The press conference is over and here's what we know from an article on
News Channel Five on-line.
According to the indictments, the suspects were accused of violating the Hobbs Act, which is a type of extortion, and of taking bribes to use their offices to help a company do business in Tennessee.
According to the FBI, the lawmakers accepted bribed from an undercover electronics company to sponsor legislation that would have helped the company make money.
Ford was accused of accepting $55,000; Crutchfield was accused of taking $12,000; Bowers was accused of taking $11,500; Newton was accused of accepting $4,500, and Dixon was accused of taking $9,500.
Ford was also accused of threatening a witness in connection with the investigation.
The investigation, dubbed Tennessee Waltz, took two years, FBI officials said. The investigation was conducted by the Memphis and Knoxville FBI offices. Nashville and Chattanooga agents were also involved.
Some searches were conducted in the Capitol Building in Nashville.
News Channel Five also had .pdf files of all the indictments on their web site.
There is on-going coverage in many blogs around the state and various other media outlets. Two good sources for round-ups and links to all the coverage are
Nashville is Talking and
No Silence Here. Also, I'm sure members of the
Rocky Top Brigade will have a lot of reaction and dicussion about this topic.
This whole thing just sounds messy and I wonder if we've yet seen the tip of the iceberg on this whole situation.
posted by Michael Hickerson at 5/26/2005 11:43:00 AM |
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