Post by Critique on Jan 1, 2007 3:30:52 GMT -5
2006-12-27
By Jared Allen
NASHVILLE, TENNESSEE – The year 2006 will be one that many will always remember – and many more can only hope to forget – as scores of public officials were taken down in public corruption scandals from Memphis to Chattanooga.
And at the tale end of the year, Nashville has seen its own share of public corruption cases broken by a U.S. Attorney's Office that has changed drastically in recent years.
The most notable Tennessee case, of course, was the joint FBI-TBI sting operation Tennessee Waltz, where in 2005 state officials, including five current and former legislators, were arrested for participating in a set-up bribery scheme to push legislation on behalf of a face company, E-Cycle Management.
Operation Tennessee Waltz led to the arrest of state Senators Kathryn Bowers, John Ford and Roscoe Dixon – all of Memphis – Ward Crutchfield of Chattanooga and Rep. Chris Newton of Benton.
Also caught up and arrested in the sting were a Hamilton County school board member and county commissioner, as well as a Shelby County commissioner and former county administrator.
But there were others charges with federal public corruption offenses, some here in Nashville.
Last week, Ford was indicted again – this time out of the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Nashville – for allegedly profiteering off of the steering of TennCare contracts toward companies he consulted for.
The very same week, the Nashville U.S. Attorney, Craig Morford, joined Metro Police Chief Ronal Serpas to announce the indictment of Ernest B. Cecil, a Metro narcotics detective, for allegedly assisting his nephew run a cocaine operation in Nashville.
That indictment followed a January federal indictment against Cecil’s alleged partner in crime, Metro Officer Charles Williams, and a May indictment against Memphis Police officers Terrance Harris and Ted Williams, both of whom were also charged with drug-related crimes.
But the spate of bad news has meant, especially in Nashville, that law enforcement is enjoying success at cracking down on public corruption.
That is a change from years ago – when Tennessee Waltz was just being organized – when federal officials had to run the operation out of the Memphis U.S. Attorney’s Office, even though it was targeted at the legislature in Nashville.
But thanks to the reform work of former U.S. Attorney Jim Vines, who left office two months ago to return to the private sector, the Middle Tennessee U.S. Attorney’s Office is joining the ranks of its sister offices.
Now that work is bearing fruit.
At the same time, though, many local officials say Morford deserves his share of the credit for ensuring that numerous investigations never missed a beat.
And as Tennessee is now learning, much of the last five years worth of legwork was aimed at catching corrupt public officials.
“The work that Jim Vines and [Assistant U.S. Attorney] Zach Fardon started here, it’s some of the most important work that we do because it’s extremely important that everyone knows as we’ve said here today that no one is above the law, including the people who make the law and including the people who enforce the law,” Morford said last week after announcing the indictment against Cecil.
“In some ways, these are the most important crimes we can investigate and prosecute because if we don’t do these, it affects the integrity of the system and it affects everything else that we do,” Morford added.
Serpas said that in the three years he has been at the helm of the Metro Police Department, he’s seen the U.S. Attorney’s Office grow into an able partner at combating corruption.
“This is no slight on Mr. Vines, but in the four weeks Mr. Morford has been here, of the three huge things that were bothering me personally, two of the three have been knocked out already,” Serpas said. “Once Mr. Morford got on board, he moved quickly to bring us to where we are today, and I’m very, very appreciative of that.”
In an interview last week, Vines said he did not believe Morford – who is best known as the U.S. attorney who cleaned up Youngstown, Ohio, which had been known for decades as the most corrupt city in America – was brought to Tennessee to fight corruption.
But as 2006 showed, there is plenty of corruption in the Volunteer State to fight.
Two years ago, before Tennessee Waltz even began, Tennessee was ranked as the 12th most corrupt state in the country, according to the Harvard Institute of Economic Research, having endured 275 corruption convictions between 1990 and 2002.
www.nashvillecitypaper.com/index.cfm?section_id=9&screen=news&news_id=53816
By Jared Allen
NASHVILLE, TENNESSEE – The year 2006 will be one that many will always remember – and many more can only hope to forget – as scores of public officials were taken down in public corruption scandals from Memphis to Chattanooga.
And at the tale end of the year, Nashville has seen its own share of public corruption cases broken by a U.S. Attorney's Office that has changed drastically in recent years.
The most notable Tennessee case, of course, was the joint FBI-TBI sting operation Tennessee Waltz, where in 2005 state officials, including five current and former legislators, were arrested for participating in a set-up bribery scheme to push legislation on behalf of a face company, E-Cycle Management.
Operation Tennessee Waltz led to the arrest of state Senators Kathryn Bowers, John Ford and Roscoe Dixon – all of Memphis – Ward Crutchfield of Chattanooga and Rep. Chris Newton of Benton.
Also caught up and arrested in the sting were a Hamilton County school board member and county commissioner, as well as a Shelby County commissioner and former county administrator.
But there were others charges with federal public corruption offenses, some here in Nashville.
Last week, Ford was indicted again – this time out of the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Nashville – for allegedly profiteering off of the steering of TennCare contracts toward companies he consulted for.
The very same week, the Nashville U.S. Attorney, Craig Morford, joined Metro Police Chief Ronal Serpas to announce the indictment of Ernest B. Cecil, a Metro narcotics detective, for allegedly assisting his nephew run a cocaine operation in Nashville.
That indictment followed a January federal indictment against Cecil’s alleged partner in crime, Metro Officer Charles Williams, and a May indictment against Memphis Police officers Terrance Harris and Ted Williams, both of whom were also charged with drug-related crimes.
But the spate of bad news has meant, especially in Nashville, that law enforcement is enjoying success at cracking down on public corruption.
That is a change from years ago – when Tennessee Waltz was just being organized – when federal officials had to run the operation out of the Memphis U.S. Attorney’s Office, even though it was targeted at the legislature in Nashville.
But thanks to the reform work of former U.S. Attorney Jim Vines, who left office two months ago to return to the private sector, the Middle Tennessee U.S. Attorney’s Office is joining the ranks of its sister offices.
Now that work is bearing fruit.
At the same time, though, many local officials say Morford deserves his share of the credit for ensuring that numerous investigations never missed a beat.
And as Tennessee is now learning, much of the last five years worth of legwork was aimed at catching corrupt public officials.
“The work that Jim Vines and [Assistant U.S. Attorney] Zach Fardon started here, it’s some of the most important work that we do because it’s extremely important that everyone knows as we’ve said here today that no one is above the law, including the people who make the law and including the people who enforce the law,” Morford said last week after announcing the indictment against Cecil.
“In some ways, these are the most important crimes we can investigate and prosecute because if we don’t do these, it affects the integrity of the system and it affects everything else that we do,” Morford added.
Serpas said that in the three years he has been at the helm of the Metro Police Department, he’s seen the U.S. Attorney’s Office grow into an able partner at combating corruption.
“This is no slight on Mr. Vines, but in the four weeks Mr. Morford has been here, of the three huge things that were bothering me personally, two of the three have been knocked out already,” Serpas said. “Once Mr. Morford got on board, he moved quickly to bring us to where we are today, and I’m very, very appreciative of that.”
In an interview last week, Vines said he did not believe Morford – who is best known as the U.S. attorney who cleaned up Youngstown, Ohio, which had been known for decades as the most corrupt city in America – was brought to Tennessee to fight corruption.
But as 2006 showed, there is plenty of corruption in the Volunteer State to fight.
Two years ago, before Tennessee Waltz even began, Tennessee was ranked as the 12th most corrupt state in the country, according to the Harvard Institute of Economic Research, having endured 275 corruption convictions between 1990 and 2002.
www.nashvillecitypaper.com/index.cfm?section_id=9&screen=news&news_id=53816