A federal agent specializing in public corruption cases says that an influential Maryland state lawmaker used his public office to benefit a large company that he secretly worked for.
Democrat Senator Ulysses Currie, who chairs the powerful state panel (Senate Budget and Taxation Committee) that directs billions of dollars in spending, voted on legislation favorable to a big supermarket chain while he was on the company’s payroll. Currie also received campaign donations from the supermarket chain for which he did “consulting” work.
The information was revealed in a previously undisclosed affidavit for a search warrant made public by the media this week. In it an FBI special agent writes that Currie, who represents Prince George’s County, voted on numerous bills that positively impacted the grocery industry while receiving money from one of the region’s largest grocery store chains and that he used his influence to specifically benefit the company he worked for (Shoppers Food and Pharmacy).
The affidavit also says that Currie used his influence in other business transactions involving the state of Maryland and Shoppers Food and Pharmacy, not just in official legislative procedures. The FBI agent concludes that Currie has taken part since at least 2003 in a “scheme and artifice to defraud” his constituents by using the prestige and power of his office to pass legislation and influence state business favoring the supermarket chain.
Not surprisingly, Senator Currie didn’t disclose that he worked as a so-called consultant for Shoppers in mandatory General Assembly ethics forms. Sadly, his is just one of several high-profile public corruption cases to hit Maryland in the last few months.
Baltimore Mayor Sheila Dixon is the target of a lengthy investigation into City Hall spending for steering no-bid government contracts to companies that employed her friends and relatives and Governor Martin O’Malley is being investigated for securing nearly $30 million to build a highway interchange to help a major donor’s commercial project.
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Currie
http://www.examiner.com/a-1504769~Currie_deals_private__No_way.html
Editorial
Currie deals private? No way
The Baltimore Examiner Newspaper
2008-07-25
BALTIMORE -
W hat about full dis-closure does Prince George’s Sen. Ulysses Currie not understand? He is no newcomer to elected office. The chair of the powerful Budget and Taxation Committee must know the rules after 21 years in the General Assembly, first as a delegate and since 1995 as a senator.
But despite this experience, he failed to note on ethics forms his employment with Shoppers Food Warehouse and its parent company. An affidavit unsealed earlier this week shows he has exchanged 320 phone conversations with the company since 2004 — or more than once a week to date. We know from the affidavit that “During the time period that Currie received payments from SFW and its parent company SuperValu, Currie voted on a number of bills that impacted, or would have impacted, the grocery industry and therefore, SFW and its parent company SuperValu.”
We still do not know how much the company paid him, because that information was redacted from the forms — in the name of protecting Currie’s “privacy.” That is ironic given that the federal government is investigating him for hiding information that should have been public, and that he certainly felt no qualms about throwing his public influence around. He is a board member of the Capital Area Food Bank, where Shoppers is a major donor and on whose behalf he sponsored a bond bill in the last session giving the nonprofit $500,000 in public money — one of the largest bond appropriations.
Given his involvement with CAFB and the bond bill, we wonder how his affiliation with Shoppers could have gone unnoticed by colleagues, including Del. Melony Ghee Griffith, D-Prince George’s, the House sponsor of the bond bill.
No charges have been filed against Currie. But the affidavit indicates he is being investigated for alleged mail and wire fraud.
At the very least, he deceived his constituents and all Marylanders on whose behalf he serves as Budget and Taxation Committee chairman.
He owes Marylanders the truth, and can start by refiling all his ethics forms going back to 2004. He can also resign his post as committee chairman. He lost his ability to lead when he started to use his power for personal gain.
Examiner
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