Brooks story is distressingly old and tawdry one
Think about how much better a narrative the Tyrone Brooks story could have been if he'd just lived it in reverse.
There have been lots of good stories like that. People start out on the wrong path, then straighten their lives out to become model citizens and leaders and philanthropists -- models of success who have risen above even the most daunting of obstacles, including their own potentially disastrous early choices.
The career of former state Rep. Tyrone Brooks, D-Atlanta, has taken the opposite trajectory. This story is equally familiar -- political corruption and the abuse of power and influence are hardly novelties -- but it's a tale of disillusionment and betrayal rather than inspiration.
A sentencing hearing began Monday in an Atlanta federal court for Brooks, charged with defrauding the Internal Revenue Service and major donors of more than a million dollars they thought they were giving to literacy, anti-violence, anti-poverty and other humanitarian programs. Brooks pleaded guilty in April to one count of filing a false tax document and entered no contest pleas to five mail and wire fraud charges, after resigning in disgrace from the House seat he had held for more than 30 years.
Testimony is expected to be completed today, with sentencing to follow. Federal prosecutors are seeking a two-year prison term; Brooks' attorneys are seeking probation on the basis of his long record of public service.
The indictment against Brooks charged that he sought some $1 million in donations from individual and corporate donors for a literacy program to be administered by the Georgia Association of Black Elected Officials (GABEO) and Universal Humanities, Brooks' own tax-exempt foundation, which a Tuesday report in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution called a "sham charity."
The FBI took notice when a bank reported "unusual transactions" between Universal Humanities and Brooks' personal account -- namely, large corporate donations coming into the former and being transferred within days to the latter. He was also found to have been moving money from the GABEO fund into his own account. FBI Special Agent Christy Parker testified that there was no evidence any of the money was ever used in any projects like those for which it was solicited.
Among the almost inexplicable aspects of this case is how mundane, even banal, were some of the uses to which Brooks put the pilfered money. This isn't a tale of gold bathroom fixtures or luxurious private jets; there's no secret Swiss bank account or villa on the Amalfi coast. Rather, Brooks used some of the money for his dry cleaning, utility bills and cable, his wife's credit card bill and his ex-wife's power bill.
Even the prosecution found the whole episode regrettable: "It's a disappointing day for us," attorney Kurt Erskine told the court. "But no one's good works give him license to steal from the very people he promised to help."
This story was originally published November 3, 2015 at 4:08 PM with the headline "Brooks story is distressingly old and tawdry one."