Jefferson appeals will be argued 2 years after corruption trial conviction
by Bruce Alpert - Times-Picayune (excerpt)

The federal government's case against former Rep. William Jefferson, D-New Orleans, reaches another milestone today with long-delayed oral arguments on his appeal of his 2009 corruption conviction. The arguments, 20 minutes per side, take place more than 6 1/2 years after the government's investigation of Jefferson, a nine-term House member, became public with the simultaneous raids of his Washington and New Orleans homes, as well as his cars and the suburban Maryland home of the then-vice president of Nigeria, whom the government alleged Jefferson was planning to bribe. It was during the raids, just a month before Hurricane Katrina devastated Jefferson's congressional district, that FBI agents found $90,000 in marked bills hidden in the freezer of his D.C. home in what investigators said was part of various schemes by Jefferson to use his influence for businesses in exchange for payments to companies controlled by his family. A three-judge panel will hear arguments from Jefferson's lead appellate attorney, Lawrence Robbins, that errors by the trial judge during his 2009 corruption trial mandate a new trial. That trial ended with the jury finding Jefferson guilty of 11 of the 16 charges filed by the Justice Department.