Word: abscam
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Dates: during 1980-1980
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...jury want to break for the night? At 11 p.m. last Friday, Judge George Pratt put the question to the twelve men and women who had been deliberating for eleven hours on the guilt or innocence of the four defendants in the first trial stemming from ABSCAM, the investigation in which FBI agents, posing as Arabs, tried to bribe Congressmen and other public officials. Back from the jury room came the answer: "No, give us another hour...
...closing arguments, the defense emphasized that the case, which is the first of separate trials of five more Congressmen on ABSCAM charges this month and next, rested chiefly on the testimony of Melvin Weinberg, an admitted swindler who was one of the principals in the undercover operation. Countered Prosecutor Thomas Puccio: "Do you really believe that a U.S. Congressman took $50,000 in an envelope when he really didn't want to do it?" Said Defense Attorney John Duffy: "It's Mel vs. Ozzie. That's what it boils down...
...Weinberg quickly denied it. He then added: "It was a cousin." He admitted he received $3,000 a month from the FBI for his services, plus perquisites like limousines and champagne. He said he had received a $100,000 advance from a publisher for a book about ABSCAM. Weinberg was asked if he had once said in an interview that he was "the world's biggest liar." "Yes," he readily admitted, but at the time he had been, well, lying...
...defense also argues that the FBI violated the defendants' right of due process by manufacturing a crime and then publicizing it with a flood of leaks. Judge Pratt will rule on this argument just before the case goes to the jury. No matter what the verdict, ABSCAM trials of four more Democratic Congressmen will begin in September. In October, Republican Congressman Richard Kelly of Florida will go on trial in Washington. His chief witness will be a psychic who plans to testify that she told Kelly to beware of FBI agents and that is why he decided to conduct...
...ABSCAM it turns out, is not short for "Arab scam," as widely reported. At the request of the American-Arab Relations Committee, Judge George C. Pratt, presiding at the trial, announced that the acronym actually stands for "Abdul scam," after Abdul Enterprises Ltd., the bogus import-export firm that the agents used as their front...