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The FBI videotaped Rep. William Jefferson accepting US$100,000 in cash to allegedly bribe a high-ranking Nigerian official and agents later found the money hidden in his freezer, according to a court document.
ALEXANDRIA, Virginia (AP) - The FBI videotaped Rep. William Jefferson accepting US$100,000 in cash to allegedly bribe a high-ranking Nigerian official and agents later found the money hidden in his freezer, according to a court document.
The FBI revealed Sunday that Jefferson, a Democratic congressman from New Orleans who being investigated for bribery, was videotaped the money in US$100 notes from an FBI informant whose conversations with the lawmaker also were recorded.
At one meeting captured on audiotape, Jefferson chuckles about writing in code to keep secret what the government contends was his corrupt role in getting his children a cut of a communications company's deal for work in Africa.
As Jefferson and the informant passed notes about what percentage the lawmaker's family might receive, the congressman "began laughing and said, 'All these damn notes we're writing to each other as if we're talking, as if the FBI is watching,"' he told the businesswoman, who was wearing an FBI recording device.
Jefferson has not been charged and denies any wrongdoing.