October 27, 2006
Morning Roundup: No Jail For Jemal (Probably) Edition
Good morning, Washington. Got Halloween plans? Personally, I'm still trying to come up with a decent last-minute costume idea. My party deadline isn't until tomorrow, fortunately. For those who've got costume parties lined up for tonight, I hope you didn't make any part of your outfit from papier mache — it looks like it's going to be a soggy evening.
Jemal Acquitted Of Most Charges: The verdict is in, and prominent District developer Douglas Jemal has been acquitted of six of the seven charges he faced, the Post reports. The charges focused on alleged bribery of city officials, including the prosecution's star witness, former deputy director of property management Michael Lorusso. Ultimately the jury didn't believe Lorusso's account of gifts of rolexes and humidors full of cash — or at least didn't believe that those gifts came with strings attached. Wire fraud was the sole count on which Jemal was convicted, but it's unlikely to carry a significant sentence.
Md. Running Low On Absentee Ballots: It was about two weeks ago that Maryland placed an unusually large order for ballots, requesting 2-3 times as many as normal. Looks like it's a good thing they did: WJLA is reporting that Governor Ehrlich is concerned about the supply of absentee ballots in various precincts around the state, and has expressed that concern in a letter to elections supervisor Linda Lamone. As you may recall, Lamone is responsible for the decision to stick with Diebold despite widespread problems during the primary election (Diebold's back in the news, incidentally). For her part, Lamone says that most jurisdictions have received the ballots and that the rest will be receiving them shortly.
Va. Bans Smoking In Public Buildings: I've got a couple of friends who occasionally like to recount the novelty of smoking in the stadium at University of Richmond basketball games. I'm not quite sure whether I believe that story, but I definitely won't believe any new ones: WTOP reports that Governor Kaine has just signed an executive order banning smoking in state buildings and colleges.
Briefly Noted: Arizona officials interviewing Malvo about 2002 Tucson shooting... Rooney enters not guilty plea in murder of UVM student from Arlington... Foley revelations came from blogger who worked at HRC (since fired)...
This Day In DCist: One year ago we panned Warren Brown's Food Network debut and talked to Alexander Ovechkin. Two years ago we were talking about Target coming to Columbia Heights and getting ready for the Marine Corps Marathon.
Image posted to DCist Photos by Flickr user andertho (who's been on a tear lately)
|
Paying off that jury must have cost him a fortune. I hope Jemal has enough money left over to pay for that Cheesecake Factory Gardens development in the hip, trendy, vibrant NoMa neighborhood.
One of the funniest aspects about watching old rebroadcasts of NBA games is the fact that there's always this bluey tobacco haze that settles at the top of the arena by the end of the second quarter. Yesteryears ballers were clearly made of sterner stuff to play in THAT.
How convenient (and ironic) that Diebold is a Texas based company.
I didn't think we'd see jury nullification in the Jemal trial. I wonder what courtroom dynamics produced that.
He was CONVICTED of Wire Fraud. I wouldn't do business with him?
James: true. This charge related to the falsification of a document that released some money to Jemal. The defense maintained that this was done to get around a filing technicality, and that Jemal had a rightful claim to the money. I have no idea whether that's true or not, but I doubt it will be hard for Mr. Jemal to spin it into nothing more than an unfortunate peccadillo in the eyes of his peers in the business community.
I'm not thrilled with some of the chain stores that Jemal rents to, but let's remember that these were crack dens before Jemal bought them, and probably still would be if it weren't for him. And he's done a terrific job of preserving the architectural integrity of most of these places. And, frankly, the food and service at Fuddruckers are actually a lot better than the uber-cool local crap we're being served in a lot of places in DC.
Do we really think we'd have cool local businesses with great service, low prices, and terric food/services in those spaces if Jemal hadn't bought them? No. They would either still be crack dens or would have been torn down for yet more ugly-ass office buildings.
Jemal bought in DC when no one else would. Everybody else in town had the opportunity to buy these things when he did. No one else would. He turned around entire neighborhoods, many of which probably would never have developed without his help. He fought a stunning DC government morass for years. True, he probably made payoffs and such in the process. But anyone that thinks this isn't par for the course in DC is fooling themselves. Does that make it right? No. But it's a fact of life in DC, and especially was when Jemal got his start.
Did you guys miss the Drudge headlines about Jim Webb depicting all kinds of wacky sexual situations in his book or are you waiting for the mainstream media to corroborate it?
The story's still trickling out but the little context I've heard makes the accounts seem much better than they did at first blush... especially considering the fact that leading Republicans have included some pretty sordid details in the novels they've written as well.
now the cops can go after the real criminals
Hillman: Why excuse what you term "par for the course"? This type of graft and kickback driven insider-dealing is exactly the type of city planning that DC needs to move away from.
Mark: Actually Jemal is more guilty of bribery than graft. And I'm not condoning it. I'm just saying that anyone that thinks it's not par for the course in DC historically is fooling themselves. It certainly was a decade ago plus when Jemal bought a lot of these places. That doesn't make it right. It just makes it a fact. Especially the insider deal stuff. That's how all of DC used to operate. Of course, it was in the Barry era, when no one with any real vision or cash would touch DC. So we got both heinous graft and bribery, astonishing incompetence, and the end result was still remarkably subpar.
I don't know a lot about Jemal's case, but apparently the city official involved was so obviously corrupt and the city so obviously overlooked it for so long that it's quite possible the jury just said that Jemal was by far the lesser of the two evils.
gmac: didn't seem newsworthy to me. It's not like people have just now discovered that Webb wrote some novels -- this is pretty clearly a last-minute bit of politicking on the part of Allen's campaign, not a legitimate piece of news.
And maybe it's my own prejudices shining through, but criticizing somebody for passages from a work of fiction (and taken without context) seems pretty lame to me. It's just as dumb as going after Lynn Cheney for her novel, or Susan Combs for hers. And from what I've heard, Webb's at least has won praise from Vietnam vets for its verisimilitude.
Right- The employee was guitly of graft (in disposing of public assets in return for favors) and bribery. It seems to me that jemal was guilty of bribery, at least. I'd have preferred to see both get lengthy time. I want the Douglas Development sign removed from view of 941 N Cap, where DCRA and OP employees daily see it from their windows.
I think we're on the same page about DC's past and sometimes present. A number of deals still raise my eyebrows.
Was the Woodies Building a crack den? The bank that became District Chophouse? Jemal didn't buy these vacant or underused properties (and then sit on them for decades) for altruistic reasons. He did it because there was no competition and he knew if he sat it out long enough, the market would dictate a revitalization of those areas. Sure, Gallery Place didn't have a Starbucks, but it did have DC Space, Insect Club, the old 9:30, and A LOT of artist space that is now priced out of anyone's range.
As for "preserving" architecture, if you're referring to the facadectomies where they gut the block, sandblast the stone and brick, and insert ginormous mirrored cube behind the Tunetown facade, seems like they'd be better off just tearing it all down rather than leave the hideous simulacra of a neighborhood.
It amazes me that so many people love to pontificate on subjects they know nothing about. Monkey, both Woodie's and the Chophouse building were empty and being used for nefarious and illegal activities when Douglas acquired them. These were not altruistic acts, but he did take a gamble and many people give him credit as the catalyst that led to the redevelopment of these once blighted areas. Bear in mind, Douglas was not the only developer buying properties in this area and "sitting on them". Douglas was a cheerleader for this once vibrant center of the City that had been ignored and allowed fall into ruin. He convinced other developers and business people to take a risk as well. There was never any guaranty that the gamble would pay off, but, as we all know it did. By the way, there are substantial carrying costs for "sitting on" such vacant buildings: taxes, insurance, basic repairs to keep the building from deteriorating further, security and debt service for the loans used to acquire the properties. Douglas is a hard driving business man, but he donates generously to charity and was the driving force behind saving the historic 6th & I Syanagogue (which would have been turned into a night club were it not for Douglas) and the historic Avalon Theater (it would be high priced condos today if Douglas had not intervened). Additonally, Douglas painstakingly restored both the Chophouse Building and his Chinatown project to their origianl facades (along with several other properties in the City). He even refused an offer many times his acqusition price from another developer who wanted to buy the Chophouse building so he could tear it down and put up a mega office building on that block. If you had done your homework, you would know that Douglas created a black box space for the arts in the Atlantic Building which is the site that was home the original 9:30 Club.
Mark, Douglas was acuitted by a jury of his peers, and therefore, by definition is not guilty of bribery. There were no courtroon antics and the dynamics are that this was a very weak, politically motivated in my opinion, case and the jury saw this. The supposed "victims" of the one count he was convicted of, actually speak very well of and are still doing business with Douglas and neither feel a crime was committed. The judge's sentence, which was the bare minimum under the sentencing guidelines, in my opinion, is a repudiation of the prosecutor's case. I will continue to do business with Douglas because he is a visionary and a man of his word.