Rep. Jeff Fortenberry (R-NE) was found guilty on Thursday of charges that he lied to federal investigators over a scheme to funnel illegal foreign contributions to his 2016 campaign.
A Los Angeles federal jury convicted Fortenberry, 61, on all three felony charges he faced—one count of scheming to falsify and conceal material facts and two counts of making false statements to federal agents—after less than three hours of deliberation, the Associated Press reported.
Prosecutors contended that Fortenberry, the first sitting member of Congress to stand trial in 21 years, knew that $30,200 in illegal donations to his campaign came from a Nigerian billionaire of Lebanese descent that the congressman had met more than once.
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The government’s case centers around a 2018 phone call that the congressman took with an FBI informant, Elias Ayoub, who told Fortenberry the funds “probably” stemmed from the billionaire, Gilbert Chagoury.
Fortenberry then lied about the source of the money in two separate interviews with FBI agents in 2019, prosecutors said.
The nine-term Republican has repeatedly denied any guilt in the matter, with his defense team arguing that the congressman had been “confused” rather than outright lying to the FBI. They also attempted to chalk the issue up to a misunderstanding based primarily on bad cell reception.
The federal agents involved in the case, Team Fortenberry said, had also been unfairly targeting him, and were also tainted by bigotry. In a November court filing, attorneys said that lead FBI agent Todd Carter’s alleged “anti-Muslim, anti-Arab bias” had prejudiced him against the folksy Nebraska congressman, who is both white and Catholic.
On Wednesday, one of the defendant’s Democratic colleagues, Rep. Anna Eshoo (CA), told jurors she believed Fortenberry to be “honest” and “honorable.” Evidently, it wasn’t enough.
“Today’s conviction highlights the FBI’s commitment to holding elected officials accountable,” Kristi Johnson, the assistant director in charge of the FBI’s Los Angeles field office said in a statement issue by the Department of Justice. “The verdict emphasizes the importance of being truthful to law enforcement and demonstrates the government’s dedication to keeping the nation’s interests free from foreign influence through illegal campaign contributions.”
U.S. District Judge Stanley Blumenfeld, Jr., said on Thursday Fortenberry would be allowed to remain free until sentencing on June 28, as he wasn’t seen as a flight risk. Each of the three charges he was convicted of carries a maximum sentence of five years.
Read it at KETV
