Four Corruption Charges Against Espy Are Dismissed

A federal judge threw out four charges Monday in the corruption case against former Agriculture Secretary Mike Espy.

U.S. District Judge Ricardo M. Urbina also held off ruling on the bulk of the remaining charges in the 39-count indictment until an appellate court rules next year in a related criminal case against Sun-Diamond Growers of California.

Sun-Diamond, one of the nation’s largest fruit and nut producers, was convicted last year of illegally showering Espy with nearly $6,000 in gifts, including meals at fancy restaurants and an all-expenses-paid trip for him and his girlfriend to the U.S. Open tennis tournament in New York.

Espy, 44, a former Mississippi congressman, is charged with soliciting $35,458 worth of gifts from companies he was supposed to be regulating, including Sun-Diamond. His trial is set for March 30.

Defense attorneys in the Sun-Diamond and Espy cases argue that independent counsel Donald C. Smaltz stretched the limits of the federal illegal gratuity statute by charging Espy with violating the law by accepting gifts and meals that were paid for by his longtime friends.

Illegal gratuities are payments or gifts to public officials for past favorable treatment or to curry favor in the future. The public official doesn’t have to perform a duty in return for the gifts to violate the law.

The alleged illegal gifts are the heart of the case against Espy.

Three of the four dismissed counts charged Espy with violating the Meat Inspection Act of 1907 in taking $4,200 in gifts. Although Espy is still charged with accepting other gifts, Urbina said he believes the Meat Inspection Act was designed to punish only front-line meat inspectors who accept gifts from the companies they are supposed to regulate.

The fourth dismissed count charged Espy with lying to Leon E. Panetta, then chief of staff for President Clinton.