday with lying about his income on loan applications and told colleagues in a closed-door meeting later in the day that he planned to resign.
The bank fraud charge against Kwame R. Brown, one of the most influential power brokers in D.C. government, is the latest allegation of criminal wrongdoing to roil local politics in the nation's capital and will lead to further membership shakeups on the council. Brown becomes the second councilmember to face criminal charges since January and his expected departure comes as federal authorities continue investigating the 2010 campaign of Mayor Vincent Gray.
Brown was charged in a criminal information, a document that generally signals that a defendant has agreed to plead guilty. A plea hearing is set for Friday in U.S. District Court in Washington.
Brown declined to answer questions or comment on the case following a closed-door meeting with fellow councilmembers Wednesday afternoon. It was there he revealed plans to resign from the 13-person panel, according to a person briefed on the meeting.
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Read more: http://news.yahoo.com/dc-council-chairman-charged-resign-seat-220039884.html
lonestarnot
(77,097 posts)from our side. Fucking smuck!
IamK
(956 posts)BlueIris
(29,135 posts)KansDem
(28,498 posts)If this were the Federal government, he would have just received a , and that would be the end of it.
Oh, wait! What am I thinking? Of course he'd have to be a Republican!
wordpix
(18,652 posts)He actually got two but the first didn't meet his color expectations so it was sent back and another driven to DC with the correct color, for an extra $1500.
All this with "the District's projected $400 million budget shortfall" in early 2011.
Eugene
(61,945 posts)Source: Reuters
By Lily Kuo
WASHINGTON | Fri Jun 8, 2012 8:46pm EDT
(Reuters) - The former No. 2 official in the Washington city government pleaded guilty on Friday to bank fraud, two days after he resigned his post over the federal charge.
Kwame Brown, 41, a Democrat, who had been the City Council chairman in the U.S. capital, admitted in federal court that he knowingly overstated income on bank loan applications, federal investigators said.
In a separate proceeding in District of Columbia Superior Court, Brown pleaded guilty to a criminal charge of violating D.C. campaign finance laws by allowing a family member to make illegal cash expenditures from his 2008 campaign account, the officials added.
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Read more: http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/06/09/us-usa-dc-citycouncil-idUSBRE85801G20120609