Lawyers open bribery, extortion trial of Maryland Senator Ulysses Currie

[The Northerner]

Starkly different portrayals of Maryland Sen. Ulysses Currie’s relationship with a local grocery chain were presented to jurors on Tuesday as they began weighing federal bribery and extortion charges against the 74-year-old legislator in a federal courtroom in Baltimore.

A prosecutor used her opening statement to walk jurors through a series of instances in which she said Currie (D-Prince George’s) conspired with two corporate executives to provide government favors to Shoppers Food Warehouse for more than five years without disclosing $245,000 in payments.

“This is a case about a politician who took bribes,” Kathleen O. Gavin, an assistant U.S. attorney, told jurors at the outset of her presentation. “He sold his office for almost a quarter of a million dollars.”

Attorneys for Currie and the two executives countered that what unfolded looked nothing like bribery as most people understand it. Currie and Shoppers had signed a consulting contract, the lawyers said. Currie paid state and federal taxes on his income from Shoppers. And his work was hardly a “secret bribery relationship,” a defense lawyer said. Currie appeared in public at store openings across the region.

Read more: http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/dc-politics/lawyers-open-bribery-extortion-trial/2011/09/27/gIQAXjLL3K_story.html

[midnight]

1. K&R

[MADem]

2. What a shame. You've gotta figure when his mother named him Ulysses , she had some high hopes for

him. It doesn't look good for him, though. Unless the jury decides to nullify or he's bought one or two of 'em off, I smell toast.

Oh, how the mighty have fallen.

[Blue_Tires]

3. I knew Currie (professionally) and many other pols when I lived in P.G.

Funny, but not unexpected to see how many of them have been taken away in handcuffs over the years...