This former Candidate of Conscience for US HOUSE ran against the then incumbent Congresswoman Corrine Brown in 2012.

This American learned I will never be a politician but I would persist to write about them.

On Monday, former Congresswoman Corrine Brown (D) was charged on multiple counts of fraud and conspiracy and sentenced to five years behind bars.

By Eileen Fleming

As a Democrat in the House of Representatives, Corrine Brown represented parts of Jacksonville and northern Florida for nearly a quarter-century.

Ms. Brown was among the first African-American politicians elected to Washington from Florida and had been known as a civil rights champion and advocate for the less fortunate.

In January 2016, Ms. Brown was served a subpoena while eating at a Jacksonville barbecue restaurant. The court papers stated that she and her chief of staff, Elias “Ronnie” Simmons, raised more than $800,000 for the One Door for Education scholarship fund — but had handed out only two scholarships worth $1,200.

Ms. Brown promised benefactors that their donations would help students pay for college and provide computers for schools.

Ms. Brown solicited for many of the donations for the One Door for Education charity with her chief of staff, Elias Simmons and the organization’s president, Carla Wiley.

Ms. Wiley started the charity in Virginia in 2011 and recruited Mr. Simmons to help and he brought in Corrine Brown to raise money.

One Door for Education may have begun as an honest charity, but it turned into a slush fund. Prosecutors said Mr. Simmons withdrew $93,536 in cash from A.T.M.s, gave some of the money to Ms. Brown but kept the rest for himself while Ms. Wiley pocketed $182,730.

Ms. Brown pleaded not guilty and went to trial, while Mr. Simmons and Ms. Wiley pleaded guilty and testified against the former representative.

Mr. Simmons was sentenced to four years in prison and Ms. Wiley twenty-one months.

Judge Timothy J. Corrigan called Ms. Brown’s charity a sham stating:

Brazen barely describes it…

Ms. Brown leveraged the authority of her office and the relationships she had cultivated to illegal purpose.

She cast aside the very laws that she helped to enact. The rules, she decided, did not apply.

She cannot be accorded the same sentencing consideration as someone who accepts responsibility for her wrongful action, expresses remorse and promises to make amends.

 

A brief excerpt from My Life as a Candidate of Conscience

Corrine Brown has been a member of the US House of Representatives since 1993.

In June 2012, I attempted to engage Corrine Brown in a civilized conversation on her Face Book Wall.

Ms. Brown responded in an attempt to CENSOR me by DELETING my comments and BLOCKING me from adding more.

One of the comments Brown censored was regarding the “Eat and Greet” all state and federal candidates had been invited to in Sanford, Fl. on June 11th.

Corrine Brown did not attend or send a representative, but I schlepped over an hour to offer ‘concerned citizens’ reams of information about the 45th Anniversary of USS Liberty Attack and all about the money that we the people who pay taxes in this nation are being forced to pay to prolong an immoral, illegal and untenable 45 years of Military Occupation of the indigenous Palestinians.

While my two-minute introduction was well received, I got shot down immediately by the ‘concerned citizens’ when I brought up the Occupation of Palestine! Everyone believed that God had made a real estate deal with the ancient Hebrews, but all were clueless that the deal was contingent upon the ancients upholding their end of the bargain…

One reason I ran for Congress is because I live in a very conservative area but I am liberal, “If by a liberal you mean someone who looks ahead and not behind, someone who welcomes new ideas without rigid reaction, someone who cares about the welfare of the people — their health, their housing, their schools, their jobs, their civil rights, and their civil liberties, — someone who believes we can break through the stalemate and suspicions that grip us in our policies abroad, if that is what you mean by a liberal, then I’m proud to say I’m a liberal.”- John F. Kennedy

My run for congress was always more an exercise for experience than a possibility of a win, so I was surprised and heart warmed that 7,837 individuals cast their vote for me to be their US HOUSE of Representative.

I was running against a republican, Tea-Party Christian Zionist, who promoted herself as “the Christian values leader” and the now 11th term career incumbent, democrat Corrine Brown.

“The Christian values leader” ran on a platform of support for Israel and against same sex marriage. Brown has yet to publicly commit to a position on either….

I am a fiscal conservative, meaning I live within my means.

I also believe that to whom much is given-much more is required and knowledge brings responsibility…