Jefferson Headed To Trial
The 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals today upheld a grand jury's indictment of Louisiana Rep. William Jefferson on 16 counts of corruption, allowing the trial to begin in early 2009 unless Jefferson appeals the ruling to the U.S. Supreme Court, the New Orleans Times-Picayune reports.
It's been more than three years -- August 2005 -- since the FBI taped the Democratic congressman accepting a briefcase filled with $100,000 in marked bills and four days later found $90,000 of it in his Capitol Hill home freezer. He was indicted in June 2007 for the alleged bribery scheme.
Despite his trouble, Jefferson was re-elected in his solidly-Democratic 2nd Congressional District by a 14-point margin in a December 2006 nonpartisan runoff against State Rep. Karen Carter, a Democrat. He's likely to be re-elected once again in the Dec. 6 general election after winning last week's Democratic primary by the same margin.
-- Kyle Trygstad