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Monica Conyers, wife of congressman, offered plea deal
These days Congressman John Conyers, Michigan Democrat and chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, has taken to introducing his wife by her maiden name, Monica Eskers.
But in Detroit, where she’s now being squeezed by the feds to accept a plea deal ahead of being indicted for bribery, she’s known as Detroit City Council President Pro Tem Monica Conyers.
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MAP HINTS: Boxes with + signs can be expanded by doubleclicking. Solid lines are current relations. Dotted lines are former relations. For more options, right-click on a box or click on the map tools to the left. (Requires Flash)Detroit media have reported that the councilwoman was videotaped accepting a bribe payment – which with others totaled $6,000 – to buy her vote for a $1.2 billion city sludge-disposal contract. Conyers originally opposed the contract, but changed her mind, swinging her vote for a 5-4 approval.
She’s now mulling over a plea, but a deal has been stalled because she wants to stay out of jail and be charged with nothing more than a misdemeanor, not the 5-year felony offered by prosecutors.
Conyers’ criminal woes are the latest produced by a years-long, wide-ranging FBI investigation into public corruption in Detroit. It’s had a lot to work with, although the highest profile crook to date, convicted felon and former mayor Kwame M. Kilpatrick, was brought down in a Pulitzer Prize-winning investigation by The Detroit Free Press.
Also reportedly under federal investigation are the disgraced mayor’s father, Bernard N. Kilpatrick, a self-described business consultant, for taking $25,000 to grease the same sewage contract (his ex-wife and the ex-mayor’s mother is U.S. Congresswoman Carolyn Cheeks-Kilpatrick); city councilmember and ex-U.S. Congresswoman Barbara-Rose Collins, who is better known for wearing a princess tiara to council on her 70th birthday than any legislative achievements; and councilwoman Martha Reeves, who began her term by campaigning to have statues erected downtown of Motown’s best-known artists – including herself. Both Collins and Reeves also voted for the sludge contract.
The squeeze was put on Monica Conyers when James Rosendall Jr. resigned as vice president of Texas sludge recycler Synagro Technologies and pleaded guilty to bribery conspiracy in January; and Rayford Jackson, a sub-rosa dealmaker, pleaded guilty this week to arranging the bribes.
A local TV news wunderkind, Fox 2 anchorwoman Fanchon Stinger, was fired by the station after it became known that she showed up with Jackson to promote the sludge contract to a community group.
Before earning notoriety in the bribe scandal, Monica Conyers was a darling of YouTubers for calling Detroit City Council President Ken Cockrel Jr. “Shrek” in open session, then losing a Detroit News-sponsored videotaped debate with an 8th-grade girl who questioned the councilwoman’s behavior. Since entering Detroit politics, she has also been in a bar fight, threatened to shoot somebody, and to have someone else beaten.
With Detroit facing an election primary in August, Cockrel this week said he hopes federal investigators get on with their indictments.
“I know in my experience with federal investigations, they tend to be slow and meticulous,” he said, “but when they come, they come like a ton of bricks. My feeling is if they’re going to come like a ton of bricks, they ought to come now.”
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Mark Walsh gets another crack at Lehman fundsJune 21, 2009 at 10:10am
The man some blame for the investments that brought Lehman Brothers Holdings down is getting a second chance to profit from those investments.
R. Allen Stanford charged with fraud and obstruction
Texas financier R. Allen Stanford has been indicted on fraud and obstruction charges in a $7 billion investment scam, the Justice Department announced today.
Three other Stanford company executives were also named in the indictment.
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MAP HINTS: Boxes with + signs can be expanded by doubleclicking. Solid lines are current relations. Dotted lines are former relations. For more options, right-click on a box or click on the map tools to the left. (Requires Flash)Stanford was arrested by FBI agents yesterday outside his girlfriend’s home in Virginia.
According to the indictment unsealed today, Stanford and his co-defendants defrauded investors who bought $7 billion in certificates of deposit administered by Stanford International Bank in Antigua. About $1.6 billion allegedly was diverted in personal loans to Stanford.
Stanford and the other execs are accused of lying about the bank’s assets, saying that they grew from $1.2 billion in 2001 to approximately $8.5 billion in December 2008.
Also charged were Laura Pendergest-Holt, chief investment officer of Stanford Financial Group; Gilberto Lopez, chief accounting officer; Mark Kuhrt, global controller; and Leroy King, the former administrator and CEO of Antigua’s Financial Services Regulatory Commission.
Pendergest-Holt was previously charged with misleading investigators in their probe of Stanford International Bank’s dealings.
Stanford and three of his companies were named in an SEC civil lawsuit in February, accused of conducting a Ponzi scheme involving billions of dollars of investor funds.
The commission said Stanford and “the close circle of family and friends with whom he runs his businesses” had fraudulently promised investors high returns, based on fabricated profits from past years.
After the suit was filed, Stanford’s companies were placed in receivership and ceased operations. Office furnishings and artwork are being sold off by liquidators.
James M. Davis, former chief financial officer of Stanford Financial and Stanford’s former roommate at Baylor University, is cooperating with investigators.
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Mark Walsh gets another crack at Lehman fundsJune 21, 2009 at 10:10am
The man some blame for the investments that brought Lehman Brothers Holdings down is getting a second chance to profit from those investments.
Monica Conyers Wife of Congressman Offered Plea Deal
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R Allen Stanford Awaits Federal Arraignment
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Harry Potter author J.K. Rowling defends against another lawsuit
The estate of a dead writer who created a fictional wizard named Willy wants $50 million from Harry Potter author J.K. Rowling, claiming she stole passages from their man’s book and infringed on his – and now the estate’s – copyright.
The estate also says it intends to sue Rowling individually.
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MAP HINTS: Boxes with + signs can be expanded by doubleclicking. Solid lines are current relations. Dotted lines are former relations. For more options, right-click on a box or click on the map tools to the left. (Requires Flash)The showdown – Rowling’s second plagiarism lawsuit – will take place in London and invoke the ghost of Adrian Jacobs, author of The Adventures of Willy the Wizard, published in 1987. The book was first rejected by Rowling’s publisher, Bloomsbury Publishing PLC, more than a decade before it gave Rowling’s her start.
Jacobs died about the time the first book in Rowling’s hugely lucrative series, Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone, hit the market.
Tuesday, Bloomsbury responded to the plagiarism accusation in the London Daily Mail, calling it “unfounded, unsubstantiated and untrue,” dismissed Jacobs’ book as “a very insubstantial booklet running to 36 pages which had very limited distribution,” and said the claim was first made in 2004 – years after the first several Potter books were published – and the publisher was “unable to identify any text in the Harry Potter books which was said to copy Willy the Wizard.”
Rowling, who prevailed in an unrelated 2002 plagiarism suit after that writer was found to have changed evidence to bolster her own claim, had no comment about the latest clash of wizards.
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Mark Walsh gets another crack at Lehman fundsJune 21, 2009 at 10:10am
The man some blame for the investments that brought Lehman Brothers Holdings down is getting a second chance to profit from those investments.
Harry Potter Author Jk Rowling Defends Against Another Lawsuit
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Muckety This Red Hot Chili Peppers to Glimmerglass Opera Solution
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Chris Dodd’s Irish getaway won’t go away
Household finances continue to dog Sen. Christopher Dodd of Connecticut.
First there were reports on the favorable loans he received from subprime mortgage lender Countrywide Financial. Critics say he benefitted from sweetheart deals as a friend of Angelo Mozilo, former chairman and CEO of Countrywide.
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MAP HINTS: Boxes with + signs can be expanded by doubleclicking. Solid lines are current relations. Dotted lines are former relations. For more options, right-click on a box or click on the map tools to the left. (Requires Flash)Then there are the board entanglements of his wife, Jackie Clegg Dodd, in some of the same health companies Dodd is regulating as a member of Senate Committee on Health.
Christopher DoddAnd now there’s the getaway in Ireland, a house on Inishnee island in County Galway. Since 2002, Dodd had listed the value of the property as up to $250,000. After mounting criticism that he was undervaluing the home, he filed a financial disclosure form released last week raising its value to $658,000. This, despite plummeting real estate values in Ireland over the past two years.
Dodd had purchased the property with Kansas City real estate developer William Kessinger, whom he met through friend and campaign contributor Edward Reynolds Downe Jr. (Dodd successfully lobbied President Clinton in 2001 to grant Downe a pardon on charges of conspiring to commit wire fraud and subscribing to false income tax returns.)
Dodd bought Kessinger’s interest in the Irish property in 2002.
As Hartford Courant columnist Kevin Rennie notes, Dodd has given different amounts when asked how much he paid Kessinger. Dodd’s office said in February that he paid Kessinger $127,000. The following month, he told the Courant he paid $50,000 more. And last month Dodd told Newsweek he paid Kessinger $207,000.
Newsweek was moved to publish a story titled, Like father, like son, pointing out that Thomas Dodd, who also served as a senator from Connecticut, ended his career in ignominy. The elder Dodd was censured by the Senate in 1967 for allegedly diverting campaign funds for personal use.
Thomas Dodd lost his bid for re-election and died in 1971.
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This post is tagged with: Christopher Dodd, Edward Reynolds Downe Jr., Jackie Clegg Dodd, Politics, Thomas Dodd, William KessingerRead related stories: Politics · Recent Stories
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R. Allen Stanford charged with fraud and obstructionJune 19, 2009 at 1:34pm
Texas financier R. Allen Stanford, under investigation in an alleged $8 billion fraud, is expected to be arraigned today on federal charges.
Chris Dodds Irish Getaway Wont Go Away
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Muck tracker – Hannah Montana will end after season 4
Billy Ray Cyrus confirmed to Access Hollywood that hit TV show Hannah Montana will end after its fourth season, which will air next summer. Cyrus co-stars in the show with his pop star daughter, Miley Cyrus.
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BUT BUT WHY HANNAH MONTANA END ON SEASON 4 ITS BEST THING ON DISNY CHL NOW OR ARE YOU JUST LIEING
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THAT OTHER COMMENT MY REAL NAME STARTS WITH J…. LOL
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its true!!!!! “Hannah Montana” is the best show on disney channel!!! If the show is cancelled Disney Channel will lose a lot of its viewers! Including me! BOTH of her movies got ranked so high in the box office. “Jonas” is prob. one of the wrost show ever to air on disney channel. “Hannah Montana” is better by far!!!!!!
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The desserts of Obama’s 2011 tech dinnerJune 25, 2012 at 7:30am
Have tech leaders returned the love?
Muckety Mover Brad Pitt Takes a Star Turn in Moneyball
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Roger Stone Caught Up in Nys Leadership Battle
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Muck Tracker Hannah Montana Will End After Season 4
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1 Comments
#1. Hermoine Couther 06.20.2009
I hope the Feds have what they need to take Monica down. She has been out of control for a very long time.
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