FBI snitch: Tenn. senator threatened me

FBI snitch: Tenn. senator threatened me

	Published : Thu, 19 Apr 2007 14:15 By : Agencies Print this Story

MEMPHIS, Tenn. (AP) - An FBI informant testified Wednesday that an influential former state senator at the center of a public corruption investigation threatened to kill him after growing suspicious of him.

'He said he'd shoot me dead and tell my wife I ran off with another woman,' informant Tim Willis said at the federal trial of former Sen. John Ford.

Ford, once one of Tennessee's most powerful state lawmakers, is on trial on charges of extortion, bribery and threatening a federal witness. He is one of five current or former state lawmakers charged with taking bribes in a statewide investigation code-named Tennessee Waltz.

Willis, a felon and former political activist in Memphis, was a lead Tennessee Waltz informant.

Ford is accused of taking $55,000 in bribes from a fake FBI company called E-Cycle Management that supposedly wanted to change state law for a business advantage over competitors.

Willis, who was playing the role of a public relations specialist for E-Cycle, said he was called to Ford's office in Memphis in February 2005 when Ford, who was then a senator, began getting suspicious of the company.

On a secretly recorded tape played for the jury, Ford asked Willis whether he or other E-Cycle representatives were working for the FBI.

'If you are, just tell me. I got a gun,' Ford said.

Willis became an informant to avoid facing charges of lying to a federal grand jury during a previous investigation of contract fraud at the juvenile court in Memphis. He has a conviction for federal credit card fraud in Mississippi.

The FBI used Willis to introduce undercover agents to state and local officials from Memphis, where he had worked in several political campaigns.

Also on Wednesday, an undercover FBI agent testified that lying was part of his job as he investigated Ford. Ford's lawyer, Michael Scholl, repeatedly asked agent L.C. McNiel whether he lied in portraying himself to Ford and others as a successful music producer and executive for E-Cycle.

McNiel was the lead agent dealing with Ford. He met with Ford often for more than a year and pretended to befriend him.

Prosecutors have played clips from dozens of secretly recorded audio and video tapes on which Ford promised to help E-Cycle or could be seen taking stacks of cash from McNiel. Undercover tapes show Ford trusted McNiel and even offered to share a girlfriend with him, saying on one recording, 'What's mine is yours.'

Ford, a part-time lawmaker and full-time business consultant, thought he was drawing legitimate payments for his legislative advice, according to his lawyer.

On one of two trips to Miami during which Ford and McNiel partied together, they stopped off at the Florida home of the senator's brother, former U.S. Rep. Harold Ford Sr. of Memphis.

John Ford jokes with his brother and McNiel that E-Cycle was not paying him enough.

'Hey look, y'all have to increase my consulting fee to about $30,000 a month,' John Ford said.

McNiel has testified that E-Cycle paid Ford $5,000 a month to write and sponsor the company's proposed legislation.

Ford, 64, is one of five current or former state lawmakers charged with taking bribes from agents posing as company executives. The Memphis Democrat spent 31 years in the Legislature and resigned in May 2005 shortly after his indictment on the E-Cycle charges.

He also faces unrelated federal charges in Nashville on accusations of taking $800,000 in improper payments from state contractors.

Overall, the Tennessee Waltz investigation has led to indictments against 11 defendants, including several local officials in Memphis and Chattanooga.

One other lawmaker, former Sen. Roscoe Dixon, D-Memphis, has been to trial. He was convicted in November and sentenced to five years in prison.

Former Rep. Chris Newton, R-Cleveland, pleaded guilty to bribery and served a nine-month sentence. Sen. Ward Crutchfield, D-Chattanooga, and former Sen. Kathryn Bowers, D-Memphis, are awaiting trials.