Former D.C. Mayor Vincent C. Gray will not face charges in a long-running corruption investigation into his successful 2010 campaign, federal prosecutors said Wednesday, ending a probe that uncovered years of financial malfeasance in city campaigns and resulted in a dozen criminal convictions.
The federal investigation, which uncovered a $660,000 “slush fund” of illegal donations dedicated to unseating Mayor Adrian M. Fenty, netted several of Mr. Gray’s closest aides and associates throughout its nearly five-year length, cast a shadow over his one-term administration and contributed to Mr. Gray’s own defeat in his re-election bid last year.
“I look forward to getting on with the next chapter of my life, which will no doubt be dedicated to service,” Mr. Gray, 73, said Wednesday in an official statement. He did not say whether he plans to re-enter politics.
D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser, who bested Mr. Gray in the District’s Democratic primary last year, noted that seven former Gray associates were convicted in the federal probe, despite U.S. Attorney Channing D. Phillips’ conclusion “that justice has been secured” with no charges against her former rival.
“It is not my job to question [Mr. Phillips’] actions but to continue to do the job that the residents elected me to do: expand opportunity to more D.C. residents. And that’s what we do — not just today but every day,” Ms. Bowser said Wednesday in a terse official statement.
Mr. Phillips, who became the District’s U.S. attorney in October, inherited the Gray investigation. The U.S. attorney’s office said Wednesday that it has asked judges to begin setting dates for sentencing seven people who have pleaded guilty in the investigation but have not been sentenced.
“In every criminal trial, the government bears the burden of proving a defendant’s guilt beyond a reasonable doubt,” Mr. Phillips’ office said in a news release. “In this investigation, based on a thorough review of the available evidence and applicable law, the U.S. Attorney’s Office has concluded that the admissible evidence is likely insufficient to obtain and sustain a criminal conviction against any other individuals related to the federal and local political campaigns.”
Federal prosecutors said Mr. Gray knew firsthand about the illicit effort that funneled hundreds of thousands of dollars to his 2010 campaign and that he personally sought the illegal cash from D.C. businessman and megadonor Jeffrey E. Thompson, who pleaded guilty to felony conspiracy charges.
Mr. Gray said Thompson was lying to cut a deal with prosecutors in early 2014, and federal prosecutors indicated Wednesday that they did not have enough to charge the former mayor with a crime.
The scandal began with bizarre accusations from a minor 2010 mayoral candidate, Sulaimon Brown, who said he had received secret payments to bash Mr. Fenty in exchange for a job in the Gray administration.
Mr. Brown was fired for poor performance and his behavior, prompting questions about what really happened during the campaign and whether Mr. Gray tended to reward campaign aides and their relatives with jobs in his administration.
Meanwhile, the federal probe uncovered an elaborate network of straw donors and unreported campaign cash. It resulted in a dozen convictions, including:
⦁ Thompson, who admitted to illegally funneling more than $3.3 million in donations to political campaigns, including Mr. Gray’s and Hillary Clinton’s 2008 bid for president.
⦁ Eugenia C. Harris, a D.C. businesswoman who conspired to hide the sources of illegal campaign donations.
⦁ Vernon Hawkins, a Gray campaign aide who lied to federal investigators about the Gray campaign.
⦁ Howard L. Brooks, a campaign consultant who also lied to investigators.
Throughout the probe, Mr. Gray maintained his innocence, and many city leaders pleaded with U.S. Attorney Ronald C. Machen Jr. to either charge him or close the investigation.
Chuck Thies, who ran Mr. Gray’s 2014 re-election campaign, greeted the news Wednesday as vindication of the former mayor but said the yearslong criminal investigation ultimately hurt the District and its residents.
“It’s a great tragedy that the voters were duped,” Mr. Thies said. “[Federal prosecutors] destroyed the re-election of a sitting mayor.
“If someone doesn’t look at this as a case study for what a prosecutor shouldn’t do, then the second great tragedy is that no lesson was learned,” he said.
But Joseph DiGenova, a former U.S. attorney for the District for five years in the 1980s, said blame lies with Mr. Gray and his cohorts, a dozen of whom pleaded guilty to various federal and municipal charges.
“The citizens should be upset at the former mayor, not the U.S. attorney. They’re the ones who set up the illegal campaign contributions and corrupted the election,” Mr. DiGenova said.
Peter Zeidenberg, a former federal prosecutor, said he thought Mr. Gray would be formally charged after the U.S. attorney’s office unofficially accused him of wrongdoing. He said the prosecutors “oversold the investigation.”
D.C. Council member Mary Cheh, Ward 3 Democrat, said the government was “extremely unethical” in how it treated Mr. Gray.
⦁ This article is based in part on wire service reports.
• Tom Howell Jr. can be reached at thowell@washingtontimes.com.
• Ryan M. McDermott can be reached at rmcdermott@washingtontimes.com.
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