T.J. Cox, a former Democratic congressman from Fresno, is finalizing a plea deal in a sweeping federal case by which he’s accused of marketing campaign contribution fraud and stealing from his personal corporations, his lawyer mentioned Friday.
Cox, 60, beforehand pleaded not responsible to fifteen counts of wire fraud, 11 counts of cash laundering, one depend of economic establishment fraud, and one depend of marketing campaign contribution fraud.
On Might 15, Cox’s lawyer, Mark Coleman, filed papers in U.S. District Courtroom looking for to schedule a change-of-plea listening to for July.
“We count on to succeed in an settlement within the comparatively close to future,” Coleman instructed the Instances.
He didn’t present particulars in regards to the settlement however mentioned Cox “is taking this very critically.”
A spokeswoman for the U.S. lawyer’s workplace declined to touch upon a possible deal as a result of an settlement had not but been filed.
“Issues can change,” she mentioned.
In August 2022, Cox, a one-term member of the U.S. Home of Representatives, was arrested by FBI brokers and briefly jailed after the federal authorities unsealed an indictment accusing him of swindling a minimum of $1.7 million from enterprise companions and a number of corporations that he owned.
A number of the cash allegedly was used as unlawful straw donations to his 2018 congressional marketing campaign. In that race, Cox narrowly defeated three-term Rep. David Valadao, a Hanford Republican, and flipped the Central Valley’s purpling twenty second Congressional District from GOP management.
Cox unseated Valadao by simply 862 votes amid the so-called anti-Trump “blue wave” when Democrats took management of the Home.
In 2020, Cox misplaced by 1,522 votes in a rematch in opposition to Valadao, who later grew to become one among 10 Home Republicans to vote for former President Trump’s impeachment after the Jan. 6 rebel.
Cox is anticipated to have a change-of-plea listening to in federal court docket on July 29.
After his 2022, arrest, Cox emerged from the Fresno County Jail and instructed reporters that he was harmless and a sufferer of political persecution.
“Politics is a troublesome sport,” Cox mentioned. “I wouldn’t be on this place in the present day however for the politics, and I believe everyone knows that.”
Cox’s alleged crimes, in line with the federal criticism, concerned three companies: an almond-processing firm that he partially owned; a sports activities nonprofit, for which he was a co-director, that operated an ice skating and hockey rink in Fresno; and a Fresno-based enterprise he partially owned that helped different corporations get loans and federal tax credit for growth in deprived areas.
Cox defrauded the tax credit score firm and its purchasers of greater than $1 million, prosecutors allege.
The indictment accuses Cox of opening an unauthorized checking account utilizing the corporate’s title “with out the data of the opposite house owners” or its accountants, tax preparers or auditors.
He allegedly diverted checks and wire transfers supposed for the corporate and used the cash to pay for private bills, to fund different enterprise ventures and to repay private and enterprise money owed.
Cox is accused of inflicting losses of $750,000 to lenders and buyers within the almond firm. He allegedly diverted funds utilizing one other unauthorized checking account opened with out data of his enterprise companions or the corporate’s accountants.
Prosecutors say that in April 2017, Cox fraudulently solicited a $100,000 mortgage mentioned to be for almond processing tools, deposited it into a private checking account, and didn’t pay it again.
A few of that cash allegedly was used for personal faculty tuition, bank card and mortgage funds, and a $7,000 fee to Cox’s political advisor.
The indictment additionally alleges that Cox lied to safe important mortgage funds.
As a enterprise accomplice in a Fresno sports activities nonprofit that utilized for a $1.5-million development mortgage to develop land within the metropolis’s Granite Park, he fabricated a board decision that said his tax credit score firm would assure the mortgage, prosecutors mentioned.
The mortgage was authorized, however the sports activities nonprofit finally defaulted, and the tax credit score firm purchased the debt after Cox had left the corporate.
Throughout his 2018 run for Congress, prosecutors mentioned, Cox took cash from the fraudulent almond firm account and from the sports activities nonprofit and gave it to enterprise associates and members of the family who donated to his marketing campaign below their names.
If convicted, Cox faces a most statutory penalty of 20 years in jail and a $250,000 nice for wire fraud and cash laundering, 30 years in jail and a $1-million nice for wire fraud affecting a monetary establishment, and 5 years in jail and a $250,000 nice for marketing campaign contribution fraud.
