Rep. Steve Brown to plead guilty to conspiracy charge
Brown
JEFFERSON CITY — State Rep. Steve Brown, D-Clayton will plead guilty in federal court today to a single count of conspiracy to obstruct justice, according to his attorney, Art Margulis.
The charge is related to Brown’s work on the 2004 Congressional campaign of Jeff Smith. In that campaign, Smith and 9 other challengers lost to Russ Carnahan, now a U.S. Congressman from the 3rd District. Brown and Smith were involved in the distribution of anonymous fliers criticizing Carnahan, according to an FEC complaint filed by Carnahan in 2004.
The man at the center of that complaint, Milton H. “Skip” Ohlsen, is now in federal custody, having pleaded guilty to fraud and firearms charges. Ohlsen had told investigators that he was close to Brown and Smith.
Federal authorities raided Ohlsen’s apartment in December. Among the items taken were audiotapes produced by Ohlsen, according to a search warrant obtained by the Post-Dispatch. Ohlsen was known to audiotape some of his conversations. Sources close to the investigation indicate those tapes might implicate Brown and Smith.
Smith has told Democrats that he is implicated in the same federal inquiry. The treasurer of that campaign, Nick Adams, has not returned several calls for comment.
See the Post-Dispatch’s most recent coverage of the story, including Ohlsen’s ties to the Clayton bombing, here.
Will he surrender his law license as part of plea?
allow me to save the right-wingers a lot of time and effort here: Dems are evil…they lack “family values”….they don’t “love” America like Republicans do…they are trying to kill old people…they LOVE terrorists…they all get abortions on their lunch-hour…yada yada yada.
I am sure that I missed a few items but feel confident that the ALWAYS self-righteous and morally superior GOP’ers will fill in the blanks.
Town-hall, you would be wise to remember your crazy rant the next time, and it will happen soon, a Republican gets caught doing something illegal.
You can’t swing a dead cat without hitting a crooked politician of either party.
In a way I feel a bit bad for these folks that got caught up in all this, but let this be a lesson to those that might choose to associate with and financially support terrorists like Ohlsen.
Had it not been for folks like Brown, Smith and the other politicians - Milton may have never gotten to the point that he did.
I’m not convinced Steve Brown was a real Democrat in the first place.
Cmon, Brownie boy! You know you can get off easy if you NAME MORE NAMES!
Not one mention in this piece about what party the man represents. I’m embarressed for you.
evil and greed occur in men of all political parties, therefore I ask that we citizens must have time limits on office holders. Office holders must be vetted by the media, the political parties and the FBI. No pensions for elected officials, they pay into social security from their salaries.
Too maney elected officials have gone to prison, for their greed. It is time for the american voter to send a strong message to all office holders-public officials at the next election, ” you work for the public, not for your own agenda, family, political party”. The American voting public needs to vote out of office those who have stayed to long…..clean sweep of congress.
They are all going down.
They must have had the goods on Brown for Margulis to advise him to plead guilty.