A congressman under investigation for bribery was caught on videotape accepting $100,000 in $100 bills from an
FBI informant whose conversations with the lawmaker also were recorded, according to a court document released Sunday. Agents later found the cash hidden in his freezer.At one audiotaped meeting, Rep. William Jefferson (D-LA), chuckles about writing in code to keep secret what the government contends was his corrupt role in getting his children a cut of a communications company’s deal for work in Africa.
As Jefferson and the informant passed notes about what percentage the lawmaker’s family might receive, the congressman “began laughing and said, ‘All these damn notes we’re writing to each other as if we’re talking, as if the FBI is watching,'” according to the affidavit….
As for the $100,000, the government says Jefferson got the money in a leather briefcase last July 30 at the Ritz-Carlton hotel in Arlington. The plan was for the lawmaker to use the cash to bribe a high-ranking Nigerian official
Read the whole thing and see if you decipher Jefferson’s code:
Jefferson assured the FBI informant in their coded conversations that he paid the money to the Nigerian official, even though the money was still in Jefferson’s possession when agents searched his home Aug. 3.
On Aug. 1, two days after Jefferson picked up the $100,000, the informant called Jefferson to ask about the status of “the package.”
Jefferson responded: “I gave him the African art that you gave me and he was very pleased.”
