Aide: Stockman tried to pin blame on him
GOP lawmaker drew plans for diverting cash, man testifies
After 2½ years dodging federal investigators by fleeing to Egypt, former congressional aide Jason Posey came to the painful realization that his boss, two-time Republican Congressman Steve Stockman, was going to blame him for the elaborate fraud scheme they had orchestrated, he told a federal jury Tuesday.
“He told me, ‘You’re going to take the blame for everything,’ and he was going to run for office,” Posey testified, adding that Stockman promised to look after him after Posey was convicted. “That was when I realized that I had been a complete fool for trusting Mr. Stockman and he never intended to keep his pledge.”
That pledge, according to Posey, was that if their questionable use of charitable donations came to light, Stockman “would come clean about everything” and protect him and another devoted congressional staffer.
Instead, the controversial former GOP lawmaker from Clear Lake maintains his innocence in a 28-count criminal indictment, while former staffers Posey and Thomas Dodd have pleaded guilty. Both former aides are hoping for leniency in sentencing and have provided
pivotal courtroom testimony, backing the government’s case that Stockman orchestrated “a white collar crime spree,” diverting $1.25 million in donations from two topdollar conservative backers to pay off unrelated expenses.
The lawyers estimate the trial, now in its third week, could continue into next week.
Stockman’s legal team insists his spending may not have been prudent or wise but did not amount to fraud. They say Stockman’s donors didn’t care how he spent the money.
Posey, who is free on bail and works as a fry cook in Tupelo, Miss., testified that he had known Stockman since 1996 and worked for him on and off for decades. During Stockman’s successful 2012 campaign for the House and his failed 2014 bid to unseat Texas Republican John Cornyn for Senate, Posey said he helped filter charitable donations to conservative 501c3 nonprofit groups. Posey testified he helped Stockman set up sham charities and associated bank accounts, which Stockman directed him to use to pay off campaign expenses and personal debts.
He wrote checks, set up bank accounts and moved the money, as Stockman told him, into shadowy charities, including one called the Egyptian American Friendship Society and another entitled Life Without Limits, supposedly dedicated to helping people recover from trauma, so the spending would look like it was coming from charitable groups, according to his testimony.
While volunteering, Posey camped out for an extended period with several other campaign workers at an old motorcycle shop in Webster that served as Stockman’s headquarters. Later, he and other Stockman aides lived at a church camp.
Posey told jurors he and the former congressman knew they were breaking the law by concealing the source of the funds. But Stockman instructed him to push forward with his plans to spend charitable money — on hotel rooms, plane flights, burner phones for secret conversations and fake tabloid mailers to constituents — and he complied.
At Stockman’s direction, Posey testified, that he and Dodd wrote checks with charitable funds, donating $15,000 back to Stockman’s fledgling campaign fund.
Both men later agreed to have their parents’ names attached to their donations, after Stockman’s accountant warned their contributions would stand out as “red flags” on the campaign’s federal election filings, since both men worked for Stockman.
The contributions caught the eye of journalists and federal investigators, at which point Stockman and his crew began filing amended campaign reports, witnesses have said.
After Stockman’s 2014 Senate bid eroded, Posey agreed to explore the excongressman’s prospects for a senate run in Alaska. During that brief stint in Alaska, Posey told the jury he got an urgent call from Stockman to drop everything and head back to Texas immediately. Within weeks, Posey had sold his car, put his belongings in storage and decamped to Egypt, a country he had never visited, all at Stockman’s urging.
While abroad, living in an apartment above a Cairo church that he periodically shared with Stockman, Posey testified he continued to make money transfers and traveled to bank branches in Istanbul and Frankfurt to try to keep Stockman’s scheme afloat.
When pressed by Assistant U.S. Attorney Robert Heberle about why he agreed to help in a scheme to divert donations and conceal their activities, Posey said, “He was the boss. I was the employee. I did what he said.”
Posey said he realized last May that Stockman wouldn’t protect him. He agreed to meet with FBI officers in the lobby of a Marriott in Cairo. Soon thereafter, he was flown back to Houston to face criminal charges.