Ford takes combative stance on federal prosecution
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“They’re the ones who are corrupt. They’re the villains,” Ford said Wednesday after pleading innocent to federal bribery and extortion charges.
Ford has weathered many a struggle during the past three decades — from minor brushes with the police and dustups with ex-wives to nearly constant sniping from pesky critics who simply don’t like his self-confident airs.
But this time, he’s got real trouble. The FBI and the Justice Department are trying to send him to prison.
Ford’s reaction?
“These are accusations that have been brought on by people in government who are corrupt — people in government who have lied about everything,” Ford said. “They’re the ones who spent taxpayers’ money doing all this stuff.”
“All this stuff” was setting up a fake company, E-Cycle Management, and spreading around a load money to see if any lawmakers reached for some of it.
Ford and four other current or former state legislators are charged with taking E-Cycle’s payoffs to back a proposed law that would give the company an edge over business competitors.
Ford is accused of taking $55,000 in bribes.
The E-Cycle indictments were made public May 26, and two days later, Ford resigned from the Senate, where he had spent 31 years.
For months Ford was the focus of a legislative debate over public ethics, but he says he resigned because the Senate decided its members can no longer work as paid consultants for businesses with state contracts.
He denied wrongdoing and told other lawmakers in a letter that people in glass houses shouldn’t throw stones. Some lawmakers took that as a threat. Ford said it was just an observation.
Ford vowed to fight the criminal charges and expose what he called corruption behind the E-Cycle investigation.
“They’re the wicked ones, not us. And we’ll show that in a court of law,” he said to a pack of reporters outside the federal courthouse in downtown Memphis.
Two others charged in the investigation, Sen. Kathryn Bowers, a fellow Memphis Democrat, and Barry Myers, described as a “bag man” in the indictments, also entered pleas of innocent Wednesday.
They had little to say.
“My comment this morning is I know that I have two people with me,” Bowers said, “and that’s my attorney and the Lord.”
But Ford was less restrained, though he refused to talk about the government’s evidence. That evidence, the FBI says, includes numerous video and audio tapes of Ford taking bribes.
Ford accused authorities of going after lawmakers opposed to the state’s plan for reworking its expanded Medicaid program called TennCare, which is financed mostly with federal money.
TennCare provides medical coverage for the poor and uninsured. Ford represented one of Memphis’ poorest neighborhoods and has long offered himself as a champion of the oppressed, even though his homes are not in the district he represents.
He also noted that his nephew, U.S. Rep. Harold Ford Jr., D-Tenn., is in the 2006 race for the U.S. Senate.
“Why did they make these arrests the day after Harold Jr. announced for the U.S. Senate?” Ford said. “Why did they make these arrests … when the government is disallowing almost 300,000 enrollees from the TennCare rolls?”
The indictments say nothing about TennCare.
Congressman Ford, who has said he knows little about his uncle’s legal troubles, contends the indictments will not hinder the Senate campaign. The younger Ford has never been accused of legal wrongdoing.
For years, John Ford and the congressman’s father, Harold Ford Sr., led one of the most active political organizations in Memphis history. Ford Sr. became Tennessee’s first black member of Congress in 1974 and held his House seat for 22 years, six of those while under federal indictment.
He was acquitted of bank fraud charges at the second of two trials in 1993. Those trials stirred racial tensions across Memphis, a predominantly black city, with critics claiming federal prosecutors were out to crush the Fords.
Authorities say the “Tennessee Waltz” sting began because of reports of corruption in the state Legislature.
Agents and confidential informants portrayed themselves as E-Cycle representatives wanting to buy used computer equipment from state and local governments.
News reports and courtroom testimony have shown that E-Cycle talked with numerous lawmakers, giving some cash campaign contributions, as well as local officials in Memphis and Hamilton County. Authorities decline to say if other indictments are expected.
At earlier hearings for John Ford, prosecutors played video and audio clips they say show he took a bribe and threatened a government witness. Ford’s lawyer says the clips are from much longer recordings that would tell a different story in their entirety.
“What you’ve seen is just a piece of something,” Ford said.
Also charged are former Democratic Sen. Roscoe Dixon of Memphis, Sen. Ward Crutchfield, D-Chattanooga, Rep. Chris Newton, R-Cleveland, and Charles Love, a Chattanooga lobbyist.