Former Rep. Jesse L. Jackson Jr. took part in a conspiracy to misuse approximately $750,000 in campaign funds, according to court papers filed Friday in U.S. District Court in Washington.
The then-congressman purchased a $43,350 gold-plated, men’s Rolex watch with campaign funds, and also bought $9,587.64 in children’s furniture, and had the items sent to his home in the District, according to the documents.
He made direct expenditures from the campaign’s accounts of $57,792.83 for personal expenses, according to court documents. He and a co-conspirator used a campaign credit card to make $582,772.58 of purchases for their own use, according to the papers.
Jackson was charged with conspiracy, making false statements, mail fraud, wire fraud, and criminal forfeiture.
The details of the case against Jackson were part of a document known as a “criminal information,” which cannot be filed without the consent of the defendant and signals that a plea agreement is near.
Jackson’s wife, former Chicago alderman Sandra Stevens Jackson, was charged with filing false income tax returns for calendar years 2006 through 2011, according to a criminal information in her case.
The criminal documents outlined a series of illegal expenditures from his campaign account, including more than a dozen purchases of pop culture artifacts that revealed his place firmly as a child of the 1970s and 1980s:
* $10,150 worth of Bruce Lee memorabilia, including four separate purchases of things associated with the late martial arts film hero;
* $14,200 in random memorabilia for the late Michael Jackson;
* $4,000 for a guitar used by Eddie Van Halen in a Michael Jackson song, presumably the one used in the late singer’s No. 1 hit “Beat It”, in which the guitar rock legend did a cameo appearance;
* $4,600 for a Michael Jackson fedora;
* $2,775 in random Jimi Hendrix memorabilia
When he announced his resignation from the House in mid-November, Jackson signaled that he was in plea negotiations.
“I have made my share of mistakes. I am aware of the ongoing federal investigation into my activities and I am doing my best to address the situation responsibly, cooperate with the investigators,” he wrote in his resignation letter.
Jackson’s plea deal concluded a more than four-year downward spiral in his personal and professional life, one that began shortly after President Obama’s 2008 election and the search to find a successor to Obama in the Senate.
FBI agents arrested then-Gov. Rod Blagojevich (D) and charged him with trying to sell the interim appointment to the Senate seat from Illinois to the highest bidder. Raghuveer Nayak, a fundraiser for Blagojevich and Jackson, told investigators that the congressman instructed him to raise as much as $6 million for the then-governor’s campaign.
While Blagojevich ended up in federal prison in Colorado, the Justice Department never brought charges against Jackson. But the U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia has been investigating allegations that Jackson improperly used thousands of dollars in his campaign fund for personal expenditures.
As the pressure built in the investigation, and his family life imploded, Jackson eventually fled Washington for psychological treatment, abandoning Capitol Hill for several weeks without telling congressional leaders why he was absent. Later in the summer his office announced that he was being treated for depression at the Mayo Clinic, whose doctors issued a more detailed statement in mid-August saying he suffered from bipolar disorder.
Elected to succeed a scandal-ridden lawmaker 17 years ago, Jackson had broad ambitions beyond Chicago’s South Side-based 2nd Congressional District. Mentioned as a potential successor to Obama, Jackson was also touted as a potential Chicago mayor, Illinois governor or possibly even a presidential candidate, fulfilling the legacy of his civil rights leader father, whose 1980s presidential bids were the first credible campaigns by a black politician for the White House.
As the investigations unfolded, Jackson’s family life crumbled. An affair he had with a Washington nightclub hostess became public, something he called “a private and personal matter between me and my wife.” His wife recently resigned as a Chicago alderman amid investigations of her campaign finances, sparking renewed talks that Jackson would settle his own case.
Despite his months-long absence from the District, Jackson won reelection on Nov. 6 with 71 percent of the vote.
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Jesse Jackson Jr. charged with conspiracy, fraud, other counts
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