An ongoing bribery probe in Prince George’s County has ensnared another elected official, as community leaders try to erase the blemish of corruption that has long marred the county’s image.
A federal grand jury has indicted former state Delegate Michael Lynn Vaughn on one count of conspiracy, three counts of wire fraud and four counts of bribery. The 59-year-old Bowie resident faces up to 105 years in prison if convicted on all counts.
In January Mr. Vaughn resigned from the House of Delegates as a Prince George’s County representative.
According to the indictment released Wednesday, from January 2015 through April 2016, Mr. Vaughn conspired with former county liquor board members and local business owners to trade money for “favorable official action.” He was released on bail Wednesday after his initial appearance in federal court in Greenbelt.
The liquor board scandal so far has netted two commissioners, two lawmakers and two business owners.
Prosecutors allege that Mr. Vaughn made deals with Liquor Board Director David Dae Sok Son, Commissioner Anuj Sud and two business owners, Young Jung Paig of Beltsville and Shin Ja Lee of Landover.
Specifically, the indictment says Mr. Vaughn took more than $10,000 in cash payments from Mr. Paig, Mr. Lee and others in exchange for his votes for the Sunday sales bill, which established up to 100 Sunday liquor sales permits in Prince George’s County. The legislation benefited Mr. Paig’s and Mr. Lee’s liquor stores.
The indictment also alleges that from 2012 through 2016, Mr. Vaughn made personal use of campaign donations. He allegedly transferred campaign funds to his personal bank account and made payments to his personal American Express credit card account and to the IRS.
Will Campos, a former Maryland delegate and Prince George’s County Council member, pleaded guilty in January to conspiracy and bribery charges related to the liquor board investigation. He could face up to 10 years in prison.
In 2007 Campos received $1,000 from a county nightclub owner in exchange for favorable testimony before the liquor board. He also took kickbacks from two business owners in exchange for about $325,000 in grant money.
Prince George’s is no stranger to scandal. Recent arrests following allegations of bribery among liquor board commissioners, elected officials and business owners are the latest in a trail of corruption stretching back to the 1960s, when the county’s population boomed as people fled the tumult of the District for the quiet of the suburbs.
Barry Rascovar, a veteran Maryland political reporter and commentator, said the county’s reputation for corruption “is thoroughly known in Annapolis” and has largely had to do with land development.
“Prince George’s has lots of undeveloped land with valuable real estate potential, decades and decades of population growth and cozy relationships between the business community and political leaders,” Mr. Rascovar told The Washington Times. “That’s an ideal scenario for financially profitable quid pro quo arrangements.”
One of the earliest examples in Prince George’s storied past involved the Board of County Commissioners, the precursor of the county council, which was formed in 1970.
Jesse St. Claire Baggett, the board’s chair in the late 1960s, was indicted twice and convicted once for accepting bribes from developers. In 1971 Baggett went to federal prison in Leavenworth, Kansas, for several months for taking a bribe to rezone land in a developer’s favor.
Before the 1970 county council charter, commissioners made zoning decisions with little oversight. According to a 1983 Washington Post story, a critical housing shortage spurred developers to buy farms for cheap, then pressure commissioners to rezone the land for apartments.
Since then, a laundry list of headlines has come out of the county, including on the late Gov. Marvin Mandel, who was sent to prison for nearly two years in 1977 for a bribery conviction involving a race track land deal in Upper Marlboro. A federal judge overturned Mandel’s conviction in 1987.
In 1983 Tommie Broadwater, longtime state senator from Prince George’s, went to federal prison after being convicted of food stamp fraud at a Fairmount Heights supermarket he owned.
In the 1990s, then-county council member Anthony Cicoria was sentenced to 10 years in prison for misappropriating about $64,000 in campaign funds. Cicoria’s sentence was commuted in 1994 by Gov. William Donald Schaefer. According to a 1994 Washington Post story, Cicoria had been on the run for a year before he was captured at an Amtrak station in Florida.
In the 2000s former county executive Jack Johnson and wife Leslie, a council member, bilked developers of more than $1.5 million over eight years. Johnson pleaded guilty to extortion, witness-tampering and evidence-tampering in 2011, and was sentenced to about seven years. He’s expected to be released this summer.
When Johnson was caught, his wife infamously stuffed tens of thousands of dollars in her underwear and attempted to flush at least as much down a toilet. Leslie Johnson spent just over a year in prison.
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