A US Congressman identified as Jeff Fortenberry is alleged to have resigned for receiving campaign donations from a Nigerian businessman of Lebanese decent.
In 2016, Fortenberry, representing the 1st congressional district of Nebraska took the sum of $30,000 from the Nigerian billionaire, Gilbert Chagoury in contravention of the US federal election law.
U.S. federal law prohibits contributions, donations, expenditures, including independent expenditures, and disbursements solicited, directed, received or made directly or indirectly by or from foreign nationals in connection with any federal, state or local election.
Fortenberry was forced to resign in March after being convicted by the US Central District Court for California. He is awaiting sentencing by June, 2022.
He is quoted assaying that “It has been my honour to serve with you in the United States House of Representatives,” he said in the letter.
“Due to the difficulties of my current circumstances, I can no longer effectively serve.”
As a result of the conviction and resignation, the politicians re-election bid has become hampered.
Findings from a joint criminal investigation carried out by federal authorities showed that Mr Fortenberry received “illegal political campaign contributions.”
The investigative authorities comprised the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and Internal Revenue Service (IRS) in Los Angeles and the United States Attorney’s Office for the Central District of California.
Their findings of the investigations are contained in a court filing detailing the three charges filed against Mr Fortenberry on October 19, 2021.
The court document showed that Mr Chagoury made the $30,000 contribution to Mr Fortenberry’s campaign “using other individuals as conduits, to defendant Jefferey Fortenberry’s 2016 congressional campaign.”
A court document revealed that Mr Chagoury gave the $30,000 in cash to the former congressman through a proxy identified as Toufic Baaklini.
Mr Baaklini then gave the donation ($30,000) in cash to Elias Ayoub, who hosted a political fundraiser in 2016 for Mr Fortenberry, who at the time was unaware of the source of the money.
Mr Ayoub recruited persons to donate to Mr Fortenberry’s campaign and reimbursed them using Mr Chagoury’s cash from Mr Baaklini. Mr Ayoub made campaign contributions totalling $30,200 to Mr Fortenberry’s campaign fund.
However, in 2018, Mr Fortenberry approached Mr Ayoub for another fundraiser. During their conversation, Mr Ayoub informed the former that the donation at the previous fundraiser was from Gilbert Chagoury.
When questioned by law enforcement, Mr Fortenberry denied having knowledge of the donation from Mr Chagoury.
Unknown to Mr Fortenberry, Mr Ayoub was cooperating with law enforcement in conducting a federal criminal investigation into illegal political campaign contributions made by Mr Chagoury using other individuals as conduits, to federal candidates in the U.S.
Mr Fortenberry, 61, argued at his trial that prosecutors knew he did not know about the contribution but directed an informant to feed him the information in a 10-minute call with the intention of trying to prosecute him.
According to the court documents, despite being told by Mr Ayoub about the illegal donations, Mr Fortenberry did not file an amended report with the FEC regarding the 2016 Fundraiser.
He also did not return or otherwise try to disgorge the contributions from the 2016 Fundraiser after learning on the 2018 call with Mr Ayoub that they were illegal contributions. Rather, it was not until after law enforcement interviewed him in July 2019 that he revealed the contributions.
Mr Fortenberry also falsely stated that the individuals who contributed to the 2016 Fundraiser were all publicly disclosed, despite knowing his campaign had never disclosed the names of individuals who were the true sources of the conduit contributions at the 2016 Fundraiser.
His attorneys say that FBI agents used undercover means to interview Fortenberry and indicted him when he struggled to recall details of his conversation.
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