William J. Jefferson corruption case

The corruption case against then Louisiana representative William J. Jefferson started on a suspicion of bribery. The FBI raided his Congressional offices in May 2006, but he was re-elected later that year. On June 4, 2007, a federal grand jury indicted Jefferson on sixteen charges related to corruption. Jefferson was defeated by Republican Joseph Cao on December 6, 2008, being the most senior Democrat to lose re-election that year. In 2009 he was tried in Virginia on corruption charges. On August 5, 2009, he was found guilty of 11 of the 16 corruption counts. Jefferson was sentenced to 13 years on November 13, 2009, the longest sentence ever handed down to a congressman for bribery.

The investigation began in mid-2005, after an investor alleged $400,000 in bribes were paid through a company maintained in the name of Jefferson's spouse and children. The money came from a tech company named iGate, Inc., of Louisville, Kentucky, and in return, it is alleged, Jefferson would help iGate's business. Jefferson was to persuade the U.S. Army to test iGate's broadband two-way technology and other iGate products; use his efforts to influence high-ranking officials in Nigeria, Ghana, and Cameroon; and meet with personnel of the Export-Import Bank of the United States, in order to facilitate potential financing for iGate business deals in those countries.

On 30 July 2005, Jefferson was videotaped by the FBI receiving $100,000 worth of $100 bills in a leather briefcase at the Ritz-Carlton hotel in Arlington, Virginia. Jefferson told an investor, Lori Mody, who was wearing a wire, that he would need to give Nigerian Vice President Atiku Abubakar $500,000 "as a motivating factor" to make sure they obtained contracts for iGate and Mody's company in Nigeria.

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