Federal prosecutors charged Ward 5 D.C. Councilmember Harry Thomas Jr. today with theft and filing false tax returns.

For those of you just joining us: Allegations of misdeeds by a Thomas-run charity group called "Team Thomas"  have been floating around D.C. political circles for the better part of a year, prompting a legendary editorial crusade by the Washington Post.

In June, D.C.'s attorney general filed suit accusing the Democratic lawmaker and stalwart Vince Gray supporter of taking some $300,000 of money that was supposed to go to kids' charities and instead diverting it to personal use to pay for things like a luxury SUV. Washington City Paper's Alan Suderman reported the next month that other expenditures by the "Team Thomas" charity included golfing vacations and trips to Hooters—among other dubious expenditures contained in the sordid bank records obtained by City Paper. Thomas repeatedly denied any wrongdoing.

Late on a summer Friday afternoon—ie, prime bad-news-burying time—Thomas settled the lawsuit, agreeing to pay back the money but not acknowledging misdeeds. The closest Thomas' statement came to a mea culpa was a lame acknowledgment that his organization hadn't been rigorous enough about bookkeeping, though even that was mitigated with an assertion that "it is not uncommon for grantees, including DC agencies receiving federal funds, to have expenditures disallowed."

Meantime, a federal investigation has proceeded. Though three of Thomas' D.C. Council colleagues have demanded his resignation, others in city government—including Gray, who made a big stink about ethics during his campaign in 2010—have stayed mum, perhaps out of calculations about the politics of race, party, and federal investigation. Perhaps aware of this calculus, Thomas last fall re-emerged after keeping a low profile all summer.

Last month, IRS and FBI agents raided Thomas' house, seizing a Victory Ness motorcycle and a Chevy Tahoe SUV. (Just before the raid, he made a surprise appearance at a D.C. Council hearing on...ethics reform, which he said he was for.) The charging documents released today indicate the feds plan to keep those vehicles. This week, reports said Thomas was negotiating a plea deal that would require him to resign his seat before going to prison. The documents released today appear to be a prelude to that.

Thomas' resignation would mark the end of a dynasty. Thomas' father, Harry Thomas Senior, was a legendary local pol, the closest thing Washington ever had to a Chicago-style machinist. A 1996 City Paper profile painted him as the loveable guy who could get your pothole filled with one call, or show up with money to keep your electricity on, but who rarely bothered to introduce bills, conduct oversight, or otherwise do his legislative job. The elder Thomas lost his seat in 1998 and died soon afterwards (read a lovely obit of the man here).

The younger Thomas reclaimed his old man's seat in 2006, becoming part of a trio of legacy pols on the council. Meanwhile, his four-paragraph official biography on the D.C. Council's website dedicates nearly an entire paragraph to Team Thomas, which it calls "a non-profit organization for social change, citizen empowerment, community development, and youth and senior program development."

Photo by Darrow Montgomery

2400 Block of 17th Street NE, December 2

Click for gallery.

Via Loose Lips:

WTOP's Mark Segraves is reporting that the FBI is at Ward 5 Councilmember Harry Thomas Jr.'s house, but at the moment has not been arrested.

LL is hearing all sorts of disparate info from his sources at the Wilson Building about what's currently happening. LL will be updating throughout the day as more facts become available.

Thomas and his attorney Fred Cooke Jr. were not immediately available for comment.

For those unaware of why the FBI might be at Thomas' house, read here.

Photo by Darrow Montgomery

But of particular interest is the list of states in which the most perpetrators reside: Though not a state, D.C. is at #5 on the list, after California, Florida, New York, and Texas. (The second half of the top ten: Washington, Georgia, Illinois, Pennsylvania, and Arizona.)

Also of note, somewhere, somehow people are still falling for the following scams:

1. Unsolicited "mystery shopper" opportunities
2. When a response to an (unusually cheap) rental posting garners a message from a "missionary" who is abroad and needs the interested party to send cash in exchange for apartment keys
3. "I'm stranded in London and have no money!" email from a friend whose account has been hacked
4. "You won a sweepstakes!" Just pay some processing fees, first.
5. Haiti donations

Sadly, my personal favorite, the fake Paypal phishing emails, didn't make the list.

Photo by eulifer via Flickr/Creative Commons Attribution Generic 2.0 License

Under the new guidelines, which Gray signed while surrounded by Hispanic and African immigrants, D.C. police and corrections officials will not ask those they come in contact with about their immigration status. District police also will not enforce an ICE detainer or warrant issued against someone who has not committed another crime.

Police and jail officials are forbidden from contacting ICE to have the agency investigate the legal status of someone who has been arrested.

Of course, this doesn't mean the FBI—which receives fingerprints when major crimes are committed—won't forward them to ICE, which can still deport undocumented immigrants under its "Secure Communities" program.

Photo by stevendepolo via Flickr/Creative Commons Attribution Generic 2.0 License

Oh, You're Still Here: Labor Day weekend would be a great time to get out of town—power's back on at the Delaware and Maryland beaches after Hurricane Irene, there's no work Monday, and the weather's getting humid again after a week of paradise. But travel is expected to fall by 2.3 percent this weekend, thanks mostly to the lousy economy, which is showing signs of getting worse again instead of better. Fortunately, there's major track work planned on Metro's Blue and Orange lines, which will make getting around the area just delightful! -2

Asbestos? What Asbestos?: Like all governments these days, the D.C. government is cutting back and tightening budgets. But that still doesn't excuse two employees of the Department of the Environment, who allegedly took $20,000 in two bribes from an FBI informant who they thought was working for a developer doing asbestos removal on a construction project. No word on whether the asbestos actually was removed, but D.C. officials will probably want to have someone double-check to be sure. -2

Gym, Laundry, No Tan: The risk that Snooki, The Situation, or any other Jersey Shore bozos will be making the District their new residence just dropped dramatically. D.C. officials rolled out 74 pages of regulations for tanning salons, including how they have to handle any pet fish on the premises—which should be enough to deter any tanners as dedicated as they are. The bad news, of course, is that giving the libertarian Tea Partiers in Congress any additional reason to poke around D.C. government isn't wise. +1

And Now, The Real Games Begin: The Washington Redskins are once again contenders for the not-so-coveted title of preseason champions. They won the final tune-up game of 2011 last night, beating the Tampa Bay Buccaneers 29-24 at FedEx Field last night. Though $6 commemorative cups plastered with former quarterback Donovan McNabb's likeness were for sale at the stadium (as was Ben's Chili Bowl), the actual quarterback this year will be either John Beck or Rex Grossman, which isn't exactly inspiring. Up next: The New York Giants, on Sept. 11. And an attempt to improve on last year's 6-10 record. +1

Yesterday's Needle rating: 53 Today's score: -2 Friday bonus: +2 Labor Day bonus: +2 Today's Needle rating: 55

Always Low Prices On Guns: It turned out Walmart didn't need much of a hard sell to get D.C. government officials to welcome them to town; the only argument the city's really putting up so far is about whether they'll deign to give us four stores, or five, not about whether they'll do things like, oh, pay reasonable wages, not lock workers in the stores overnight, and generally avoid disrupting existing businesses. But one concession the Bentonville gang had made was that, in deference to the District's gun laws, their stores wouldn't sell firearms. Now the city seems to be trying to get them to undo that, too. Metropolitan Police Department Chief Cathy Lanier says it "makes a lot of sense" for Walmart to sell guns in D.C. When can we just go ahead and rename the Wilson Building for Sam Walton? -3

The Name Game: Some Metro stations have easy names—think "Metro Center," or "Dupont Circle." Others have complicated ones, like "Woodley Park-Zoo/Adams Morgan," or "Vienna/Fairfax-GMU." The complicated names may be on their way out; Metro officials have decided to lop off most add-ons and relegate them to subtitles, based on a series of focus groups with riders. Meanwhile, the Washington Nationals still want to add a curly "W" to the Navy Yard station on the Green Line, which riders liked. Must have done the focus groups during the recent winning streak. +2

Federal Express: Typically, it's considered bad news when any top city officials are under investigation by federal authorities. Here in D.C., we've got a whole bunch. Council Chairman Kwame "Fully Loaded" Brown's 2008 campaign finance reports have been referred to the FBI and federal prosecutors; the feds are already looking into allegations against Mayor Vince Gray (though we suspect that investigation isn't going anywhere) and Ward 5 Councilmember Harry Thomas Jr., and they tried to bribe Ward 1's Jim Graham already, too. At this rate, they'll be able to get a quorum together at the FBI headquarters. -3

The Future... Is Now: Trains on Metrorail have looked like relics from the 1970s since, well, the 1970s. So it'll take some getting used to the fancy new design officials unveiled today. Gone are the orange and yellow seats and brown carpets, replaced by blue seats and dark stone-looking floors. The new trains will roll out in the next two to five years. The system is also allowing riders to add money to their SmarTrip cards online, instead of having to use the farecard machines in stations to do it. Lest we all be overwhelmed by too much progress too fast, that one's just a pilot program for now. +2

Yesterday's Needle rating: 52 Today's score: -2 Today's Needle rating: 50

You'd think that since David Simon's The Wire portrayed how instrumental police wiretaps are in taking down drug operations, the subterfuge—which can be employed after cops obtain a court order from a judge—would have worn itself out. But in the D.C. area, 29.5 kilos of cocaine authorities seized last week says it hasn't.

The seizure was a product of a lengthy operation that started in January. That's when court papers say FBI and Metropolitan Police Department investigators got up on William Bowman's cell phone under the Title III Interceptions law, which allows for wiretaps that have to do with serious criminal offenses. It's not clear how Bowman became a target.

In any event, documents say that back then, Bowman began using his phone to chat up multiple individuals, telling them he'd be able to supply cocaine in "the near future."

In February, according to papers, Bowman, who lives somewhere "in Southeast," began calling around again, this time to arrange meetings "at different locations in the vicinity of East Capitol Street and Benning Road."

Listening in on and watching Bowman for four months, authorities say they became privy to conversations between Bowman and some people he allegedly did business with, like Gezo Edwards (aka Zo), Robert Richards, and Willie Moorer. They also became privy to where they'd hidden some drugs—at a storage facility on Kenilworth Avenue in Hyattsville, Md.

Authorities mounted a camera in the facility, and on April 25, FBI agents spirited away the drugs.When, the next morning, Bowman discovered he'd been cleaned out, he went for his trusty cell phone again.

He called up Richards and Moorer and told them to get to the storage facility, say papers. They came, and Edwards "arrived a short time later." The gathering soon found itself in cuffs.

A law enforcement source says the seized drugs are worth millions. A pistol and an AR-15 Bushmaster assault rifle were also found in the storage facility. Lawyers for the defendants didn't immediately return calls.

It was a huge victory, says the law enforcement source, and the wiretap figured heavily into it. The source says despite shows like The Wire, dealers are still keen on using cells: "The problem is we've become so dependent on them" as a society at large. But he also says particularly savvy criminals know something else you can pick up by watching Simon's TV show: "The bad guys know there are wiretaps, but they also know how difficult they are to get."

Photo by Darrow Montgomery

Snow!: If you've had a certain 1992 single by a Canadian one-hit wonder stuck in your head all day, believe us when we say we feel your pain. (And if you haven't, click on that link to remedy that.) The first real snow of the season fell today, leaving about 1-2 inches around the region and, as expected, generally freaking people out. Of course, just over a year ago, the first of the winter's three massive snowstorms was rolling through town, and now we're settling for a bit more than a dusting. Yet another sign of America in decline? +3

Your Papers, Please: Riding Metro is bad enough these days, what with the crowds, the breakdowns, the inexplicable delays, and the occasional accidents. It's about to get worse—the transit system has announced plans for random bag searches, apparently prompted by the FBI's recent arrest of a guy they, uh, convinced to try to bomb the system, then nabbed before he got around to it. This is, to be blunt, ridiculous; it'll make boarding Metro slower and more complicated, but with only about 20 people involved in doing the searches, the new policy won't come anywhere near being thorough enough to actually deter people from bringing anything dangerous on board. (Though if it convinces riders to take care of their personal grooming at home, instead of on the subway, we might be for it.) -4

Legislative Lockdown: Work on Capitol Hill, which isn't exactly proceeding at a furious pace this year, slowed even more today, as Capitol Police declared a lockdown and rumors spread of a gunman outside the Senate side of the Capitol. The man was arrested; reports later were a bit hazy on whether he was actually armed. Fortunately, an all clear was called; unfortunately, that still doesn't mean Congress is likely to finish its work anytime soon. -2

I Fly, You Fly, We All Fly With WiFi: Airports aren't usually a good place to find discounted pricing on anything; with a captive audience, retailers don't have much incentive to be aggressive. After all, it's not like you're going to fly out of BWI instead of National just to save 50 cents on your coffee. But thanks to the Metropolitan Washington Airports Authority, which runs DCA and Dulles International, WiFi service that used to cost money will soon be free. Which means you can get on Twitter and complain about your delayed flight that much more easily! +2

Yesterday's Needle rating: 50 Today's score: -1 Today's Needle rating: 49

Keely Thompson, the director of Keely's District Youth and Boxing Center in Columbia Heights, has been arrested for pocketing money that belonged to at-risk kids. The former boxer allegedly stole $500,000 of grant money to have a good time.

A press release from the U.S. Attorney's office notes that the affidavit issued in connection to his arrest says "a bank record analysis revealed that Keely used the organization’s debit card to obtain more than $150,000 cash while on several cruises or at Bally’s casino in Atlantic City. In addition to a yearly salary that grew from $46,000 in 2004 to $81,000 in 2009," Keely also received 127 checks, totaling $355,210, it says. "The organization’s accounting records did not identify a legitimate purpose for these additional payments and when asked by financial professionals, Keely failed to provide supporting documentation."

The shenanigans seem to have been happening since 2004. "I used the money in the wrong way. I done it and I can't change it," Keely reportedly told the FBI.

But it gets even more interesting.

Thompson seems to have had at least one powerful supporter: Ward 1 Councilmember Jim Graham. According to a 2004 Washington Post article, Graham was pivotal to the gym opening: "Thompson said he opened the gym with the aid of Graham, who helped him find the funding and the space."

The gym has publicly thanked Graham for looking out for it. A former Graham staffer says that's because, in the past, the councilmember helped steer city earmarks toward the non-profit. But the ex-staffer also says that it was Graham who dropped the dime on Thompson. He learned of  "accounting irregularities" at Keely's a year ago, and sent a letter about the problem to Attorney General Peter Nickles. Nickles hasn't returned a call asking about the letter.

Still, that letter wasn't the first time the allegation that Thompson was misusing funds had surfaced. Back in 2006, in a civil trial in which Thompson was taken to task for firing a boxing trainer, a complaint filed on behalf of the trainer included references to Thompson using grant money allocated to the gym in 2004 by community organization Columbia Heights Shaw Family Support Collaborative—to buy vans to shuttle kids on field trips—to instead buy himself a BMW.

The case, which was settled, paints Thompson pretty monstrously: The suit alleges that the trainer "a man living with Human Immunodeficiency Virus(HIV), was fired from his job as a boxing trainer after his supervisor, Mr Thompson, discovered that he is HIV positive, and after [the trainer] reported that the center and/or Mr. Thompson appeared to be engaging in fraudulent and possibly criminal behavior."

The suit also says the trainer was paid less than minimum wage for his work and that Thompson, after firing the worker, falsely told a prospective employer that the trainer had AIDS and was an active drug user. He also told kids at the gym as much, the suit claims.

Thompson had grown angry with with the trainer for voicing suspicions about him to the collaborative. If the rumors were out there, one wonders why Thompson's allegedly free-wheeling ways didn't show up on Graham's radar until 2009.

Despite Graham's letter and an investigation, city funds routed to Keely's slowed, but they didn't stop. Financial documents obtained by City Desk show that in 2009, Keely's received at least one $20,000 grant from the city and at least one $75,000 grant this year. But that was all chump change compared to the past. In 2008, Keely's received a $200,000 city grant. According to documents obtained via a FOIA request, the organization entered invoices that indicated the money went to things like a $58,000 boxing exhibition. Records indicate that from 2008 to 2010, Keely's received more than $600,000 in city grants and earmarks. According to the Post, the organization has received $1.4 million in municipal funds since 2004.

Contacted today, Graham said he's no longer talking to Washington City Paper (though 15 minutes later, he commented to Housing Complex reporter Lydia DePillis on another matter). Graham hung on me before I could ask about the letter. A call placed to Thompson hasn't yet been returned.

*Photo by Darrow Montgomery

Yet, as Johnny Barnes of the American Civil Liberties Union points out, "the only homicide in Trinidad last year was at the hands of the police."

It's a year and one day since Trey Joyner, 25, was mowed down by police bullets, and family members of the slain Trinidad resident are still waiting for an update on the investigation. Relatives, along with some fuming local activists, gathered in front of the John A. Wilson building on Wednesday to point out as much.

Dressed in the coveralls of his workplace, Travis Joyner wanted to know why authorities had yet to reveal what they'd discovered about the circumstances surrounding his brother's death. The family only knows that on June 8, 2009, Trey Joyner was killed by plainclothes park police, allegedly after he pulled a gun.

Eyewitnesses have contradicted an assertion made by cops that after a struggle in an alley, Joyner turned a gun on a group of U.S. Park Police officers who were in Trinidad as part of an inter-agency task force led by the FBI. Witnesses' claim that Joyner was shot in the back would also seem to contradict the cops' account.

"I'm to the point that I'm very frustrated, that our family hasn't gotten any answers," Joyner tells City Desk. "To me it's very sad, because I feel as though if it had happened in another area of Washington, D.C. like Dupont Circle of Upper Northwest, I believe that the investigation would have been over."

Joyner says the local U.S. Attorney's office, which was investigating the tragedy, contacted the family a week after the shooting, but not one time after. The investigation has now been taken over by federal prosecutors in Philadelphia.

Joyner says his family has tried to contact Mayor Adrian Fenty to see if he could help get answers, but the mayor wasn't interested. Cousin Patrice Lancaster hounded the Mayor's office about her deceased relative, and says she was hung up on three times. Eventually, someone who identified herself as "an administrative assistant"  to the mayor told her "that Mayor Fenty didn't want to have anything to do with my cousin's case," she says. 

"Not true," mayoral spokesperson Mafara Hobson says of Lancaster's story via email.

Trey Joyner's father, Walter Joyner, his voice wavering, called for an end to the violence: "I would just like to say, put yourself in my place and all of our brothers and sisters need to ban together and stop this police brutality that is happening on our streets killing our youth. That's all I have to say right now."

Staff photo by Rend Smith

Defense attorneys last week challenged the credentials and methods of former FBI special agent and forensics expert Douglas Deedrick and argued his testimony should be thrown out. Leibovitz disagreed. "I am not seeing the lack of scientific methodology," the judge said Tuesday. Moreover, she added, "Lack of methology would go to weight and not admissibility."

Among other things, the defense had argued that a t-shirt Deedrick used to wrap around a pork loin and jab with a knife in order to recreate the stab wounds inflicted on Wone's body was thicker than the actual t-shirt worn by the victim. (Albeit both of the same brand: Tultex.)

Leibovitz, however, ruled the shirts were sufficiently comparable. The judge also found no reason to toss out Deedrick's experiments involving horse blood dabbed onto and wiped off a knife in an attempt to recreate the defendants' alleged efforts to tamper with evidence in the case.

"Hypotheses ought to be tested by such experiments," the judge said. "Both of these experiments should be admitted and I will admit them."

But his testimony stalled out before it even began, as defense attorney David Schertler immediately challenged Deedrick's qualifications, as well as the area of forensic science upon which his supposed expert opinion in the case would be based.

Schertler pointed to a report by the National Academy of Sciences, challenging the soundness of "fabric imprint identification" methods, citing a lack of standardized protocols.

Deedrick defended the practice: "Fabric is so versatile it would be difficult to build in a standard," he said.

Deedrick, now an independent consultant who worked for the FBI from 1972 until 2004, followed by a stint in the D.C. Metropolitan Police Department's crime lab, has worked on close to 6,000 cases, he said. But can recollect only two, including the Simpson trial, that involved fabric imprint identification.

Schertler questioned whether Deedrick was even officially qualified to testify in the Simpson case 15 years ago.

"Were you formally qualified by the court in the O.J. Simpson case?" he asked.

Deedrick said he didn't know.

"So you don't remember if Judge Ito qualified you?" Schertler continued.

"No, I don't," Deedrick said.

Schertler also pointed to Deedrick's testimony in another case, involving the murder of a Columbia University student, in which the supposed expert had misidentified the victim on the stand.

Judge Lynn Leibovitz indicated she was leaning toward letting Deedrick's testimony proceed. First, she said she wanted to read the Academy of Sciences report.

Cab Assault: A cab driver, 35, told Montgomery County police she was sexually assaulted on March 24 at approximately 1 a.m. According to her account, she picked up a fare at the Glenmont Shopping Center and drove him to a location in Langley Park. About an hour later, the same man flagged her down again, and she drove him back to the shopping center. The passenger then asked to be driven to Parkland Middle School at 4610 W. Frankfort Drive in Rockville. When the driver went to that destination, the man allegedly pulled out a knife and made her walk to a nearby field where he sexually assaulted her.  Juan Rodriguez, 27, of no fixed address, has been arrested and charged with assault.

Trouble Parking: A parking attendant reported to cops that he'd run into some bad customers. A man and woman arrived at a parking lot in the 1900 block of 14th Street NW on March 25 at about 11 p.m. They tried to park without paying and the attendant had words with them. Eventually, the attendant ordered them to drive off the lot. They complied, but on the way out, the man halted the car, got out, and punched the attendant in the face. The couple fled south on 14th Street.

Flashers: The Arlington County Police Department is on the lookout for a flasher. Cops said on March 23 they were investigating 11 incidents of indecent exposure that have taken place on the Washington and Old Dominion bike trail. Police say the flasher has been exposing himself to women and that "[w]omen should avoid walking or running alone, and they are encouraged not to use devices such as headphones that prevent hearing someone approach."

In an unrelated incident, a flasher visited a library at the University of the District of Columbia on March 25. The man exposed himself to some students and fled.

Fake Bureau of Investigation: WTOP reported on March 29 that a woman from Arlington had been arrested for impersonating an FBI agent. The woman, Brenna Reilly, 29, allegedly duped two neighbors into believing she was the FBI's director of forensics—and then hired them as assistants: "She gave the assistants tasks that included writing letters of condolence to family members of agents killed in the line of duty. But authorities say Reilly was never an FBI agent and the jobs were phony."

Pissed about Pissing: An MPD listerv poster is tired of smelling urine and beer on his way to work: "Recently when I walk up the sidewalk that connects the 2400 block of 10th ST NE with the parking lot of Home Depot (i.e.: behind Bank of America) I've noticed a very pungent smell of urine as well as discarded beer cans and sometimes intoxicated people staggering around. Today the smell was particularly strong in the warm air and I saw one man with an enormous (open) can in a paper bag and another sitting slurring his speech. This is disgusting and it suggests such behavior is acceptable."

Commander Lamar D. Greene responds:"We will direct officers to patrol the area and take an aggressive stance against quality of life violations and make arrest for those offenses."

Source: MPD District listservs, public releases, Montgomery County Police Department public releases, Arlington County Police Department public releases

Councilmember Jim Graham has generally kept quiet on the taxicab bribery case that has so far snared his right-hand-man Ted Loza. But at a recent Kalorama Citizens Association meeting, Graham apparently couldn't help himself. According to sources in attendance, he blasted federal law enforcement for busting Loza.

Recalls one source who was there: “[Graham] basically said Ted was entrapped by the FBI. The gentleman Kamus…He said he and Ted were very, very good friends. I thought it was a very bizarre thing to say."

Says another: “He talked a little bit about the investigation. He went back and forth from sort of defending Ted and throwing Ted under the bus a little bit. He talked about how Kamus was a really good friend of the office and a good personal friend of Ted’s.…That’s when he came up with the FBI entrapment….It’s a close friend of Teddy’s who got caught up in the investigation.” [See pictures of Loza and Kamus].

And finally, here's one more source from the KCA meeting: "I heard him talk about the taxicab investigation and how tragic everything was....It gets you paranoid. You don’t be expecting to be talking to someone and thinking you are talking to the FBI."

Pretty deep insights from the Grahamstander.

When we asked the councilmember to confirm or deny his comments, a staffer offered up a very unique retort.

Brian DeBose, Graham's new spokesperson, replied via e-mail: "It was an off-the-record meeting. That means you want him to verify something. He wants to know what you want him to verify before he talks to you." (This item initially misspelled DeBose's last name)

I replied that there's no such thing as an off-the-record public meeting. DeBose replied: "Incidentally, I know a community meeting is by definition not off the record. However, Dennis James assured the Councilmember it would be."

Denis James did not return calls seeking comment.

Bryan Weaver, an ANC Commissioner in Adams Morgan, says the meeting was not advertised as off-the-record. “I don’t know how you can have public meeting be off the record," he says. "It’s impossible. They had probably a 100 signs up in the community featuring Jim Graham as the speaker…It was the only thing on the poster.”

Eventually, Graham agreed to be interviewed. Yesterday, I was told that he would be calling. He never did. This afternoon I got another, final response from DeBose: "The councilmember was unavailable for comment by press time."

*photo by Darrow Montgomery.