William J. Jefferson
| Bill Jefferson | |
|---|---|
 |
|
| Member of the U.S. House of Representatives from Louisiana's 2nd district |
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In office January 3, 1991 – January 3, 2009 |
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| Preceded by | Lindy Boggs |
| Succeeded by | Joseph Cao |
| Member of the Louisiana Senate from the 5th district |
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In office January 1979 – January 1991 |
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| Preceded by | Frederick Eagan |
| Succeeded by | Diana Bajoie |
| Personal details | |
| Born |
William Jennings Jefferson March 14, 1947 Lake Providence, Louisiana, U.S. |
| Political party | Democratic |
| Spouse(s) | Andrea Jefferson |
| Children | Jamila Jalila Jelani Nailah Akilah |
| Alma mater |
Southern University Harvard University Georgetown University |
| Religion | Baptist |
| Military service | |
| Allegiance |
 United States
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| Service/branch |
 United States Army
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| Years of service | 1969–1975 |
| Rank |
 Second Lieutenant
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| Unit | United States Army Reserve |
William Jennings "Bill" Jefferson (born March 14, 1947) is an American former politician and convicted felon from the U.S. state of Louisiana. He served as a member of the U.S. House of Representatives for nine terms from 1991 to 2009 as a member of the Democratic Party. He represented Louisiana's 2nd congressional district, which includes much of the greater New Orleans area. He was Louisiana's first black congressman since the end of Reconstruction.
On November 13, 2009, Jefferson was sentenced to thirteen years in federal prison for bribery after a corruption investigation, the longest sentence ever handed down to a congressman for bribery or any other crime. He began serving that sentence in May 2012 at a Federal Bureau of Prisons facility in Beaumont, Texas.
Jefferson was born in Lake Providence, the parish seat of East Carroll Parish in far northeastern Louisiana, where he and his eight brothers and sisters worked alongside their father – a farmer and a heavy-equipment operator for the United States Army Corps of Engineers. The Jeffersons were among the few African-American families in the area who actually owned their land (as opposed to sharecropping), which gave them a certain degree of respectability in the community. Nonetheless, he grew up in an environment of poverty.
In 1969, Jefferson received a bachelor's degree from historically black Southern University in Baton Rouge, where he had participated in Army ROTC; in 1969 he led a protest against substandard campus facilities and negotiated a resolution of the complaint with then-Governor John J. McKeithen. On graduation from Southern University he was commissioned a second lieutenant in the United States Army and served in a reserve capacity until 1975. In 1972, he earned a Juris Doctor from Harvard Law School. In 1996, he received a LLM in taxation from Georgetown University Law Center in Washington, D.C. In 1972 and 1973 Jefferson began the practice of law, having initially served as a clerk for Judge Alvin Benjamin Rubin of the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Louisiana.
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