| On Monday, October 12, a federal grand jury began deliberations on corruption charges involving Kevin Ring. Like everyone else involved with Abramoff's money machine for Republican members of Congress, Kevin dutifully professed his innocence. (You do remember Jack Abramoff, right?)
It seems to have worked out. Earlier today, a US District Court Judge said she will declare a mistrial after the jurors of a grand jury declared themselves deadlocked.
Unless you follow progressive blogs, you may not know who Kevin Ring is. Despite being indicted, his name barely made the mainstream news, sort of, about a year and one-half ago. Kevin was a minion of Jack Abramoff's. And, is a good friend of Dennis Rehberg.
Oh, and Kevin gave Denny $2,000.00 in campaign contributions between June 13, 2002 and March 2003.
That just might have been a pay-off for Rehberg's recommendation to a county commission in eastern Montana contract with Mr. Ring to secure money for a project that was never completed.
LITW had a nice post.
But, alas, the burden of proof was not met, again. In fact, the Forbes article referenced above makes an interesting point:
Ring is only the second person implicated in the Abramoff scandal to fight the criminal charges at trial rather than pleading guilty and cutting a deal to cooperate with prosecutors in exchange for the possibility of a reduced sentence. The other was David Safavian, the George W. Bush administration's former chief procurement officer, whose convictions were overturned following a trial in 2006. Safavian was convicted again in a retrial and faces sentencing Friday.
This is pathetic. The single largest scandal of the 21st Century and one conviction.
One!
Looks like Denny caught another break. |
