Friends, associates testify against Jefferson

• By GERARD SHIELDS
• Advocate Washington bureau
• Published: Jul 6, 2009 - Page: 1A

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ALEXANDRIA, Va. – The bribery trial of former U.S. Rep. William Jefferson has been like a segment of the old television show “This Is Your Life.”

Friends and former associates have to walk around the defense table where the man they knew simply as “Jeff” sits during the proceedings. They go to the witness box and must turn, look and identify their former colleague, who has pleaded innocent to bribery, conspiracy, racketeering and money laundering.

Trial resumes this morning in federal court here.

Those testifying for the prosecution have included Jefferson’s former chief of staff for 11 years, his accountant for 23 years and an AT&T executive who would take trips on the company’s Lear jet with Jefferson’s wife, Andrea.

Jack Swetland, the New Orleans Democrat’s accountant, appeared somber after testifying last week for the prosecution.

“It’s hard,” Swetland said. “He was my friend. I know the whole family.”

Swetland began working with Jefferson in 1982 when Jefferson ran a furniture rental company called Remco. He eventually became treasurer to Jefferson’s campaigns and the personal accountant for Jefferson and about a half-dozen of his family members.

On the stand, Swetland recalled the day that he severed his ties with Jefferson. FBI agents raided Swetland’s office and confiscated Jefferson tax records.

“I can’t be associated with someone like this who is under this suspicion,” Swetland recalled telling Jefferson.

Jefferson’s former chief of staff, Lionel Collins Jr., has known the Harvard-educated lawyer for 40 years. Collins was 15 years old when Jefferson studied in his dad’s New Orleans law office. On the witness stand, Collins recalled how he thought his boss was conducting official business for a Kentucky communications firm, iGate.

Jefferson had meetings with company officials in his congressional office and wrote letters on the company’s behalf on congressional stationery, Collins said. The man who Collins would do anything for, including picking up family members at the airport, told the jury that he didn’t know that Jefferson or his family had a financial interest in iGate.

Prosecutors allege that Jefferson steered money to family members in return for pushing the iGate project in Nigeria. Had Collins known about the arrangement, he would have handled differently planning a trip for the congressman to Nigeria.

“I would have definitely called the ethics office and discussed it with them,” Collins said.