Supreme Court Turns Down Appeal From Former Rep. William Jefferson

The congressman who became known as "Dollar Bill" Jefferson appears to have run out of options in his bid to overturn a 2009 corruption conviction.

The Supreme Court just announced it will not hear an appeal from former Rep. William Jefferson, D-La. So, as The Times-Picayune says:

"Unless Jefferson's lawyers uncover significant abuses by prosecutors, the former congressman's fate now appears certain. The 65-year-old Harvard Law School graduate, who began serving his sentence at the low security Beaumont (Texas) Federal Correctional Institution in May, won't win his release from prison until Aug. 30, 2023."

As we wrote back in 2009:

"Jefferson became infamous and a national punchline after the Federal Bureau of Investigation agents found $90,000 in the freezer section of the refrigerator his Washington, DC-area home."

Jefferson, the Times-Picayune reminds us, was accused:

"Of accepting $450,000 in payments from businesses he was helping with contracts in western Africa. Most of the evidence was secured from taped conversations with a cooperating government witness, Virginia businesswoman Lori Mody.

"It was Mody who, with the FBI shooting video from various angles, handed the then-congressman a briefcase with $100,000 — money Jefferson had said was needed to influence the then vice president of Nigeria on behalf of a telecommunications project Mody helped finance. All but $10,000 was later found in the freezer of his Washington, D.C., home."

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