DEMOCRATS faced a sleaze scandal of their own after the FBI said yesterday that it had secretly filmed a New Orleans congressman accepting a bribe of $100,000 (£53,000), most of which was later found in his kitchen freezer.

William Jefferson, a Louisiana Democrat, appeared to have been caught in a 14-month FBI sting operation in which he is alleged to have taken hundreds of thousands of dollars in bribes. The accusations against him appeared in an FBI affidavit made public after 15 agents raided his Capitol Hill office over the weekend, the first time such an indignity had been inflicted on a sitting congressman.

The affidavit says that Mr Jefferson, in exchange for at least $400,000, helped a small Kentucky technology company called iGate Inc to land government contracts. In return for the bribes, which he channelled into a company owned by his wife and daughters, he also tried to secure contracts for iGate in Cameroon, Ghana and Nigeria. Mr Jefferson sits on the congressional Africa Trade and Investment Caucus.

The investigation began after Lori Mody, an investor in iGate, approached the FBI complaining about dealings that she had had with Mr Jefferson and several of his associates. She agreed to continue meeting the congressman with a recording device.

At one meeting with Ms Mody in a Washington restaurant, Mr Jefferson laughs about the written notes that he keeps passing her about the cut he and his family might receive if he helped her to win telephone and internet contracts in Nigeria and Ghana. “All these damn notes we’re writing to each other as if we’re talking as if the FBI is watching,” he says.

On July 30 Mr Jefferson and Ms Mody met at a hotel near Washington. The FBI says that its videotape shows the congressman reaching into the boot of Ms Mody’s car and removing “a reddish-brown coloured leather briefcase which contained $100,000 cash in denominations of $100 bills”.

He put it in his car and drove away. Four days later, during a raid on his house, $90,000 was found in his freezer, in $10,000 wads wrapped in aluminium foil inside food containers.

Last month Vernon Jackson, the owner of iGate, pleaded guilty to paying Mr Jefferson more than $400,000 in bribes to promote the company’s products in Africa. Brett Pfeffer, a former Jefferson aide who worked for Ms Mody, has also pleaded guilty to bribing the congressman.

Mr Jefferson has not been charged and vehemently denies any wrongdoing. He said that he had been advised “not to talk about the facts”, but added that his side of the story would emerge, and that it had been “completely inappropriate” for the FBI to raid his office. After the bribery scandal involving the Republican congressman Randy “ Duke” Cunningham, the indictment of the former House leader Tom DeLay and the Jack Abramoff affair, Democrats have promised to make “the Republican culture of corruption” a major issue before November’s mid-term elections.

DIRTY POLITICS

Abscam (1978-1981) Cash-for-favours sting in Congress involved FBI agents posing as sheikhs

Keating Five scandal (1989-1991) Senator Alan Cranston censured; four other senators reprimanded

House Banking scandal (1990-1997) Four congressmen convicted of bribery and conspiracy

House Post Office scandal (1992-1996) Several House Post Office employees were convicted of embezzlement

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