Whipped Cream Difficulties

I haven’t been covering the corruption trial of former Texas congressman Steve Stockman as well as I could have. Not because of my own political sympathies (though I’m sure there are people who won’t believe that), but simply because of flat-out being busy three nights a week and having a series of full weekends.

Anyway, the verdict is in: guilty on 23 out of 24 counts.

Stockman was charged with “masterminding a wide-ranging fraud scheme that diverted $1.25 million in charitable donations from wealthy conservative philanthropists to cover personal expenses and campaign debts”. Specifically, he was convicted of mail and wire fraud, the ever popular “conspiracy”, “making false statements to the Federal Elections Commission”, and money laundering. The acquittal was on a single count of wire fraud.

Prosecutors presented a meticulously documented case, featuring flow charts and canceled checks, to illustrate how the two-time Republican lawmaker funneled charitable donations through a series of sham nonprofit organizations and shell bank accounts to spend on an array of personal expenses that included his brother’s homemade Advent books, a dolphin watching trip and an amateur spy operation that trailed a perceived GOP rival around the statehouse in Austin.

Two of his aides, Jason Posey and Thomas Dodd, took plea bargains and rolled on Stockman.

Posey testified that he and the former congressman knew they were breaking the law by concealing the source of the funds. But Stockman instructed him to push forward with his plans to spend charitable money on hotel rooms, plane flights and burner phones for secret conversations, and he complied.

I’m sorry, but the fact that they bought burner phones fills me with delight.

Stockman could get “a maximum of 20 years in prison on each of the fraud charges alone” but we all know that’s unlikely to happen, right?