Former Rep. William Jefferson lost an appeal to have bribery charges (stemming from a federal raid in which $90,000 in cash was found in his freezer) tossed, the Washington Post reports:
The U.S. Court of Appeals in Richmond unanimously upheld 10 of the 11 charges against Jefferson. A three-judge panel dismissed one wire- fraud charge, ruling that the federal court in Alexandria where Jefferson was convicted was not an appropriate venue to charge him for a phone call he made from Africa to an individual in Kentucky.
“Representative Jefferson could have been — and perhaps yet could be — prosecuted on Count 10 in the district in Kentucky where his phone call was received,” the judges wrote. “If the call had originated domestically (rather than in Africa), he might also have been prosecuted in the district from which the phone call had been made.”
