Insurance Agent Accused Of Bribery

A Harlingen insurance agent is accused in a federal indictment of providing cash, plane tickets and condo rentals to some Edcouch-Elsa school district officials in exchange for public contracts.

Arnulfo Olivarez was named in a three-count federal indictment returned last month.

The indictment alleges the bribes were made to then-school board president Aaron Luiz Gonzalez and other district officials between 1999 and 2005 in exchange for votes on insurance contracts with the district.

Ruling On Illegal FBI Search To Stand

The Supreme Court on Monday let stand a lower court ruling that the F.B.I. went too far in searching the office of Representative William J. Jefferson, a Louisiana Democrat accused of using his position to promote business deals in Africa.

The appeals court did not find that the raid itself was unconstitutional; rather, it found that the F.B.I. violated constitutional separation of powers by allowing agents to look freely through Congressional files for incriminating evidence.

The ruling last August told the bureau to return legislative documents to Mr. Jefferson. It did not, however, affect other items seized from his office, including computer hard drives. Nor did it affect evidence seized in a separate raid on the Congressman’s Washington-area home, including $90,000 found wrapped in aluminum foil in frozen-food containers in his kitchen freezer.

The 18-hour search of Mr. Jefferson’s office on Capitol Hill marked the first time that the F.B.I. had searched a Congressional office, and it touched off a clash between the Bush administration and lawmakers of both parties. Mr. Jefferson has been indicted on charges of bribery, racketeering, conspiracy, money laundering and obstruction of justice. He has pleaded not guilty. The Justice Department said last August that the circuit court ruling would not affect the prosecution of Mr. Jefferson.

Authorities Search For woman In Securities Fraud Case

Federal authorities continue to search Saturday for a woman convicted of securities fraud in a case likened to the Enron and WorldCom scandals who failed to wear an electronic monitoring device ordered by the court.

Rebecca Parrett, a former vice chairwoman of National Century Financial Enterprises in suburban Columbus, was supposed to be confined to her home in Arizona until sentencing.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Douglas Squires said Friday that Parrett was not wearing the monitoring device. She failed to report to authorities and a warrant was issued for her arrest.

Former Alabama Gov. Appeals Bribery Conviction

Former Alabama Gov. Don Siegelman is not just getting to go home after spending nine months in federal prison. He's also getting a chance to testify before Congress about possible political influence over his prosecution.

A federal appeals court on Thursday ordered Siegelman released pending the appeal of his corruption case, just hours after the House Judiciary Committee announced that it wants to hear his views when it probes claims of selective prosecution by the Justice Department.

The 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, in its ruling Thursday, said the former governor had raised "substantial questions of fact and law" in challenging his conviction.

Salem Man Sentenced In Bribery At Prison

A Salem man convicted of accepting bribes and smuggling drugs into a federal prison will serve two years in prison, officials said.

James Stephen Rolen, 31, a former corrections officer who had worked at Sheridan federal prison since 2003, received the sentence Monday by U.S. District Judge Garr M. King, said Assistant U.S. Attorney Hannah Horsley. Rolen pleaded guilty in November after an indictment on charges related to receiving a bribe to smuggle heroin, marijuana and drug paraphernalia to inmates.

City Employees Admit To Bribery

A former New York City transportation official and an engineer pleaded guilty to bribery charges on Monday, admitting they took part in a scheme to help a company that was seeking millions of dollars in a contract dispute over a bridge renovation.

The pleas were entered in United States District Court in Brooklyn by Balram Chandiramani, 65, who was the director of movable bridges for the city’s transportation agency, and by Uday Shah, 46, an assistant civil engineer on the agency’s staff.

Detroit Mayor and Aide Face Criminal Charges

The civic soap opera engulfing Detroit Mayor Kwame M. Kilpatrick took a new plot twist Monday when a county prosecutor charged the onetime rising political star with obstruction of justice, perjury and misconduct in office, all related to a romantic relationship with his former chief of staff.

Facing political catastrophe and a long prison term, Kilpatrick defiantly vowed to fight the civil felony charges, which grew out of an $8.4-million settlement of a lawsuit against him by police officials and the leaking of steamy romantic text messages between the mayor and longtime aide Christine Beatty.

Justice Dept. Opens Alcoa Bribery Probe

The Justice Department is opening a criminal inquiry into allegations that Alcoa Inc. was involved in bribery in the Persian Gulf country of Bahrain.

Allegations against Alcoa by the government of Bahrain in a recent civil lawsuit in Pittsburgh are "the subject of an ongoing federal criminal investigation," prosecutors said last night in a filing seeking a temporary hold on the civil case in order to protect their criminal inquiry.

The suit claims that for 15 years Alcoa systematically overcharged Alba for supplies of alumina, a precursor to aluminum used in smelting. Some of the proceeds of the overcharges were used to fund potentially improper payments to a senior Bahrain government official who is already under investigation in that country, according to court papers and interviews.

State Rep. Pleads Guilty To Money Laundering

State Rep. Ron Sailor on Tuesday pleaded guilty to laundering what he believed to be $375,000 in drug money for an undercover officer posing as a drug dealer.

Sailor, 33, a Democrat who represents parts of DeKalb and Rockdale counties, agreed to resign his position in the legislature. Shortly after his arrest three months ago, Sailor admitted his wrongdoing and began providing information for a public corruption investigation.

Sailor was arrested by federal agents at a metro Atlanta hotel on Dec. 19, after taking what he believed to be $300,000 in cash from a drug dealer, who actually was an undercover officer.

Sailor entered his negotiated plea before U.S. District Judge Jack Camp, who will sentence Sailor on May 22. Sailor faces a maximum sentence of 20 years in prison but is expected to get credit for his cooperation with authorities, his lawyer, Bruce Maloy, said after the plea.

Money laundering involves structuring financial transactions to conceal the source of funds.

Star Witness Testifies At Rezko's Trial

Antoin "Tony" Rezko, 52, a prominent fundraiser for Sen. Barack Obama and Gov. Rod Blagojevich, is Stuart Levine’s alleged partner in what prosecutors describe as a massive fraud scheme in the heart of Illinois government. Neither Obama nor Blagojevich have been accused of wrongdoing.

Rezko sat and watched intently as Stuart Levine took the stand.

Rezko is charged with plotting to split a $1 million bribe with Levine and scheming with him to pressure $7 million in kickbacks out of firms that sought to invest the assets of the $30 billion fund that pays the pensions of downstate and suburban school teachers.

Rezko denies that he took part in any such scheme.

Levine did not come to the stand until late in the afternoon and barely got started talking about Rezko. But he is expected to remain on the stand for at least two weeks at the threeto four-month trial.

As he began to testify, there was none of the frantic stammering and mile-a-minute chatter that jurors have heard on tapes FBI agents made after getting a court order allowing them to wiretap Levine’s home phone.

Levine calmly testified that he took drugs for decades, including LSD, Quaaludes, marijuana, cocaine, crystal meth and kaetamine, and sometimes more than one in a single session. But he said he took them only once or twice a month and quit in 2004.

Rezko’s chief defense counsel, Joseph J. Duffy, a former federal prosecutor, has already claimed that drugs hammered Levine’s brain so hard that his memory is now faulty.

Levine testified he sprinkled bribes across state and city government to land contracts for companies that paid him big money. He said he made payoffs on behalf of companies that sold tires to the City of Chicago and school buses to the Chicago Board of Education.

Levine said he paid bribes on behalf of a health maintenance organization that wanted business from a postal union and a dental insurance plan to get business from the Chicago Board of Education.

He said he funneled payoffs through former Chicago Alderman Edward R. Vrdolyak, who currently is facing charges in connection with a real estate deal that also touches on Rezko and Levine.

Vrdolyak has pleaded not guilty. His attorneys, Michael Monico and Terence Gillespie, were not reached immediately for comment. A message was left on Monico’s voicemail and with Gillespie’s answering service.

Meanwhile, Levine, a Republican, said he hired such big GOP guns as William Cellini and Robert Kjellander to lobby the state government on behalf of the dental plan. He told the jury he was involved in politics much of his life and was a key supporter of former Illinois Attorney General Jim Ryan, a classmate at Chicago-Kent College of Law.

Cellini, Kjellander and Jim Ryan are accused of no wrongdoing. But the embarrassment of finding their names tied to Levine’s underlines the explosive potential of the biggest political corruption case in Illinois since former Gov. George Ryan went to federal prison. Kjellander is a former treasurer of the Republican National Committee.

Levine estimated he contributed $500,000 to Jim Ryan’s campaign for governor in 2002 in which he was defeated by Blagojevich.

Former House Speaker Lee Daniels and George Ryan were also among the beneficiaries of his political contributions, Levine testified.