A Top Ten Of Badly Behaved Lawmakers
Spanking, bra-stuffing and stealing at the state house.
Oct. 21, 2010 — -- Vince Fumo enjoyed a lavish lifestyle during his 30 years in the Pennsylvania State Senate- yacht trips to Martha's Vineyard, $100-a-gallon house paint for his 33-room Philadelphia mansion and senate staffers toiling as his housekeepers.
"Being a Senator is the next best thing to royalty!" he once wrote in an email.
Fumo's spending spree eventually caught up with him. Convicted on 137 federal corruption counts in 2009, he is currently serving a 55-month prison sentence. He is one of more than 80 state legislators across the nation either indicted or convicted on corruption charges in the past five years. His case serves as a worthy introduction to a top ten of badly behaved state lawmakers, whose misdeeds, from the criminal to the merely distasteful, help illustrate why unbecoming conduct has become so common in state capitals. In no particular order:
"Vince Fumo's story is a modern 'All The King's Men,' " said Peter Vaira, an ex-U.S. Attorney who prosecuted Fumo on mail fraud charges in the late 1970s when Fumo was a young political staffer. Fumo's conviction on 15 fraud counts was later tossed by a judge who said the government had not presented sufficient evidence. "At his peak, Fumo was the most powerful politician in Pennsylvania."
Fumo, a Democrat, was for years the ranking minority member on the Senate Appropriations Committee, which controls state spending. He wielded his power for his political and personal advantage.
Fumo staffers were forced to toil on the renovation of his 100-acre farm and mail bobble-head dolls in his likeness to the politician's friends. He created a non-profit called Citizens Alliance for Better Neighborhoods, and then skimmed from it, according to prosecutors. A Verizon executive testified that Fumo pressured the company to donate $15 million to the non-profit.
Prosecutors said Fumo's skimming helped finance epic personal shopping sprees. He allegedly spent more than $75,000 on tools, another $27,000 on farm equipment, and had heated sidewalks installed at his mansion. Fumo also awarded a $40,000 state contract to a private investigator to tail his ex-girlfriends. Fumo liked to rely on what he termed "OPM" -- an acronym for "other people's money" -- according to the testimony of one of his former girlfriends, Dorothy Egrie-Wilcox. The OPM Fumo spent to finance his indulgences is estimated to have totaled more than $2 million, half of it from his charity and half from state funds.
Fumo maintains that he served the citizens of Pennsylvania admirably during his time in office.
Ford was convicted of bribery and sentenced to 66 months in prison. He was acquitted on charges of witness intimidation after reportedly telling an undercover agent, "If you're FBI, I will shoot you and kill you." Ford's lawyer argued the statement was taken out of context. Ford also faced additional corruption charges in an unrelated case involving misreporting over $800,000 he received from contractors overseeing the state's medical insurance. After being convicted in association with Operation Tennessee Waltz, he was convicted in the second case as well, earning him an extra 14 years in prison.
Click Here To Watch Undercover Video of Ford Taking A Bribe
Ray Sansom, former Florida Speaker of the House, awaits trial on charges of grand theft and conspiracy. Sansom, 48, served 14 years in the House but lasted only two months as Speaker, resigning the top post in January 2009 right before his fellow Republicans could oust him. He was indicted in April 2009, accused of diverting $6 million in taxpaxer money to fund an airport hangar that would house a campaign donor's corporate jet. The $6 million allegedly came out of the state's education fund because the hangar was to be located at Northwest Florida State College. Sansom had accepted a six-figure job at the school the same day he was sworn in as speaker.
Sansom has since resigned from the House. He has pled not guilty and is awaiting trial. His lawyers rejected a plea deal in July 2010 and filed a motion to remove the State Attorney prosecuting the case. The motion was denied.
Jim Black, now 75, served 22 years in the North Carolina General Assembly and tied the record for longest tenure as speaker of the state's lower chamber at nearly eight years. But scandal ended his chance to break the record. When a group of chiropractors offered the Mecklenburg County Democrat $25,000 while their professional organization had legislation pending in the House, Black didn't say no. Black resigned from the state legislature in 2007, one day before pleading guilty to public corruption.
Black was sentenced to five years in federal prison. He was released earlier this month in order to finish his sentence in a halfway house or under house arrest.
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Utah legislative leaders had a tumultuous 2010. In January, Senate Majority Leader Sheldon Killpack was arrested on suspicion of driving under the influence. Killpack, a 41-year-old Republican, was driving home from a political fundraiser with a former state representative. He failed a field sobriety test and refused a breathalyzer. Killpack's father had been killed by a drunk driver when Killpack was young, and the state legislator had sponsored a 2009 Senate law that would allow the seizure of vehicles from repeated drunken drivers. Killpack resigned the day after news of his DUI broke.
Two months later, Speaker of the House Kevin Garn, 55, shocked the legislature by admitting he shared a naked dip in a hot tub with a 15-year-old girl more than 25 years earlier. Garn, a Republican, maintained that there was no sexual contact, but he did pay the woman $150,000 to stay quiet about the incident during a 2000 political run. A few days after his confession, Garn resigned from the Utah House.
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