Martin Austermuhle
It looks like a long-running federal investigation into D.C. Council Chair Kwame Brown is bearing fruit—according to the Post, he’s expected to be indicted as early as today for fraud:
The charges will be filed in the District’s federal court in a “criminal information,” a document that can only be filed with the defendant’s consent and signals a plea deal is near, the officials said. Brown did not immediately return phone calls. His attorney, Frederick D. Cooke Jr., did not respond to numerous phone calls and emails Wednesday. A spokesman for the U.S. Attorney’s office, Bill Miller, declined to comment.
The officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity because they are not authorized to speak publicly, said that Cooke and prosecutors have been in discussions about a potential plea in the case during the last few weeks. The most serious charges appear to be linked to a mortgage Brown obtained in 2006 on his four-bedroom Hillcrest home and not directly tied to his 2008 campaign for an at-large city council seat.
In essence, Brown overvalued his home when he applied for a credit card in 2006, saying that his $357,930 home was actually worth $850,000. In 2010, it was reported that Brown had been sued by three credit card companies for not paying close to $700,000 in debt; last week the City Paper reported that his wife had also been sued for not paying off her credit card.
That the possible charges are not linked to his 2008 council campaign—in which he was accused of steering hundreds of thousands worth of campaign contributions to his brother and father—may mean that Brown could keep his seat; yesterday he insisted that he was not going to resign. (The provision of a new ethics law that would ban officials convicted of felonies while in office from remaining in their seats isn’t yet in effect, as it has to be approved by voters in November.) That being said, part of the deal he’s likely to agree to with the feds may well force him to resign, as was the case with former Ward 5 councilmember Harry Thomas, Jr.
UPDATE, 1:10 p.m.: Well, the City Paper is now reporting that Brown may well resign after all. WUSA9’s Bruce Johnson tweets the same.
UPDATE, 2:20 p.m.: Brown is being charged with one felony count of bank fraud, according to court documents.
