repeatedly,surreptitiously, accepted envelopes stuffed with cash from a
developer, and then spent most of the money?"
No, Mr. Salo, you've got this quite scrambled. A man named Carlson was heard to
brag in a local bar that he was the one who set up Dean Zimmermann
deliberately. It was a one-shot deal--not repeated.
Zimmermann was not noted as the brightest bulb in the chandelier, but he
was--and is--noted for being absent-minded and somewhat foggy on details.
Zimmermann also spent two years in federal prison, whereupon he has paid his
debt to society. He also made restitution for his mistake, as per the terms of
his sentence. The figures put forward were maybe $5,000.00, though it could
have been less. Carlson got nothing from the city council in return for his
money.
Brian Herron, the second of the three cited, made a mistake in the throes of
the death of his mother-in-law. Selwin Ortega set him up for the FBI when he
insisted that Herron take money to cover his mother-in-law's funeral. Herron
was also forced by the FBI to wear a wire, follow a script, and try to get
Sabri to tumble to bribery, which Sabri did. Shortly before all that, Sabri
made a trip to Jordan. I maintain that xenophobia at the FBI and their
generally poor and deserved bad reputation was the impetus for the whole
complicated scenario. I would also suggest that the point of the FBI's exercise
of power was to get into Sabri's business to see if he was in league with
various Arab terrorist cells. Apparently, from the paltry charges levied, the
FBI found zilch. Herron was charged with accepting $10,000 from Ortega. Neither
Ortega nor Sabri got anything from the city council as a result. Ortega
disappeared from Minneapolis shortly after the events.
I consider myself a close friend of Brian Herron who is a righteous man, who
admitted his mistake, did the time, and has moved on with an admirable life.
One does have to make the distinction between a vicious career criminal and a
person who makes a mistake, even a politician who makes a mistake, and accepts
the consequences.
Also at work during that time was the Republican Party's aim to break the DFL
stronghold in Minnesota. Part of that skullduggery was to taint the DFL in
Minneapolis. As we have observed during Nixon's administration and subsequently
seen in the national news, the GOP is not above misuse of various agencies of
the federal government in order to gain and keep ascendency.
I don't know Joe Biernat, so say nothing about the case against him.
If two out of three cases cited by Mr. Salo involved very little money, if the
miscreants did the time, made restitution (as they did), then it is time for
everyone to move on. I am not saying that the mistakes did not happen, but I am
saying that two out of three were mistakes, not deliberate actions to subvert
the law. None of the three rose to the level where all the sturm and drang they
generated was warranted.
So, yes, Mr. Salo, it is time to stop mentioning these cases as examples of
dirty politics as they did not affect outcomes of deliberations, the bribes did
not net the bribers any gains. We have seen much worse, much more damaging
examples of such both before and after these cases. One need only cite Illinois
politics in any year during the 20th or 21st centuries as examples.