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Former Governor Bob McDonnell Gets Two Years in Prison

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Former Virginia Gov. Bob McDonnell is vowing to keep fighting the bribery accusations that on Tuesday landed him a two-year prison sentence.

Outside the federal courthouse in Richmond, the Republican said he was “deeply, deeply sorry” for the actions that led to his conviction on 11 felony public corruption charges, but that he “never, ever betrayed my sacred oath of office.”

McDonnell and his attorneys vowed to appeal the convictions immediately.

The two years was a much shorter sentence than the 10 to 12 years that prosecutors had started the day asking for. But it was enough to rock McDonnell’s children, family and friends, many of whom gasped as it was read and were left wiping away tears. When McDonnell left, his wife, Maureen McDonnell, who could face a similar sentence herself, remained in the courtroom, sobbing.

His sentencing was the culmination of the dramatic downfall of the Republican governor once heralded as a rising star — tapped to give the party’s 2010 rebuttal to President Barack Obama’s State of the Union, and a fixture on short lists for national office. (Read more about former Governor Bob McDonnell HERE)

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U.S. Postal Service: First Class Bribery

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Photo Credit: AP

Photo Credit: AP

The U.S. Postal Service steered millions of dollars in contracts to companies that bribed employees or had relationships with them that violated ethics laws, according to an inspector general report released on Wednesday.

The IG identified eleven instances of employees at USPS vehicle maintenance facilities accepting bribes from contractors, receiving kickbacks for steering work to certain companies, or awarding to contracts to family members.

The report attributed many of the procurement problems to poor oversight of USPS contract awards.

“As a result, Postal Service agreements with suppliers completing vehicle repairs and maintenance are at risk of fraud, including potential conflicts of interest, bribery, and collusion,” the IG said.

More than $13 million in contracts were awarded to two companies, both owned by the same person, after he paid “cash and noncash bribes” to vehicle maintenance facility employees, the IG found.

Read more from this story HERE.

State Dept. Corruption: Egyptian Gov’t Claims Evidence that U.S. Bribed Muslim Brotherhood Officials

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Photo Credit: WND

Photo Credit: WND

A question apparently being raised in next week’s trial in Cairo of Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood leaders facing criminal charges is this: Was the Obama administration paying bribes as large as $850,000 a year to the Morsi government that were distributed by top ministerial level officials to Muslim Brotherhood leaders, with the direct involvement of the U.S. Embassy in Cairo?

WND is in possession of an official document from inside the Morsi government that lends credibility to a report published in Arabic by an Egyptian newspaper in Cairo that lists the charges brought by the current military-controlled government against Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood leaders.

As seen above, WND has obtained official records from the deposed Morsi government in Egypt, with signatures, documenting monthly “gifts” paid to Muslim Brotherhood leaders in Egypt by the former prime minister and foreign minister of Qatar, Hamad bin Jassim bin Jabor Al Thani.

The document was seized from Egyptian government offices in Cairo when the Morsi government was deposed by the military July 3.

As translated by former PLO member and native Arabic-speaker Walid Shoebat, the monthly “gifts” listed in the document amount to bribes paid by the Morsi government to leading Muslim Brotherhood members in Egypt, including an annual payment of $750,000 to $850,000 in U.S. dollars.

Read more from this story HERE.

Rampant American Bribery in Afghanistan: CIA Pays Bags of Cash in Failed Effort to Buy Friends

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Photo Credit: APFor more than a decade, wads of American dollars packed into suitcases, backpacks and, on occasion, plastic shopping bags have been dropped off every month or so at the offices of Afghanistan’s president — courtesy of the Central Intelligence Agency.

All told, tens of millions of dollars have flowed from the C.I.A. to the office of President Hamid Karzai, according to current and former advisers to the Afghan leader.

“We called it ‘ghost money,’ ” said Khalil Roman, who served as Mr. Karzai’s deputy chief of staff from 2002 until 2005. “It came in secret, and it left in secret.”

The C.I.A., which declined to comment for this article, has long been known to support some relatives and close aides of Mr. Karzai. But the new accounts of off-the-books cash delivered directly to his office show payments on a vaster scale, and with a far greater impact on everyday governing.

Moreover, there is little evidence that the payments bought the influence the C.I.A. sought. Instead, some American officials said, the cash has fueled corruption and empowered warlords, undermining Washington’s exit strategy from Afghanistan.

Read more from this story HERE.

Déjà Vu, Alaska: State Legislator Wore FBI Wire in NY Bribery Case

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Photo Credit: Chang W. Lee

Two days after a political corruption scandal rocked Albany, a new, unrelated bribery scheme emerged on Thursday, adorned with a can-you-top-this quality: For more than a year, a sitting state legislator wore a wire intended to catch at least one of his colleagues.

The secret recordings helped lead to the arrest of Eric A. Stevenson, a Democratic state assemblyman representing parts of the South Bronx, who was charged by federal prosecutors in Manhattan with accepting more than $22,000 in bribes to help developers open adult day care centers in his district. Mr. Stevenson was also accused of introducing legislation to block competing developers from building new centers for three years.

He seemed keenly aware of the risk of getting caught, as so many of his colleagues in Albany had been before, according to a criminal complaint released on Thursday.

“Be careful of those things, man, the recorders and all those things,” he was recorded saying. “A lot of guys,” he continued, were “working to put a lot of people away, man, believe that.”

Mr. Stevenson’s wariness was well founded: conversations were being recorded by two cooperating witnesses, including Assemblyman Nelson L. Castro, who had agreed to work with investigators as part of a deal to avoid prosecution on state perjury charges. Mr. Castro agreed to resign once his cooperation led to an arrest; he announced his departure on Thursday afternoon.

Read more from this story HERE.

‘Justice For Sale’ Allegation: Environmentalists Bribed Judge In Order To Secure Multi-Billion Dollar Judgment

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Photo Credit: APAttorneys representing environmentalist groups in a lawsuit against a major oil company bribed an Ecuadorian judge to issue a multi-billion dollar judgment against that oil company, according to sworn testimony by a judge involved in the scheme.

The testimony could derail efforts by the environmentalist groups to recover damages resulting from the Ecuadorian judgment.

An Ecuadorian court handed down an $18.2 billion judgment against Chevron in February 2011, holding the company responsible for ecological damage surrounding the Lago Agrio oil field in Nueva Loja, Ecuador.

Texaco drilled for crude during the 1970s and 1980s at the site, which became the focus of years of legal battles. Chevron inherited the company’s legal liabilities when it bought Texaco in 2001.

Chevron alleged malfeasance in the Ecuadorian court proceedings and in its judgment against the company. A sworn declaration from Albert Guerra, a former judge in the case, appears to corroborate the company’s allegations that the plaintiffs illegally conspired with the court in crafting the February 2011 judgment.

Read more from this story HERE.

Businessman in Fraud Case Ties Harry Reid, Utah Attorney General to Bribery Scheme

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SALT LAKE CITY (AP) — A Utah businessman accused of running a fraudulent $350 million software scheme says the state attorney general arranged a deal to pay Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid to make a federal investigation into the software business disappear.

St. George businessman Jeremy Johnson, who’s accused of billing hundreds of thousands of consumers for products they never ordered, told The Salt Lake Tribune that newly elected Attorney General John Swallow set up a deal in 2010 for Johnson to pay $600,000 to people connected to Reid.

Johnson says be believed that Reid, a Nevada senator, might intervene in the Federal Trade Commission’s investigation.

Swallow strongly denies the allegations and maintains he only offered to connect Johnson with a lobbying firm. At the time, he was serving as Utah’s chief deputy attorney general.

The FBI and Reid’s office would not comment on the allegations.

Read more from this story HERE.