FBI, prosecutor answer racial complaints about Tennessee Waltz
Answering Democratic state Rep. JoAnne Favors’ complaint, including her comment Wednesday that the bribery investigation appears to be an “attack on the Black Caucus,” Assistant U.S. Attorney Tim DiScenza in Memphis said criminal cases follow evidence, not some predetermined route.
Favors, who is not charged in the investigation, said her comment on WGOW-FM radio Tuesday that the investigation appears to be unfairly preying on blacks was based on her observations.
“We do undercover investigations where we have predication,” DiScenza said in a telephone interview. “We have to show we have information that somebody is presently or in the past involved in corrupt activities. Number two, we do not take into account and will never take into account race or political party.”
Memphis FBI office spokesman George Bolds said, “We follow the investigation where it leads. We don’t stop because of other considerations, whether it be gender or race or anything else.”
He said some defendants cooperated with the FBI and “we are taking cooperators where we can find them.”
“We don’t target people based upon race,” Bolds said.
Seven of the nine people charged in the ongoing case are black.
“You can’t say you have conducted a random sampling and the majority of them are black,” Favors said.
She said former state Rep. Chris Newton of Cleveland, the lone Republican lawmaker among the two who are white, was considered expendable by the GOP because he was too friendly to Democrats. Newton, who has resigned his House seat and pleaded guilty, previously said that what he did was “business as usual” in Nashville.
Tennessee Waltz centered on an FBI-concocted company, E-Cycle Management, that was supposedly seeking to buy and resell used government computers. FBI undercover agents — one white and one black — who posed as E-Cycle executives wined and dined officials in Memphis, Nashville and Chattanooga.
Several members of the Tennessee Black Caucus have said that during a retreat in Chattanooga they were treated to dinner by representatives of the sham company.
According to indictments, the case began in June 2003, when Barry Myers of Memphis, who is black and has pleaded guilty to an indictment, said two Memphis lawmakers — then-Sen. Roscoe Dixon and then-Rep. Kathryn Bowers — wanted money to support the legislation. Dixon and Bowers are black and have been indicted.
Bolds said the FBI generally would likely consider the race of undercover agents assigned to an investigation where that would be a factor, such as a white supremacist group.
“In terms of assigning people to do something in an undercover capacity, if there are issues of race there, we are not oblivious,” Bolds said.
Favors said she was glad she questioned the government’s Tennessee Waltz strategy.
“People are saying this all over the state,” she said of the racial accusations. “I hope that is not the case.”