Posted on 07/21/2011 8:39:45 AM PDT by freespirited
Former South Florida state legislator Mandy Dawson was arrested Wednesday on a federal income tax charge, and she is scheduled to go before a judge in Orlando later Wednesday for her initial court appearance.
The allegations are a troubling epilogue to the 16-year political career of the groundbreaking politician. Broward County’s first black woman in the state Legislature, she came to be known as a champion of the poor and the medically needy, serving six years in the state House followed by a decade in the state Senate. Dawson, a Democrat whose district stretched from Fort Lauderdale to Palm Beach Gardens, was pushed out of office in 2008 by term limits.
Some criminal charge against Dawson had long been expected since federal investigators have been examining her dealings since at least 2009.
Her name surfaced in a federal public corruption probe headed by the U.S. Department of Justice that centered on Alan Mendelsohn, a Hollywood eye doctor who was a major player in the political fundraising world.
When he began cooperating with investigators, Mendelsohn told them that he had passed along $82,000 in payments to Dawson through an intermediary between 2003 and 2005, when she was a senator. He did it, he said, in hopes that she wouldn’t vote against legislation he was pushing.
Just a drop in the bucket of the endemic Medicare fraud that costs tens of billions every year, much of it by foreign doctors in Florida and California. They would squeal the loudest with any cuts in Medicare. The elderly are their enablers.
by chance, did she break ground at any new women’s detention facilities the last 16 years?
Let her spend her remainder at one of them, courtesy of the state.
Translation: she was a champion of using Other People's Money.
If I be ‘llowed to take from the many to give to my peeps, why I notz able to give to ME?
Don’t worry, you support the “medically needy” every payday and on April 15. They’re the unqualified SSI applicants who need political support to get on the disability gravy train.
whew!, thanks!, wouldn’t want miss out on giving my fair share and all...
..MARCH 05, 2008
Sen. Mandy Dawson: I’m sick
Sen. Mandy Dawson held a press conference on Wednesday announcing she’s suffering from a chronic disease, rheumatoid arthritis, which has taken a toll on her health, impacting her attendance and giving her the appearance of “being drunk or high.”
The Fort Lauderdale Democrat, who has faced sharp criticism for absenteeism over the past year, said she plans to stick it out in the state Senate and keep her chairmanship of a Senate health committee, even as she continues to seek remedies, she said. None have worked so far, she added.
Dawson also said she plans to file legislation asking for $500,000 to educate Floridians about the disease, admitting she knows there’s probably no money in the budget to fund such an initiative.
http://www.tampabay.com/blogs/the-buzz-florida-politics/content/sen-mandy-dawson-im-sick
Typical demonrat, they are all for higher taxes...because they don’t pay them.
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