Agents set up a fake company to catch influence peddlers
By Marc Perrusquia
Contact
May 27, 2005
The witnesses were actually undercover federal agents, according to indictments unsealed Thursday morning.
The controversial Memphis Democrat was one of seven charged with accepting more than $90,000 to push legislation for E-Cycle Management Inc., a firm with an Internet Web site that claimed offices in Memphis, Atlanta and overseas but that actually was the creation of federal authorities.
Company president "Joe Carson" met with lawmakers to push his agenda, passed out fake business cards, made campaign contributions and even hosted a reception with live music for lawmakers at the Sheraton Nashville Hotel.
Charged along with Ford were two other prominent Memphis Democrats, Sen. Kathryn Bowers and former senator Roscoe Dixon, a longtime lawmaker who resigned this year for a new job as a top aide to Shelby County Mayor AC Wharton.
Dixon resigned from that post Thursday at Wharton's urging.
Bowers this month was elected to Dixon's seat in a special election after serving years in the House.
Also indicted are two East Tennessee legislators, Sen. Ward Crutchfield, D-Chattanooga, and Rep. Chris Newton, R-Cleveland, and two others described as bagmen.
Legislators are paid a base salary of $16,500 a year, and rules allow them to remain in office pending their trials. They are, however, required to give up committee chairmanships when facing criminal charges.
The charges, returned late Wednesday by a federal grand jury in Memphis, were sealed until all defendants were in custody. Ford was arrested by three FBI agents as he stepped off an elevator at his Nashville hotel.
Ford was immediately transported back to Memphis and made no comment as he was led into a courtroom hours later in handcuffs and shackles.
He faces a 10 a.m. bond hearing today when a judge is expected to consider whether Ford -- a 31-year Senate veteran whose influence commanded a $356,000 consulting income in 2003 -- is now indigent and in need of a court-appointed attorney.
Prosecutors said they would attempt to have Ford held without bond.
Believing the hearing was to happen Thursday, prosecutors readied a courtroom to show videotapes.
"He's upset, obviously. He's confused and dismayed,'' said Ford's lawyer, Martin A. Grusin.
The FBI sting, code-named Tennessee Waltz, is the state's biggest public corruption probe since the Rocky Top bingo scandal, and U.S. Atty. Terry Harris left the door open when asked if others may be charged.
"Our citizens should be able to expect (their) government is not for sale,'' Harris said during a press conference broadcast live across the state.
Operation Rocky Top of the late 1980s netted 75 convictions, triggered indictments of four public officials and lobbyists and resulted in the suicides of veteran Rep. Ted Ray Miller (D-Knoxville) and Secretary of State Gentry Crowell.
Harris said the Tennessee Waltz sting came in response to longstanding reports of corruption in the General Assembly. Investigators worked covertly over the past two years and into this spring, even as a public ethics tempest swirled over Ford's financial ties to state contractors.
The fake company approached lawmakers and passed out money in exchange for influence and favorable legislation, indictments say.
The greatest share -- $55,000 in cash -- allegedly went to Ford, who has been in and out of trouble since his first election to the Senate in 1974.
Ford is the focus of a separate grand jury probe exploring lucrative consulting fees received in recent years from state contractors.
"You are talking to the guy that makes the deals,'' Ford told an undercover agent who first approached him in April 2004, according to the indictment.
Ford, 63, placed in handcuffs Thursday morning across from Legislative Plaza in Nashville and transported by federal agents to Memphis, is charged with one count of extortion, one count of stealing from a federally funded program and three counts of witness intimidation.
Ford allegedly threatened to shoot agents on three occasions between February and April.
On March 11, the indictment said, Ford threatened "an FBI agent acting in an undercover capacity,'' saying "if he caught someone trying to set him up he would shoot that person, kill them, so that there would be no witnesses.''
A factor expected to be considered today when an as-yet unscheduled judge considers releasing Ford is his court record that includes firearms charges.
A jury acquitted Ford in 1991 of shooting at a truck driver, and he served a probation term and won diversion after waving a shotgun at utility workers during a confrontation in 1997.
Thursday's arrests, which included apprehensions of Newton, Crutchfield and Bowers, triggered shock waves from one end of Tennessee to the other.
Records show Tennessee Waltz started as a closely held secret and remained so for months.
That secret began to unfold Wednesday when, in a rare move, authorities cleared Judge Jon McCalla's courtroom to receive sealed indictments from a Memphis federal grand jury.
According to those indictments, unsealed Thursday morning, the FBI formed a fake company, E-Cycle Management Inc., in 2003. Ostensibly, E-Cycle was in the business of obtaining and disposing of outdated electronic equipment outside the United States.
Over the next months agents passed out payments in efforts to secure legislation that would make it easier for E-Cycle to obtain equipment from government agencies.
E-Cycle reportedly got a bite as early as June 2003 from defendant Barry Myers, a former Ford campaign worker and ex-employee with the Juvenile Court Clerk's office.
According to an indictment charging him with six counts of extortion and Hobbs Act violations, Myers told undercover agents "he had influence over, collected money for, and was in essence a 'bag man' for certain members of the Tennessee General Assembly.''
Myers also said those lawmakers "could be influenced in sponsoring and voting for certain legislation that would benefit E-Cycle,'' the indictment said.
As part of that conspiracy, the indictment said, Myers introduced E-Cycle representatives to Bowers, then a state representative from Memphis, "who would co-sponsor, and support legislation beneficial to E-Cycle, in exchange for illegal payments of sums of money.''
Together, Myers and Bowers allegedly took $11,500 in bribes.
As E-Cycle pressed Bowers to co-sponsor legislation, she told agents she "would not accept money directly from the E-Cycle representative, but that the money should go through'' Myers, the indictments alleged.
Released on her own recognizance, Bowers said, "Sometimes people may be indicted for something but that doesn't mean they're guilty."
For Myers, this is the second public corruption probe in three years in which he's been named as a bag man, although he wasn't charged in the other case.
Emerging from a grand jury room in 2002, then-County Commission aide Calvin Williams told a reporter that he and Myers passed $1,500 in cash in purported hush money to a woman who had accused a county employee of assaulting her.
Charged in that case were Williams and then-Juvenile Court clerk Shep Wilbun. In a puzzling move, state prosecutors this month dropped the charges as a trial started for Williams, Wilbun and a third defendant.
The E-Cycle agents also approached Dixon, who took $9,500 in bribes with Myers in 2004, according to an indictment.
Dixon, also released Thursday, said after his hearing, "I don't have anything to hide.''
He called the arrests a "dog and pony show,'' saying "the public has to understand that there is politics in this.'' He said his lawyers urged him not to discuss the case in-depth.
Indictments charge that Charles Love, a Hamilton County school board member, took $9,500 in bribes along with Newton, who introduced a bill this session, also sponsored by Ford in the Senate.
The bill, which never passed, would have allowed the state commissioner of general services in consultation with the governor and others to transfer computer and electronic equipment to "local education agencies, without financial consideration.''
It also would have allowed fees to be charged to the state to dispose of equipment, calling for disposals to be made by "a qualified electronic recycling company.''
I have been tagged by Miss Peanut Queen to talk about books. So I will.
A. Total number of books I own:
I’ll have to estimate. Let’s see, 5 tall bookshelves in the computer room, each shelf double-stacked with a row shoved all the way to the back and another row of books in front of them. On one shelf I very carefully tripled-stacked. Closet converted to shelves, all stacked with books (and some 1/18 scale musclecars.) Boxes of books in the floor. More boxes of books in the entryway closet, one of which My Wife accidentally ran a 12” drill bit halfway through while installing the phone line for the computer. This created a lovely round hole through the center of each and every page in the affected books. More books in the bedroom, some under the nightstand, some beside it, some over against the wall next to the TV. More books in the hall where they were never intended to be permanently stored, but you know how that goes. More books in the living room. Should I count My Wife’s books, too? The remaining guest bedroom is filled with her books, several homemade bookshelves, which can hold more books than my cheap store-bought shelves, all triple-stacked, plus more in the floor and more in the bedroom and more in the living room. It’s thousands. Thousands of books. I don’t know how many. I’d have to start measuring the books, take an average, then measure the rooms and work it out that way.
B. The last book I bought:
Naked Happy Girls – a book apparently by a Jewish New York man who gets stoned with various women he meets and takes photos of them naked. And they’re all very happy about it. And there is a Janet Evanovich book on the way that My Wife wanted me to order. Technically that is the last book I bought, but Naked Happy Girls makes for more interesting blogging, don’t you think? I can hear you whispering, “Memphis owns a book called ‘Naked Happy Girls.’ He’s such a perv!”
C. The last book I read:
Oh, this will not be fun. Take your pick here, VB.NET web programming in 21 days, Java 2.0 in 21 days, The Tyranny of Good Intentions, The Death of Right and Wrong, Rapid Development: Taming Wild Software Schedules, and other equally unexciting titles.
D. Five books that mean a lot to me:
1. The Bible – It’s the instructions, man.
2. Just put all of the Tolkein books here, from The Hobbit on to Return of the King
3. The Prince by Machiavelli – More instructions, man.
4. Animal Farm – It’s really, really relevant to America, and especially New York City and San Francisco, today.
5. Dr Fegg’s Nasty Book of Knowledge by Monte Python – I read it when I was young and it was just so funny.
E. 2 major books when I was a kid that I kept on me all the time:
I didn’t carry any books with me all the time. I was a comic book collector and I treated pretty much everything I had like a valuable comic. So my books stayed in the house, with no pages folded and no writing in them. All of my old Tolkein books look like I just bought them, except the pages are yellow.
F. 5 People I want to tag:
I can’t tag 5 people. Or at least I don’t think I can. Everyone is always tagged before I get it. Let’s see what I can do …
Extraordinary Woman – because I should have tagged her last time
Robin - because I've never tagged her before and I want to
Artful Laura – because she makes me laugh, especially when her kids have thrown baby powder all over the kitchen and she’s fuming mad about it.
Retarius – because I want him to come back and start blogging again.
Stephanie D. – because she needs to stop watching the porn and do something constructive. :)
Dotty – because she’s got penises on the brain and I’m trying to distract her.
1. Total volume of music files on my computer?
I hate to poop on this party, but since I’m at work there are 0 megabytes of music files on my computer. Now, if we were to go to my house and check it would be another story.
2. The last CD I bought was?
Either “American Idiot” by Green Day or “I Am Shelby Lynne” by Shelby Lynne. I don’t recall which was last. She was on Leno last night. Green Day was on Saturday Night Live last weekend. Take your pick.
3. Song playing right now:
See, now this is the problem with asking me this while I am at work. Nothing is playing right now. I have on a headset for my phone because I’ve just been on a call about a problem with a very important system that one of our DBAs totally screwed up last night (and won’t admit it.)
4. Five songs I listen to a lot or that mean a lot to me (in no particular order):
Breakaway – Kelly Clarkson
100 Years – 5 for Fighting
Superman – 5 for Fighting
Capricorn Peanut! About Your Sign... Capricorn Peanut is one of the most stable and (mostly) serious of the zodiacal bloggers. These independent, rocklike characters have many sterling qualities. They are normally confident, strong willed and calm, even when their Peanut King comes in with broken teeth. These hardworking, unemotional, shrewd, practical, responsible, persevering, and cautious to the extreme Peanut Persons, are capable of persisting for as long as is necessary to catch a fish while naked. They are reliable workers in almost any profession they undertake, just so long as you leave them alone while they’re reading during lunch and don’t play the fucking drums outside their bedroom window at 3 a.m. They are the major finishers of most projects started by the 'pioneering' signs (they clean up all your shit); with firm stick-to-it-ness they quickly become the backbone of any company they work for.  Capricornian Peanut Queens make of themselves, resourceful, determined managers; setting high standards for themselves and others who fish nude with them or need CPR. They can perform medical miracles when proper tools are not handy with superglue and determination. They strive always for honesty in their criticism of self, even to the point of not recognizing their own hotness. They respect discipline from above and demand it from those beneath them, be they pit bulls or ex-boyfriend’s cats. In their methodical, tough, stubborn, unyielding way, they persist against personal hardship (Pelicans and father’s with brooms), putting their families and/or their work before their own needs and welfare to reach their objectives long after others have given up and fallen by the wayside. They can perform CPR on those who do fall. In fact when practical ability allied with the drive of ambition are required in employees to make a project succeed, Capricornian Peanut Queens are the people to hire. They plan carefully to fulfill their ambitions, which often include becoming wealthy and placing turds in punchbowls, they are economical without meanness (the turd was only a joke), and able to achieve great results with minimum effort and expense. Because of their organizing ability they are able to work on several projects simultaneously. The Peanut King does not count as a project, by the way. 
Some Capricornian Peanut Queens deserve the adjective based on their name - capricious. They can be surprisingly and suddenly witty and subtle for the quiet, reserved individuals they seem to be, and they also have a tendency to run out of things to blog about, but even when blogging that they have nothing to blog about they are entertaining and fascinating to their loyal fans. Another unexpected quality in some Capricornian Peanut Queens is an interest in the occult which persists in spite of their naturally skeptical turn of mind and aversion to dead chicken parts except when fried and served with biscuits and mashed potatoes.  Their intellects are sometimes very subtle. They think profoundly and deeply, thoroughly exploring all possibilities before deciding on a 'safe' alternative. They have good memories and an insatiable yet methodical desire for knowledge. They are rational, logical and clearheaded, have good concentration, delight in debate in which they can show off their cleverness by luring their adversaries into traps and confounding them with logic, even when the adversary is a little intoxicated and just bound and determined to bash their tooth out on the corner of the sink.  In their personal relationships they are often ill-at-ease, if not downright unhappy. They are somewhat self-centered but not excessively so, wary and cautious around people they do not know very well, preferring not to meddle with others and in turn not to allow interference with themselves, thus they tend to attract people who do not understand them, but think they are as cute as Holly Hunter. Casual acquaintances they will treat with diplomacy, tact and, above all, reticence, as a Peanut Queen should. They make few good friends but are intensely loyal to those they do make, and they can become bitter, and powerful enemies if you mess with their pit bulls. They sometimes dislike the opposite sex, blogging long and intricate jokes about their curious traits, and test the waters of affection gingerly before judging the temperature right for marriage to a suitable Peanut King. Once married, however, they are faithful, though inclined to jealousy. Most Capricornian Peanut Queens marry for life, or until they kill him, which is sort of the same thing.  Their occupations can include most professions that have to do with math or money and they are strongly attracted to music. They should not be dentists or nurses. They can be economists, financiers, bankers, speculators, contractors, managers and real estate brokers. They excel as bureaucrats, especially where projects demanding long-term planning and working are concerned, and their skill in debate and love of dialectic make them good politicians. They are excellent teachers, especially as principals of educational establishments where they have the authority to manage and organize without too much intimacy with the staff members. If working with their hands, they can become practical scientists, engineers, farmers and builders. The wit and flippancy which is characteristic of certain Capricornian Peanut Queens may make some turn to entertainment via the blog as a career. 
LIKES
DISLIKES
PROBLEMS THAT MAY ARISE FOR YOU, AND THEIR SOLUTIONS As with all sun signs, we all have unique traits to our personalities. When these traits are suppressed, or unrealized, alcohol and nude fishing-related problems will arise. However, with astrology and professional bullshitting we can examine the problem and assess the proper solution based on the sun sign characteristics. As a Capricornian Peanut Queen, you may see things below that really strike home. Try the solution, you most likely will be amazed at the results. If you find yourself on the receiving end of the negatives below, it is because you are failing to express the positive. PROBLEM: Having people take advantage of you and your good nature. PROBLEM: Having people getting "turned off" of you. PROBLEM: Having people getting "turned on" by a photo of you that you recently posted. PROBLEM: Homeless bums trying to steal money from you. PROBLEM: A Sand Hill Crane flies directly into the side of your truck, smashing your mirror and decapitating himself. 
Some Famous Capricorns That Share Your Sign!
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