Samara also told investigators that Jefferson offered to seek oil concessions from the government of Equatorial Guinea on Samara’s behalf in return for favors from him, including stock in International Petroleum and agreeing to use one of Jefferson’s daughters’ legal services.
Unlike in previous years, Andrea Jefferson is no longer listed as receiving compensation from The ANJ Group on Jefferson’s most recent financial disclosure filing.
The Samara loan is the only debt Jefferson seems to have paid down last year, as his legal bills have piled up and contributions to his legal defense fund have slowed to a trickle. In 2006, Jefferson received $56,250 in legal expense contributions from supporters compared to just $20,300 last year.
Jefferson has between $130,000 and $400,000 in loans from Samara, two New Orleans-based banks and Black Entertainment Television founder Robert L. Johnson. Johnson’s loan is valued at between $100,000 and $250,000, the same amount as last year.
Jefferson also owes between $15,001 and $50,000 on an MBNA revolving charge account, the latest records show.
Vernon Jackson, the Kentucky businessman now in prison for bribing Jefferson, still owes Jefferson between $1,000 and $15,000, the records show. Jefferson waited nearly two years before notifying the House ethics committee of that loan he made to Jackson even though Jackson told the FBI about the loan in August 2005.
In a May 15, 2007, letter to Reps. Stephanie Tubbs Jones (D-Ohio) and Doc Hastings (R-Wash.), the chairwoman and ranking member of the ethics panel, Jefferson said the $10,000 “was extended on a personal basis to cover personal and family expenses” between April and June of 2005.
The loan, which remains outstanding, may play a key role in the government’s case against Jefferson. The $90,000 found in his freezer came out of the $100,000 offered him by government informant Lori Mody in July 2005, but little is known of the remaining $10,000 — other than its FBI status as accounted-for.
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