Former Congressman William Jefferson (D-LA) has been convicted on 11 of 16 counts he was facing in connection with accepting bribes over a number of years.
From the Times-Picayune:
The verdict comes four years after the Aug. 3, 2005 raids of Jefferson's homes in New Orleans and Washington, D.C., in which the FBI found $90,000 in cash hidden in the freezer of his D.C. home, money the government said Jefferson was going to deliver as a bribe to Atiku Abubakar, then vice president of Nigeria, to gain his help with a telecommunications deal in Nigeria being pursued by Lori Mody, a Northern Virginia businesswoman.
The money was the lion's share of $100,000 in FBI cash that the congressman was videotaped receiving packed in a briefcase days earlier in a suburban Virginia parking lot from Mody, who, beginning in March of 2005, had become a cooperating witness for the FBI, secretly taping her conversations with Jefferson.
All in all, a good thing, I believe. A big part of electing "more and better Democrats" is to root out the corrupt among us.
No one who's not corrupt has ninety grand in cash in their freezer, excepting maybe my crazy old-man neighbor who "don't trust them banks." And I can hardly blame him.
The GOP will of course attempt to cash in on this (no pun intended), and they may well be successful in Louisiana. But please make certain that if you find yourself discussing this conviction with a wingnut that the words "Doolittle" and "Abramoff" are located near the front of your tongue.
Details are still emerging, but I would anticipate a substantial prison sentence.