Washington – Lawyers for former House Majority Leader Tom DeLay, R-Texas, disclosed Monday that the powerful politician rebuffed a Texas prosecutor’s suggestion that he plead guilty to a misdemeanor election law violation.
The suggestion was part of an exchange that occurred between lawyers before DeLay was indicted on felony money-laundering charges by a Texas grand jury.
In a series of new motions and court pleadings filed as DeLay nears his Friday arraignment at the Travis County courthouse in Austin, Texas, his lawyers also asked the court to sever DeLay’s forthcoming trial from that of his two co-defendants, political aides James Ellis and John Colyandro, so that DeLay’s innocence or guilt can be swiftly resolved.
In addition, lead attorney Dick DeGuerin and his two co-counsels filed separate motions seeking to quash both counts of the Oct. 3 money-laundering indictment against DeLay, citing multiple reasons why the transactions were not actually a violation of Texas law. They said, for example, that the law covered the “money laundering of funds” such as coins or currency and that the money transfers cited in the indictment involved “checks” that were not “funds.”
In the indictment, DeLay, Ellis, and Colyandro were charged both with money laundering and conspiracy to commit money laundering. The accusation grew out of a 2002 transfer of $190,000 collected by a DeLay-organized group and the payment several weeks later of $190,000 by the party to selected state candidates in Texas.
