Well this is awkward. Our duly elected state treasurer got hauled off to jail this weekend. It started last year when she sold some bonds early and cost the state 400 grand. The Legislative Joint Auditing Committee made inquiries last Sept and notified the FBI.
It gets worse. :smack: She’s allegedly been receiving a 1000 a month to favor one broker for all the state transactions. Cash delivered inside a pie box.
Ouch. :rolleyes:
No surprise that our Governor, Attorney General, Senator are all demanding that she resign. ASAP
Most of Arkansas has always been Democrat. There’s a region in Northern Arkansas that is traditionally Republican. Republicans did get a majority in the state legislature this year. First time in over 100 years.
The saddest part of this State Treasurer fraud is the betrayal of her office. For a 1000 bucks a month. They’re estimating she got 36,000 in three years. Not very much considering the long Federal prison sentence she’ll eventually get. She’s in her late sixties and will probably die in prison.
We’ve had very few abuses of office like this. But every once in awhile it happens in every state.
Maybe people feel better taking little bribes for favors because then it doesn’t feel like they’re committing a big crime. “Oh, it was just a little gift to show his gratitude. Not a big ol’ bribe.”
I think once you accept a small bribe or other corruption, it’s difficult to raise your rates. The person offering the bribes can just threaten to expose you. So the lesson is to ask for a lot of money upfront.
Not specifically political corruption. I’m always amazed when I read about someone who’s going to lose his job, go to jail, etc…for some paltry amount of money embezzled/stolen.
I must admit that this case is especially astonishing, indeed. $ 1000/month for someone with such a high office?
Count on me for not being that cheap. If I’m going to go to jail, I want to have at least bragging rights with fellow inmates about how much I stole.
As a longtime supporter of AARP (the Australasian Association of Recovering Pongids), I must protest: Typically, a coked-up orangutan can write much better.
Yeah, clairobscur, if you’re gonna go down that road, go big or go home. Have the other guys at the Federal Correctional Facility watch the TV news reports of your luxury villa and sports cars getting auctioned; tell them stories of partying with the 'ballers; show them pics of your kids graduating from Dartmouth and Sarah Lawrence – they’ll give you respect
Her yearly salary as treasurer was a not exactly princely $54,594 (Source 1, Source 2), so $12K/yr is a nice bonus relative to that, but yeah totally not worth getting sent up on federal extortion charges IMO.
And Arkansas was one of the last holdouts of the old Democrat establishment… you voted Democrat because your Daddy and Great-grandpappy voted Democrat since before Reconstruction and the only contest was whether you were old-school good ole country boy Democrat or one of them newfangled hep cat college-kid Democrats.
ETA: I think even the orangutans are not willing to work for what local-market media are paying copy editors these days. Can we make “written by a coked up orangutan” the next Board Meme?
Reports say Martha Shoffner wanted to avoid her commute from Newport AR to Little Rock. That’s why she needed the money for the apartment.
But, she had been a state representative for two terms in the 90’s. Forced out by term limits. This was her 2nd term as State Treasurer. With that background it seems like she would have figured out the commute problem years and years ago.
It is a hundred miles. About an hour and half drive. I’m pretty sure state legislators get a travel stipend. Don’t know about constitutional officers.
Anyway, I guess it was hubris. I’m in power and can do what I want. That’ll end badly every time.
Our duly elected state treasurer got hauled off to jail this weekend. It started last year when she sold some bonds early and cost the state 400 grand. The Legislative Joint Auditing Committee made inquiries last Sept and notified the FBI.
