Nigerian says Jefferson faced arrest

• By GERARD SHIELDS
• Advocate Washington bureau
• Published: Jun 26, 2009 - Page: 12A

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WASHINGTON — The sentence in the spring 2004 letter to the president of Nigeria couldn’t be any more straightforward.

“I have been careful to avoid conflicts and shady dealings,” wrote then-U.S. Rep. William Jefferson.

A Nigerian businessman told the jury in Jefferson’s bribery trial Thursday that an American partnership the New Orleans Democrat was pushing in that country deteriorated to the point where he had to whisk Jefferson out of Nigeria on a pre-dawn plane.

“We were told he was going to be arrested,” Dumebi Kachikwu said.

The part-owner of Net Link Digital Television testified for a second straight day. Jefferson introduced a Kentucky firm, iGate, to the Nigerians in an eventual agreement to create the African equivalent of DirectTV, Kachikwu said.

Kachikwu told the jury on Wednesday that Jefferson asked him for a bribe of $5 for every television converter box the Nigerian company sold.

Kachikwu estimated that he could sell up to 2 million boxes, netting Jefferson up to $10 million.

Jefferson has pleaded innocent to 16 public corruption charges including bribery, conspiracy, racketeering and money laundering. Government prosecutors allege that he used his congressional influence and office to push African projects in return for payments to himself of family members.

Jefferson’s attorneys contend he was acting as a private businessman and committed no “official acts” for the projects such as appropriating money, voting or introducing legislation.

Under cross examination by a Jefferson attorney, Kachikwu acknowledged that he had first used the word “commission” to describe Jefferson’s $5 per box payment to an FBI agent, lending itself to Jefferson’s businessman defense.

“You didn’t tell him it was a bribe because you thought it was a commission,” Jefferson attorney Amy Jackson said.

The Nigeria native said he meant bribe when talking about the commission, citing the corrupt reputation of his country.

“Not calling it a bribe didn’t mean that I didn’t know what a shakedown or bribe was,” Kachikwu said.