by Jack Lee
Corruption charges against Rep. John Doolittle have been dropped. It was disclosed last Friday and we were just made aware of it today. The status of possible charges against his wife have not been disclosed. Doolittle’s former legislative director, Kevin Ring, was ultimately implicated and is scheduled for a retrial next month. The corruption scandal caused Doolittle to resign from office that is now occupied by Rep. Tom McClintock.
Ring went to work as a lobbyist for Abramoff after he left Doolittle’s staff. The original charges against Ring, issued last year, identified Doolittle and his wife as unindicted co-conspirators.
Prosecutors presented evidence including e-mails detailing how Abramoff’s firm provided Washington Redskins and U2 rock band tickets for Doolittle’s staff members, all while seeking legislative help. Prosecutors say Abramoff also arranged for Julie Doolittle to be paid $5,000 a month for event planning work.
“Congressman Doolittle and his staff helped out again and again and again on lots of projects,” federal prosecutor Nathaniel Edmonds told a jury last fall, the trial transcript shows. “Not for projects just in his district, not in California, but for Ring’s clients thousands of miles away.”
Ring’s attorney, Andrew Todd Wise, retorted that Ring was merely a good lobbyist, who while on Doolittle’s staff had been part of a “close-knit group of mainly late-20s, early-30s folks, that developed friendships that lasted after they left.”
Ring’s initial trial resulted in a hung jury.
“They had made up their minds that they were going to get me,” Doolittle said Friday, “but there was no evidence against me.”
Read more: http://www.thenewstribune.com/2010/06/11/1222837/justice-department-case-against.html#ixzz0qt5geNEW