Kenneth K. Lam/Baltimore Sun - Md. state Sen. Ulysses Currie, surrounded by his lawyers and his wife, speaks after after the verdict.
A federal jury on Tuesday acquitted Maryland Sen. Ulysses Currie of all charges in a corruption case in which prosecutors had accused the Prince George’s County Democrat of taking more than $245,000 in bribes from two grocery chain executives.
The verdict was a remarkable moment of vindication for Currie, the 74-year-old son of a sharecropper who had ascended to chairman of the Senate budget committee, one of the legislature’s most powerful posts, before being charged last year in the probe.
A parade of politicians, including U.S. House Minority Whip Steny H. Hoyer (D-Md.) and former governor Robert L. Ehrlich Jr. (R), appeared as character witnesses in the trial, a testament to the goodwill that Currie had amassed in his 25 years in Annapolis.
And more than one state official testified that the favors sought by Currie were hardly unusual requests for a state legislator to make — though not on behalf of a paid client.
During the six-week trial, Currie’s attorneys argued that his work on behalf of Shoppers Food Warehouse — which he failed to disclose on state ethics forms for five years — was part of a legitimate consulting arrangement.
Currie’s efforts included advocating with high-ranking state officials for stoplight requests, helping faciliate the transfer of a liquor license and pushing development deals.
The senator’s attorneys acknowledged that his activities at times constituted a conflict of interest but said he never should have been charged with federal crimes. That view appeared to carry the day with the 12 jurors in U.S. District Court in Baltimore, who rendered not-guilty verdicts for Currie and the grocery executives on charges including bribery, extortion, conspiracy and lying to the FBI.
“There were clearly questionable ethical things . . . but that’s not what he was charged with,” said juror Steven Cason, 55, a software engineer from Freeland, Md. “That’s something for Annapolis and the General Assembly . . . to look at.”
When an FBI invesigation of Currie’s activities became public with the 2008 raid of his home, many of his colleagues in Annapolis — a capital that has experienced no shortage of corruption in recent decades — suggested he was among the last they would suspect of knowingly committing a crime.
Although Currie did not include the consulting work on this ethics forms, he did report the income on his federal tax returns and had signed contracts with Shoppers.
In several instances, the state officials involved said they were not aware of Currie’s financial relationship with the grocery chain. In some cases, he called meetings in his Senate office and used Senate stationery to make requests of government officials.
Senate President Thomas V. Miller Mike Jr. (D-Calvert) praised the jury’s verdict Tuesday night but said Currie would still face ethics proceedings when the General Assembly reconvenes.
“I am pleased and happy that the jury saw what his friends and colleagues know to be true, that is that Senator Currie is a good and decent man,” Miller said. “He may have made some mistakes, but he did not commit a crime.”
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