LINCOLN — U.S. Rep. Jeff Fortenberry asked a judge Tuesday to dismiss the federal charges against him, arguing that the allegations were filed in the wrong jurisdiction.
Fortenberry’s attorney, in a 14-page motion, accused federal prosecutors of “opportunistic venue shopping” and “gross abuse of power” for filing charges against the Republican congressman in California, far from his home in Lincoln.
“This case concerns two alleged false statements. One was uttered in Nebraska. The other was uttered in Washington, D.C. Neither statement was made in California,” stated the motion, filed by Fortenberry’s Los Angeles-area attorneys, John Littrell and Ryan Fraser.
The motion asks that the charges against Fortenberry be dismissed because there’s no evidence that he committed a crime in California. At the very least, the motion states, the congressman deserves to defend himself in the judicial district where any alleged crime occurred, which would be Nebraska or the District of Columbia.
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A spokesman for Fortenberry’s campaign said Tuesday that the congressman will “ultimately be victorious in this case.”
“He did not lie to the FBI, and in fact was trying to help them,” said spokesman Jim Morrell. “This case was brought by an ambitious federal prosecutor in California who wants to drag a Republican congressman from Nebraska all the way across the country to face a California jury.”
A spokesman for the U.S. Attorney’s Office in the Central District of California declined to comment Tuesday, saying that a legal response would be filed in court.
Fortenberry, a 60-year-old congressman who has represented Nebraska’s 1st District since 2005, was indicted last month by a federal grand jury in the central district of California on two counts of lying to FBI investigators and a third count of attempting to conceal facts from investigators. He pleaded not guilty to the charges.
The charges grew out of a California-based investigation of a 2016 fundraiser held in Los Angeles for Fortenberry. At that event, $30,200 in funds provided by a Nigerian billionaire, Gilbert Chagoury, were given to Fortenberry by a group of L.A.-area residents. The funds had been given by Chagoury to a Washington, D.C., lobbyist, Toufic Baaklini, who handed it to the organizer of the fundraiser to be distributed by a handful of American citizens.
It is illegal for foreigners — Chagoury lives in Paris — to donate to U.S. political campaigns, either directly or through third parties. Chagoury, Baaklini and another associate of Chagoury have all admitted to the illegal donations, paid hefty fines and agreed to cooperate with investigators.
The scheme involved four candidates for elected office in the U.S., including Fortenberry and former U.S. Rep. Lee Terry, R-Neb. In a separate matter, Chagoury was implicated in providing a $50,000 loan to Ray LaHood, who served as U.S. secretary of transportation from 2009 to 2013.
Fortenberry was not charged with accepting the donations — and his attorneys say he was unaware that they came from Chagoury — but with lying to federal investigators who questioned him twice in 2019 about the fundraiser. One of those interviews was held in March 2019 at Fortenberry’s Lincoln home; a second, follow-up interview was held in Washington, D.C., in July 2019.
Prosecutors allege that Fortenberry was informed in 2018, in a phone call with a federal informant, that the donations were illegal. Fortenberry’s attorney has said he didn’t recall all the details of that phone call when questioned by the FBI.
The federal indictment states that Fortenberry’s misstatements impacted the investigation based in California, and that because the impact of his false statements was “felt” in California, that is the proper location for a trial.
But the congressman’s defense attorneys countered that the “location of the acts” should determine where the case should be prosecuted, and that forcing Fortenberry to travel cross-country to defend himself would be unfair as well as unconstitutional.
A hearing is set Nov. 23 to consider the request to dismiss the charges.