Former D.C. Council Chair Kwame Brown (right) and attorney Fred Cooke outside U.S. District Court in June

Lots of action for the Brown family, today. Former D.C. Council Chair Kwame Brown and his brother Che, that is. In two different statements, U.S. Attorney for D.C. Ron Machen had news for the two, some good, some bad.

First, Kwame. Machen said that he had wrapped up his investigation into the former chairman’s 2008 campaign, but also added that the D.C. Board of Elections could probably continue digging for discrepancies:

We do not plan to bring any additional criminal charges related to the 2008 Kwame Brown campaign.

The closure of our criminal investigation should not be interpreted as a clean bill of health for the 2008 Kwame Brown campaign. The criminal law is not a panacea for addressing all breaches of the public trust. Conduct that does not warrant criminal prosecution may nevertheless be illegal and subject to civil penalties. More importantly, misconduct by our leaders should be heavily scrutinized by the public, which should expect its public officials not only to govern with integrity but also to operate their election campaigns in an ethical manner. The completion of our investigation paves the way for the D.C. Board of Elections to resume public proceedings on the civil complaint filed against the Kwame Brown campaign last year.

In an earlier statement, Machen’s office informed that Che had pleaded guilty to one county of bank fraud:

According to a statement of offense signed by the government as well as the defendant, Brown fell several months behind on his monthly mortgage in 2009. GMAC Mortgage LLC, a mortgage lending and servicing business, informed him that the mortgage was in default. GMAC also sent a letter to Brown in June 2009 that advised him that he should consider whether he was eligible for a loan modification that would make his monthly mortgage payment more affordable.

From September 2009 through September 2010, Brown schemed to defraud GMAC by submitting documents that made it appear that he had received $35,000 in income that he, in fact, had never received. Based on those and other representations, Brown was deemed qualified for the mortgage modification, which ultimately reduced his payments by $717.44 a month, to $1,499.

It bears remembering that Kwame pleaded guilty to bank fraud himself earlier this year, and that Che stands in the middle of the investigation into Kwame’s 2008 campaign. Last year a D.C. audit found that $239,000 of Kwame’s campaign money went to a consulting firm run by—you guessed it—his brother.