After hearing closing arguments Monday, the jury is deliberating in the fraud trial of former North-Central Florida Congresswoman Corrine Brown.
Jurors must decide whether Brown duped donors and the government when raising money for sham charity One Door for Education.
“When Corrine Brown wanted something, she got it,” said Assistant U.S. Attorney Eric Olshan in the government’s closing arguments.
Olshan once again painted Brown as an expert fundraiser and a megalomaniac with expensive tastes.
He rehashed how Brown inflated her charitable giving on tax returns, failed to disclose extra income and that $37,000 made it from One Door to her account. He also reiterated that $330,000 from the fake charity paid for nine special events for the congresswoman, including a lavish golf tournament and sky box seats for a Beyonce concert.
One Door for Education was originally set up as a scholarship fund to honor the memory of the mother of founder, Carla Wiley. But it soon turned into a vehicle for capturing more than $800,000 to fund Brown’s lifestyle. Multiple times throughout the trial, prosecutors told the court had she not received the regular cash infusions, she would have been thousands of dollars in debt.
Olshan said Friday those who lost the most in the scam were needy children.
“The real victims are all those worthy kids who could have gotten scholarships, who needed a leg up. That’s who she robbed from,” Olshan said.
One Door only provided two scholarships worth $1,200 in its four years of operation.
Outside the courthouse, Brown’s defense lawyer James Smith said her fate is in now in the hands of 12 jurors.
“It’s been an incredibly stressful three weeks for her and we’re just going to go down and try to have some lunch,” he said.
Smith used his closing argument to paint an entirely different picture of the 12-term representative: She was an aging public servant who put too much trust in her chief of staff Ronnie Simmons. Smith told the jury it was Simmons, who had an admitted history of lying and cheating, and was the mastermind behind the grift.
“A betrayal so fundamental, so tragic, that even on the stand she has a tough time comprehending it,” he said.
Smith said although it isn’t “polite to talk about someone’s age,” Brown, 70 , who was in her mid-sixties when the One Door fraud began, relied heavily on her staff, principally Simmons, to help her sort out her chaotic personal life. Brown was just too wrapped up in serving her constituents to give her personal finances, including her taxes, the attention it deserved. That, Smith said, allowed Simmons to take advantage of her.
To convict, the jury must reach unanimous verdicts on 22 individual charges. If convicted of all 22 fraud and conspiracy charges, Brown could be sentenced to 357 years in prison.
Reporter Ryan Benk can be reached at rbenk@wjct.org, 904-358-6319 or on Twitter @RyanMichaelBenk.
