Posted on 02/15/2007 8:33:34 AM PST by george76
Today, an eight-year speaker of the North Carolina House of Representatives, Jim Black, will plead guilty to federal corruption charges and receive a prison sentence.
It’s the latest in a series of guilty pleas related to a criminal conspiracy of lobbyists and public officials involving pay-for-play bribery deals, violations of lobbying and campaign-finance laws, regulation of the video poker industry, passage of a state-run lottery, and a general seediness in North Carolina state government.
And other state lawmakers may yet be caught in the dragnet.
Black, a Democrat and optometrist, had used his fundraising prowess and bare-knuckle tactics to maintain power in a chamber that often featured close partisan divides.
In 2003, he even wound up as speaker again despite the fact that Republicans had won a 61-59 majority in the 2002 elections. That’s one of the scandals, actually — he bribed a Republican lawmaker to switch parties, which paved the way for a rump ground of disgruntled GOP moderates to ally with Black to organize the chamber.
Today’s plea bargain appears to involve other charges, however. State prosecutors will reportedly charge Black with additional crimes next week.
According to Black and his allies, the last couple of years of high-profile investigations were merely the result of a conspiracy involving Republican prosecutors, the John Locke Foundation and other conservative groups, and their complaint handmaids in the news media.
(Excerpt) Read more at corner.nationalreview.com ...
.
Former House Speaker Jim Black will soon be a felon. He’ll serve time. He’ll give up the southern Mecklenburg House seat he defended by the skin of his teeth back in November. His political career will be remembered primarily for squalid scandal.
His aides and allies paid a steep price for participating in a corrupt political machine. His downfall coincided with the passage of new state legislation intended to require more disclosure and brighten ethical lines in the practice of lobbying and lawmaking in the state capital.
http://www.carolinajournal.com/exclusives/display_exclusive.html?id=3895
But this is nowhere near as innnnnnteresting as Scalias daughters DUI
Democratic leaders, who avoided criticizing Black during the state and federal investigations, expressed little or no regret over not calling for his resignation earlier.
the investigation has led to the conviction of five of Black's associates, including a former lawmaker who said he took a $50,000 bribe to switch parties and support Black.
http://www.charlotte.com/mld/charlotte/news/politics/16702173.htm
Life is good.
What is pathetic is that this has been coming for years. Everyone has known that Black was going down, yet he never stepped down before this, and no one in the Democratic party was demanding he step down. When Republicans get caught, they either step down voluntarily, or are forced out by their party. Democrats stay in power until they are either convicted or plead guilty.
Two sets of rules.
One for us and a completely different set for liberals.
We mess up once and we are gone.
Informative article by John Hood. Thanks for posting. Democrat Crime Syndicate Member MO BUMP!
Thank you.
There should more soon ?
Black Pleads Guilty to Corruption Charge
Posted: 6 minutes ago
Raleigh — Former House Speaker Jim Black pleaded guilty Thursday to a federal corruption charge, ending months of teetering on the brink as a growing list of associates who were convicted of various offenses.
http://www.wral.com/news/local/politics/story/1203494/
Suh-WEET!!!
Now we can wait for any state corruption charges ?
What a crock of bull!! Democracy South was the main group that initially blew the whistle on Black and they are non-partisan. One of my childhood friends works for them and he is a liberal.
I haven't heard the other "annointed" NC politician in this state mentioned in the news media lately. Any chance Basnight could get caught up in any of the house cleaning going on?
I'd like to think this would change the stranglehold the RATS have on politics in this state but I tend to be a pretty pessimistic person. It sure did take a while for Black's crimes to catch up to him but I'm just heartened to see that they finally did eventually.
Correction: I said "Democracy South", it's actually "Democracy NC"
took them until the 4th paragraph to identify him as a democrap
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