Congressman with frozen assets heads for the cooler.

Congressman Jefferson, 59, whose constituency covers much of New Orleans, the nattily dressed, Harvard-educated congressman, was the first black elected to Congress in Louisiana since the civil war, last year he was was criticised for using a National Guard escort to retrieve possessions from his home after Hurricane Katrina. Apparently after spending an hour in his house he emerged with . "with a laptop computer, three suitcases, and a box about the size of a small refrigerator" which he took away.

In the past few months, two people have pleaded guilty to bribing the eight-term congressman to promote iGate Inc., a Kentucky-based high-tech company that sought broadband business in Africa owned by Vernon L. Jackson. On May 9th a search warrant executed Aug. 3 at the Potomac home of Jennifer Douglas, a wife of Nigerian Vice President Atiku became known.

In January, Brett Pfeffer, a former Jefferson aide, who was looking for investments for Mody, pleaded guilty to bribing Jefferson. He was sentenced to 8 years in prison on Friday 27th May 2006 by U.S. District Judge T.S. Ellis III in Alexandria, Virginia..

Mody, the court document indicates, "was defrauded out of $3.5 million by persons connected to the case," She is a well known , vivaceous, blonde and wealthy Virginia businesswoman and philanthropist with an investment vehicle W2 mentioned in the case. (Pic may or may not be Lori Mody .. tasty lady)

After meeting Lori Mody, with whom he was secretly dealing, to promote high-tech ventures in Cameroon, Ghana and Nigeria at a hotel in Virginia . Miss Mody who was wearing an FBI wire handed Congressman Jefferson a briefcase containing US$100,000 in marked notes

US$90,000 in $100 bills of this marked money ended up in plastic sandwich boxes in his freezer.... maybe the same one he collected from his NOLA home ?

About 15 FBI agents, wearing suits, entered Jefferson’s office in the Rayburn House Office Building about 7:15 p.m. Saturday 25th May 2006 and left about 1 p.m. yesterday on the trail of at least 7 bribery cases involving Jefferson, the first time that federal officials had raided a congressman's headquarters which a lot of pompous lawmakers got excited about ... the Executive was attacking the immunity of Congress etc., That it happily diverted attention from Rove, De Lay, Abramoff, Safavian, Libby, Randy Cunningham, Hookergate, Plamegate, the Haditha massacre warrants the careful examination of Miss Lori Mody and her contacts within the Republican Party .. or maybe the lady just objected to losing US$3.5 Mn in this tangled tale.

Ghanian Diplomatic gossip says she was suckered .... but she was not evidently a dumb blonde.