Howard Brooks, Another Gray Campaign Aide, Charged In Federal Probe

Another member D.C. Mayor Vincent Gray's 2010 campaign team has been indicted on a criminal charge, according to court documents. Howard Brooks, who served as a consultant to the Gray campaign, has been charged with one count of making a false statement as the result of an ongoing federal investigation. 

Brooks was believed to be implicated in testimony provided in court yesterday by Thomas Gore, who served as Gray's assistant campaign treasurer in 2010. Gore pleaded guilty May 22 to three counts of campaign finance fraud, and one count of destroying evidence after admitting he destroyed a notebook with campaign finance records. 

Court documents show that Gore and Brooks worked together to use undocumented campaign funds from the Gray campaign to make money order payments to mayoral candidate Sulaimon Brown, who in turn verbally attacked then-Mayor Adrian Fenty on the campaign trail. Brown was reportedly promised a job for his help.

Gore's plea included a reference to another aide involved in the scheme, which campaign finance records indicated to be Brooks.

Gray has long denied any payments to Brown. On Wednesday, he denied knowledge of any payments to Brown, and declined to comment on the latest developments in the cases involving members of his campaign team.

"As I've said for the last 3-4 months, we'll let the investigation play out as well as it should, and then we'll see where we are," said Gray at a press conference shortly after he returned from a conference in Las Vegas.

Suliamon Brown, meanwhile, released a statement today calling on Mayor Gray to resign. The mayor has not been charged with any wrongdoing.