Charles Rangel in a b-boy stance before his day in court 11/15/2010.

Yesterday, when New York Congressman Charles Rangel's (ran-hell) corruption trial began, Charlie walked out of his "own" trial. What a scofflaw? He claimed he didn't have a lawyer because he doesn't have any money, he couldn't represent himself, he's been in government almost 50 years, and continued to whine. What a shame of a man copping the lame pleas "he doesn't have money"? At $200K per annum, plus countless benefits? Yet, the average person in Manhattan has to suffice on $20,000 a year, with nothing extra but the highest rent and tax rates in the nation?

Well, today despite all his crocodile tears yesterday, Rangel was found guilty on 11 of 13 counts of violating "House Ethics Rules". Technically, they didn't find him guilty of corruption, instead they found him guilty of shabby bookkeeping. And Charles Rangel heads the U.S. Congress "Ways and Means Committee"?
This man can't handle his own finances, yet he's expect to oversee federal expenditures; To approve or reject bills using his discretion?

With all that we know about his real estate holdings in DR, and the failure to pay taxes on them; Can anyone expect this 'federal freeloader' to continue to live off the backs of working people? He served in Korea in 1950, and from then on I believe he's mooched his way on the government's tab reliving his exploits on "Pork Chop Hill". Well, it's time to get off the people's backs. At least 40 years of living on the government dole, and he wants more free stuff.

What did he expect to get a public defender?

I say give Goodtime Charley his walking papers. Enough of McGruff! Have him walk back to Coop City, or Sugar Hill; Or, whereever he lives on any given Tuesday..... Rangel you're out of here!

Why'd they have to wait after the mid-term election for this?

What do you say? Cibaoyork?

16 November 2010 Last updated at 13:17 ET

Congressman Charles Rangel guilty of ethics violations

Charles Rangel Mr Rangel had been accused of 13 counts of engaging in financial and fundraising misconduct


An eight-member House ethics committee has found Democratic Representative Charles Rangel of New York guilty on 11 counts of breaking House rules.

The panel will make a recommendation to the House of Representatives on appropriate punishment for Mr Rangel following a hearing.

The 80-year-old had been accused of 13 counts of engaging in financial and fundraising misconduct.

He is a former committee chairman with 40 years' service in Congress.

The panel reached its decision after a second day of closed-door discussions. But the congressman was not present when the verdict was announced.

The senior New York congressman walked out of proceedings on Monday in protest at the panel's refusal to postpone the hearing while he found a new lawyer.

Possible punishment options the committee may consider include a House vote deploring Mr Rangel's conduct, a fine and denial of privileges.

"We have tried to act with fairness led only by the facts and the law, and I believe that we have accomplished that mission,'' said Democratic Representative Zoe Lofgren of California, who chairs the ethics committee.
Soliciting money

The panel found that Mr Rangel had used House of Representatives headed paper and congressional staff to solicit money for a New York college centre named in his honour.

The group also found Mr Rangel had failed to disclose at least $600,000 (£378,000) in assets and income in a series of inaccurate reports to Congress.

The congressman was also found guilty of improperly using a rent-controlled residential apartment as a campaign office and failure to report rental income to the Internal Revenue Service from letting out a house in the Dominican Republic.

But the panel could not reach a conclusion on one count concerning whether Mr Rangel had inappropriately accepted gifts. It also combined two charges surrounding the congressman's misuse of congressional stationary into one count.

Mr Rangel was first elected to Congress in 1970 from a heavily Democratic district in New York City's Harlem district.

Despite the charges against him, he won re-election on 2 November with 80% of the vote.

He stepped down as chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee, which handles tax legislation, amid the ethics allegations in March.

Good-bye Charlie. Also good-bye to a fellow Dominican resident.
Why didn't he sell his luxury villa in the Casa de Campo to pay for the lawyers, Oh wait, he forgot he owned it.

Oye Gringo,

If we are lucky we'll see the Dandy of Harlem go bye, bye. Yet, this pseudo-legitimate political bureaucrat wanna be Nicky Barnes, may get away with just a slap on the wrist.
Hey, can you believe they gave him two more years? He won another election.
Even when opposing Adam Clayton Powell's son, another Harlem Icon. They can't make this stuff up.
This is why it's been said that people get the government they deserve...
Beside this they might brag that "They cleaned up Harlem". I question if they have when riff-raff like Charley the Pimp is allowed to sell his bootleg lies on 125 st. Have they really cleaned it up when we have King Dope on a Rope selling his dreams still on Capitol Hill?

*Dope = What made Nicky Barnes rich and famous...

Charles Rangel guilty of ethics violations: What happens to him now?

Despite his conviction on ethics violations by a jury of his peers, Charles Rangel will likely not be forced out of Congress. But his legacy and clout have been diminished, which is no small thing.

*

Rep. Charles Rangel (D) of New York awaits the House Adjudicatory subcommittee on Capitol Hill in Washington on Monday. On Tuesday, Rangel was convicted of ethics violations. REUTERS//Files


By Peter Grier, Staff writer / November 16, 2010

Charles Rangel is a legend in New York politics. The Democratic lawmaker has represented Harlem in Congress for more than 40 years. He was a founding member of the Congressional Black Caucus and served on the House Judiciary Committee when it was weighing the impeachment of Richard Nixon in 1974. Until recently, he was chairman of Ways and Means, perhaps the most powerful congressional committee of all.
Skip to next paragraph
Recent posts

Now he stands convicted of 11 House ethics violations by a jury of his peers. What’s going to happen to him next?

The short answer to this question is that he faces the equivalent of a sentencing hearing. The full ethics committee will meet to decide an appropriate punishment. All signs point to that being a letter of reprimand or censure. The ethics panel almost certainly will not call for his expulsion from the House.

Members have taken the drastic action of kicking out one of their own only a handful of times in US history – most often for disloyalty to the US government or violation of criminal law.

Some of Congressman Rangel’s political opponents are calling upon him to resign. On Tuesday the conservative think tank Americans for Limited Government issued a press release that said, in part, “Rangel must go.”

Rangel has indicated that he believes the verdict unfair, however, and he won’t go of his volition. And Harlem voters have already shown that the violations make little difference to their decision as to whether to reelect him. Rangel got 80 percent of the vote in the recent midterm election after beating back a number of challengers in the Democratic primary.

So in one sense, Rangel’s future is not at stake. He’ll still have his job and most of the perks that come with being a senior member of the House.

But the long answer to the question of what’s going to happen to him is that his political power will be greatly diminished and his legacy tarnished, probably irretrievably.

“If the full committee and later the full House reprimand him, as is likely, Mr. Rangel will emerge with his reputation stained but his seat safe,” said Bob Edgar, chairman of the citizen advocacy group Common Cause, in a Tuesday statement.

Ethics charges led Rangel to resign his post on Ways and Means, for instance. With a stroke of a pen he thus diminished his own political clout. It’s true that in the next Congress he would not have been chairman anyway, since Democrats lost their majority. But being the ranking minority member of the powerful tax-writing panel is still much better than languishing as a simple back-bencher.

Rangel himself reacted bitterly to his conviction.

“How can anyone have confidence in the decision of the ethics subcommittee when I was deprived of due process rights, right to counsel, and was not even in the room?” Rangel said in a written statement.

Rangel walked out of his trial on Monday, saying that he needed more time to raise money for his defense and hire new lawyers, after his previous team of attorneys withdrew a few weeks ago. The ethics panel proceeded anyway, noting that as early as 2008 Rangel had been informed of his right to establish a defense legal fund to pay counsel.

The panel, composed of four Democrats and four Republicans, found that among other things Rangel had improperly used congressional resources to solicit donations to the Charles Rangel Center for Public Policy at City College of New York. He had also solicited donations from businesses with interests before the Ways and Means Committee, leaving the impression that money could influence official actions.

He was also convicted of failing to list at least $600,000 in assets in a series of wealth disclosure forms, and of failing to report as income cash earned by renting out his Dominican Republic beach villa.

people get the government they deserve...



New York takes the prize...

The Governor is blind,
The City's Mayor is Bloomingdale, lame stream media tycoon billionaire extraordinarie - the Rothschild's man on the scene post 9-11.
Charles "Don Corner-o-lexington-e" Rangel "represents" Harlem.

What a dilemma?

He's off with a wink and a nod, y'all!

He's out of there all right, yeah, scott free!

What I'd tell you?

The blind, the billionaire, and Charley "Scott Free" are running this town; OOps! Running Congress! Running the courts. I'm tellin' yo':That fella has some good friends in high places, boss.
Birds of a feather, CYA, scratch each other's backs. "It's all part of the plan" - The Joker.

Instead of all the rest of the logical measures to "handle" a case of corruption of this magnitude, the benevolent magistrates choose to 'censure' Old Charley the A. J. Lester's salesman.
Bad boy, Charley. Now, don't do that again, now! You hear? Next time I'll put a hurt on you, now run along and play with the other chillun.

He forgot the pinky ring on porpoise.