You could have a full-time blog just following public corruption charges in New Jersey and Alabama. The scam in Alabama is through secondary education.
Feb 1, 2008 - The Birmingham News headline is accurate except when it calls the corrution in the past tense and that any part of it is new. New information about nepotism again demonstrates how corruption flourished in Alabama's two-year college system
When the communication director for the two-year colleges was hired by former Chancellor Roy Johnson (who was fired in 2006 and recently pleaded guilty), Amanda Vaughan was asked ( "forced " she says) to hire the niece of school board member Ella Bell as assistant communications director. The niece was unqualified but was paid $38,000 a year. Three other state school board members also had relatives hired into the system after being elected
(State school board member Sandra Ray denies that her son, daughter and son-in law were hired because of Roy Johnson, saying that the president of Shelton hired them.)
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State Representative arrested this week
On Thursday, State Rep. Sue Schmitz, 63, was arrested after being indicted on federal charges of taking $177,251 in pay from a program affiliated with Alabama's two-year colleges yet doing virtually no work. U.S. Justice Department Press Release (dated Jan 31, 2008)
She was the latest in a string of state officials swept up in a joint federal-state investigation of the Alabama Department of Postsecondary Education. The present Chancellor Bradley Byrne fired Schmitz in 2006 and she has been battling the firing every since, claiming she falls under protections of the Fair Dismissal Act. In all, eight people have either pleaded guilty or been convicted by jurors in the probe.
Former Chancellor Roy Johnson was indicted on 15 counts and has pleaded guilty.
U.S. Justice Department Plea Agreement (dated Jan 17, 2008)
U.S. Justice Department press release on cooperation. (dated Jan 24, 2008)
(The document on cooperation is shorter and makes for easier reading.)
The Birmington-News has a whole series on Two-Year Corruption that, oddly enough, ends in April 2007.
Former Alabama Governor in prison
An article in a Dutch online publication thinks Don Siegelman, former governor of the state of Alabama who was convicted of bribery and is serving seven years, is a political prisoner. Siegelman still has a page at the National Governors Association that is more succinct.
After leaving office, Governor Siegelman was convicted on federal charges of bribery, conspiracy, and mail fraud linked in part to his appointment of HealthSouth CEO Richard Scrushy to a state commission that regulated Scrushy's company. In June 2007, Governor Siegelman was sentenced to a prison term of more than seven years, followed by three years' probation, as well as to pay significant financial restitution and fines, and to perform 500 hours of community service.As for Scrushy, HealthSouth removed him as CEO and sold the HealthSouth building in the aftermath of the a $2.6 billion accounting fraud that you probably never heard of either.
Bill and Hillary Clinton are campaigning in Alabama this weekend.
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