A NEW twist has developed in the U.S corruption case against Congressman William Jefferson, just as the district court in Virginia has set December 2 as the start of a jury trial against him.
Jefferson is charged with bribery in which the names of three Nigerians including that of former Vice President Atiku Abubakar is mentioned.
However, the Congressman is changing his story that when he described how Atiku would be bribed on audio tape set up by the FBI, he was only knowingly telling lies to play along with a cooperating government witness set up to entrap him.
The objective and undisputed evidence that, contrary to what he (Jefferson) said to the cooperating witness, “the defendant did not pass any money to Atiku when he had an opportunity to do so is inconsistent with the government allegation of a Foreign Corrupt Practices Act conspiracy,” the Jefferson defense team says in recent court papers.
With the date of trial now set, the lawyers to Jefferson are attempting to attack some of the claims and evidence against the Congressman including audio recording of him describing how he planned to bribe Atiku.
Court papers and US local media reports indicate that the Congressman, who had been caught on tape discussing how the bribe scheme was meant to be conducted, including his statement that he meant to pass the bribe to the Vice President, is making it clear that he was only playing along with the cooperating witness who was secretly set up to trap him.
According to the Defence lawyers, “it appears that the government’s Foreign Corrupt Practices Act case is based solely on uncorroborated tape-recorded statements made by Mr. Jefferson to cooperating witness, Lori Mody, a government agent, in which he appears to accede to her desires to make payments to the Nigerian official,” the filing says.
US local media reports observed that “that raises the possibility that Jefferson’s attorneys, in addition to arguing that he didn’t do what he told her he did, could raise a defence that the government, through Mody, was trying to entrap him into illegal activity.
That audio recording is about the most damaging potential evidence against him and the former Vice President, even though the latter has not been charged by the US authorities.
Besides, the FBI was disappointed in 2005 when it raided Atiku’s US home without finding the said money as Jefferson boasted on the audio recording.
Yet, the US government charged Jefferson with bribery based on the existence of the cash, which was then discovered at the Congressman’s house.
In the audio recording, Congressman Jefferson had described the former VP as “really corrupt” and the “briefcase guy.”
The audio also indicated Jefferson telling the cooperating government witness, who was doing the recording, that Atiku had agreed to accept a bribe in exchange for official assistance.
But in new court filings, the Congressman is saying all those things he said in the audio recording obtained by the FBI and the US government prosecuting team was false and that he was only playing along.
Led by a by prominent Washington lawyer, Robert Trout, Jefferson’s new strategy explains how they intend to counter the fact that the intended bribe money was actually found with him.
US media reports observed that the new defence briefs suggest, “the fact that the money was found in Jefferson’s freezer instead of in the possession of Nigeria’s then-vice president, Atiku Abubakar, as FBI agents had expected, exposes a huge flaw in the prosecution’s theory of the case.”
Jefferson’s attorneys are arguing that instead of proving that the cash found in the Congressman’s freezer is evidence of illegal activity, the fact that “Mr. Jefferson took it (the money) home and secured it in his freezer” shows that the money clearly was not a bribe.
What the Congressman’s lawyers are not addressing as yet is what the money is then meant to be for. However, the defence’s new attack on the government evidence is confirmation of Atiku’s initial reactions that the Congressman was simply not telling the truth when he was heard on the audio talking about having a bribery deal with him.
In its entirety, the defence counsel are arguing that in the secretly taped conversations between Jefferson and government witness, Lori Mody, a Virginia businesswoman, Jefferson wasn’t being truthful when he laid out elaborate plans to bribe Nigerian officials including Atiku.
Although recent court papers show that a date for formal trial has been set, the US District Court in Virginia is yet to rule on the request of the Defence to depose Atiku and his wife outside the US, a motion, which the US government legal team has objected to.
The team argues that if necessary, the former VP and others should be deposed in the US where laws against perjury can be applied.