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Jesse Jackson Jr. to plead guilty to federal charges - POLITICO.com Print View

Former Rep. Jesse L. Jackson Jr. (D-Ill.) will plead guilty to conspiring with his wife to illegally spend $750,000 in campaign funds on personal expenses, including a $43,000 Rolex watch, fur coats and memorabilia associated with Michael Jackson, Martin Luther King Jr., Malcolm X and Bruce Lee, according to information obtained by POLITICO.

The charges against him may include conspiracy, making false statements, and mail and wire fraud.

(PHOTOS: Jesse Jackson Jr.'s career)

Prosecutors will recommend a prison sentence of between 46 and 57 months for Jackson Jr., as well as a fine of $10,000 to $100,000, and forfeiture of a yet-to-be-determined portion of the misspent $750,000 in campaign funds.

Jackson’s wife, former Chicago Alderman Sandi Jackson, is expected to plead guilty to a tax offense, according to a source close to the investigation. At different times, she has served as her husband’s campaign manager and campaign treasurer. Both Jacksons resigned from office amid the Justice Department’s investigation into their finances.

Lawyers for the Jacksons could not be reached immediately for comment.

If true, the allegations against the Jacksons represent a breathtaking scheme to re-appropriate donors’ money to finance trips and luxuries, pay bills and even send the couple’s children to school. Unlike many scandals that have ensnared elected officials, this brazen tale of personal enrichment doesn’t involve public money.

It’s a story of a Chicago power couple that lost track of the line between campaign cash and personal funds in a spiral of money troubles. The government will allege the Jacksons lied on campaign finance and House financial disclosure forms to cover up the fact that they were using campaign money to build a lifestyle way beyond their means. Federal investigators sank their teeth into the couple, even conducting an apparent sting operation in Aug. 2012. An undercover employee bought two mounted elk heads that Jackson Jr. had bought from a Montana taxidermist using campaign funds.

The $750,000 in misspent campaign funds included thousands of individual transactions that ranged from airplane tickets, booze and cigars to groceries.

The government allegations lay out a scheme in which the Jacksons directly used campaign funds for expenditures and used campaign credit cards to shield some of the transactions and relied on middle men to cover their tracks.

If, as expected, Jackson pleads guilty, he is likely to join a growing list of congressmen who ended up in jail. This includes former Rep. Duke Cunningham (R-Calif.), Bob Ney (R-Ohio), William Jefferson (D-La.), Jim Traficant (I-Ohio), and Frank Ballance (D-N.C.). A number of other politicians were the focus of criminal probes but were never charged.

Jackson, Jr.., who turns 48 next month, was once a high-flying House Democrat. Smart, ambitious, with a famous father and a safe district, Jackson Jr. had considered running for a House Democratic leadership spot or the Senate.

But his career began to unravel in 2008, after then-Sen. Barack Obama was elected president.

Jackson Jr. became caught up the in the scandal surrounding now-imprisoned former Gov. Rod Blagojevich’s (D) attempt to sell Obama’s Senate seat to the highest bidder.

Shortly after Obama’s victory, Jackson pressed Blagojevich about being appointed to that seat. Jackson reportedly directed an associate, Illinois businessman Raghuveer Nayak, to inform Blagojevich that he would raise $6 million for the governor’s reelection campaign in return for the Senate appointment, according to a report by the Office of Congressional Ethics. Jackson vehemently denied the allegation.

Nayak also paid for two round-trip airline tickets for a “social acquaintance” of Jackson’s, a Washington restaurant hostess, to fly to Chicago. In September 2010, Jackson issued a public apology for his interaction with the woman but never explicitly admitted to an extramarital affair.

While Jackson Jr. was never charged in that case, he was dogged by questions over his role in the Blagojevich affair. Nayak was indicted June 20 by the Justice Department on a variety of federal tax and fraud charges. Jackson Jr. already had disappeared from public view by that time. His office later reported that he was being treated for bipolar disorder. Jackson Jr. won reelection in November, although he resigned soon afterward. Jackson’s attorneys acknowledged at that time that he was cooperating with DOJ on a possible plea deal. By last week, Chicago media outlets were reporting that agreement would include “significant jail time” for Jackson Jr.

If Jackson goes to prison, he’ll again follow in the footsteps of his predecessor in the House. In 1994, Democratic Illinois Rep. Mel Reynolds was indicted on charges of having sex with a 16-year-old campaign worker. Although Reynolds won reelection that November despite the scandal, he was convicted the following year of sexual assault, obstruction of justice and solicitation of child pornography. Reynolds resigned Oct. 1, 1995, and Jackson Jr. won the special election to replace him.

Now Reynolds - who was soundly defeated by Jackson Jr. in a 2004 primary - has been publicly defending Jackson Jr., accusing the Justice Department of unfairly pursing its case against the family.