Monica Conyers, Detroit City Council president pro tem, trustee of the city’s retirement pension fund, and wife of U.S. Congressman John Conyers, pleaded guilty today to bribery conspiracy in selling her vote for a $1.2 billion city sludge-disposal contract.
Now facing sentencing on the five-year federal felony, the councilwoman is believed to have accepted as little as $6,000 in the scheme.
She is the second top elected official in Detroit to be convicted of a felony is recent times. Former Mayor Kwame M. Kilpatrick confessed to state felonies last year in a plea deal that required him to quit, surrender his law license, spend a few months in jail and repay the city $1 million of taxpayer money he used to cover up an extra-marital sexual relationship with his chief of staff, Christine Beatty.
After Monica Conyers, 44, entered her guilty plea this morning in Detroit federal court, U.S. District Judge Avern Cohn said, “The defendant now stands convicted.”
Monica Conyers
Although her prosecution is part of a years-long, wide-ranging federal investigation into official corruption in Detroit, U.S. Attorney Terrence Berg said it is the last charge to be brought in connection with the city council’s 5-4 vote in November 2007 to award the lucrative sludge contract Synagro Technologies of Texas.
In an interview with the Detroit Free Press, Berg took pains to clear other council members – at least in this instance – as well as U.S. Rep. John Conyers, the Michigan Democrat who chairs the House Judiciary Committee. Because Monica Conyers and other council members have long been rumored to be targets of the federal probe – reports bolstered by specific details leaked to the local media – Berg has been under pressure to charge, deal or otherwise identify Detroit’s elected crooks while voters consider their choices for a city primary election in August.
“I want to state that this investigation has not uncovered evidence sufficient to support charging any other elected members of the Detroit City Council with taking bribes or engaging in acts of corruption relating to the Synagro contract,” Berg said.
“I also want to make it equally clear that the evidence offered no suggestion that U.S. Rep. John Conyers, Mrs. Conyers’ husband, had any knowledge or role in Mrs. Conyers’ illegal conduct, nor did the congressman attempt to influence this investigation in any way.”
The congressman refused comment, but his office released its own statement. “This has been a trying time for the Conyers family. With hope and prayer, they will make it through this as a family. Public officials must expect to be held to the highest ethical and legal standards. With this in mind, Mr. Conyers wants to work towards helping his family and the city recover from this serious matter.”
That recovery may be steeply uphill.
Andy Arena, special agent in charge of the FBI’s Detroit office, told a morning news conference, “This is not the beginning and it is certainly not the end, folks.”
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1 Comments
#1. johnhkennedy 07.01.2009
Corrupt Democrats…After so many years out of power?
We Democrats need to keep our own ranks in line.
Very discouraging after we worked so hard to give them Total Power!
After call from Senator Inouye’s office, small Hawaii bank got U.S. aid
http://tr.im/qv5N
Now we hear that Rep. John Conyers
may have trouble from his wife’s
Federal Bribery Conviction.
The articles in the Detroit News and Detroit Free Press explain
Conyers wife Monica took cash and jewelry, ex-aide says
Riddle details questionable transactions she brokered; John Conyers’ name used but role unclear http://tinyurl.com/njehy4
Riddle implicates Rep. John Conyers in wife’s corruption troubles http://tinyurl.com/mkxftx
What did John Conyers know? http://tinyurl.com/mp9t4l
John Conyers not talking about waste-well letter
Explanation asked for shift http://tinyurl.com/lczr6q
Rep. Conyers responds to questions about involvement with Romulus injection well http://tinyurl.com/ntz8q6
John Conyers defends waste-well letter http://tinyurl.com/knq2pe
John Conyers defends switching position on toxic wells http://tinyurl.com/nhqnnu
Rep. Conyers’ office defends flip-flop http://tinyurl.com/mdd3sv
District Democrats back John Conyers following wife’s conviction http://tinyurl.com/ng2gj2
FBI sludge probe won’t stop Democrat Waters’ 2010 congressional bid http://tinyurl.com/l4njnk
Not sure which way this will go. The 80 year old congressman who has been in office for 40+ years used to have a great liberal reputation BUT one wonders what effect this will have on Conyers, Chairman of the US House Judiciary Committee.
His Committee is where Impeachment would have started.
Conyers has been a big disappointment to Impeachment and Torture Accountability Advocates. Conyers portrayed himself as the the leading advocate of Impeachment in the House, but blocked it for 7 years & kept Kucinich’s Bush-Cheney Impeachment Bills from ever being debated in his committee or voted on.
Conyers accepted an IMPEACHMENT PETITION SIGNED BY 1.1 MILLION VOTERS but IGNORED IT AND HAD THOSE DELIVERING IT ARRESTED.
Strange behaviour from the “Champion of Impeachment”.
It would be good to know the truth about this situation.
SIGN THE PETITION at ANGRYVOTERS.ORG
http://ANGRYVOTERS.ORG
Since Conyers is also leading the fight for Single Payer
we wonder what chance it has?
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