Mose Jefferson

Mose Oliver Jefferson (August 28, 1942 – May 12, 2011) was a member of the New Orleans family that includes his younger brother, former U.S. Representative William J. Jefferson. On 21 August 2009, Mose Jefferson was convicted on four felony counts of bribery.

Mose Jefferson left his native Lake Providence, Louisiana, to join his older sister Betty Jefferson in Chicago, Illinois, where he attended Marshall High School but dropped out to join the U.S. Air Force in 1959. After being honorably discharged and returning to civilian life, he was convicted of a $450 robbery and served 9 months in Stateville Correctional Center, being released in 1967. He then became a Democratic Party field lieutenant with the political organization of Bob Shaw and his brother Bill Shaw, the latter of whom served in the Illinois Senate from 1982 to 2002.

On July 22, 2009 — during the 16-indictments trial of Mose Jefferson's brother, Congressman William J. Jefferson, before U.S. judge T. S. Ellis III — lead prosecutor Mark Lytle presented a chart which showed

On August 5, 2009, William J. Jefferson was convicted in the Virginia court on 11 of the 16 felony counts. Four days later, on August 9, in an article starting on the front page and extending for almost the entirety of another page, Laura Maggi analyzed Mose Jefferson's imputed connection with the criminal behaviors on which William J. Jefferson had been convicted.

In 2009, while other members of the Jefferson family were facing indictment or trial on various corruption charges, Mose Jefferson faced two trials. Originally a racketeering trial was to begin on August 3, 2009, followed by a bribery trial on August 10. On July 28, 2009, the sequence changed, the bribery trial remaining on August 10, 2009 and the racketeering trial moving to January 25, 2010.

In the bribery allegations Mose Jefferson was accused of paying Orleans Parish School Board president Ellenese Brooks-Simms $140,000 in exchange for her support of adopting a software-based teaching system sold by Mose Jefferson. Brooks-Simms accepted the money but, on getting caught, entered into a plea-bargain to testify (along with two other witnesses) against Mose Jefferson, including cooperating with investigators in recording certain conversations she had with Mose Jefferson. According to CBS News, the software sale was just part of a set of schemes wherein Brooks-Simms steered $14 million in sales toward a company which paid Mose Jefferson $913,000 in commissions.

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