Lawyers for Rep. Jefferson back in court today

13 Jun 2008 // Lawyers for Rep. William Jefferson, D-New Orleans, and the Justice Department will be back in court today before Judge T.S. Ellis III to argue some pretrial motions.

Jefferson wants Ellis to reverse an earlier ruling in which he refused to grant a change of venue for his pending public corruption trial from Virginia to Washington, D.C. The defense attorneys say prosecutors chose Virginia because it has a smaller proportion of African-American jurors to consider the black congressman's case.

Ellis said he found no evidence that the government had manipulated events to hold the trial in Virginia, but Jefferson's lawyers said it's impossible to know that without questioning government prosecutors and reviewing their e-mails and other material.

Jefferson, who faces charges of bribery, racketeering and conspiracy in connection with business deals he was assisting in Africa, also wants the judge to order the Justice Department to use international legal treaties to compel three witnesses, including Atiku Abubakar, the former vice president of Nigeria, to answer questions in legal depositions.

The defense attorneys also want Ellis to allow them to take depositions from Jennifer Abubakar, the former vice president's wife and a citizen of the United States, in Europe where she has agreed to answer questions.

The testimony of the three is important to the defense, Jefferson's lawyers said, because all three have denied they participated or were aware of an alleged scheme in which the congressman was to pass bribes to promote a telecommunications project proposed by a Kentucky firm Jefferson was assisting.

The government has said that there's a problem with depositions taken from abroad, mainly that the testimony would not be subject to U.S. perjury laws. They also said that arranging such depositions could further delay a trial that originally was slated to begin in January and now appears unlikely to begin before the fall elections while an appeal on another Ellis pretrial ruling is heard by a federal appeals court.