Brett Pfeffer, a former Jefferson aide, is the second person who has testified who has pleaded guilty to bribing Jefferson and is serving time in prison. That has to be tough for the defense to explain to the jury that two people have admitted bribing the Jefferson, but that Jefferson is innocent.
By Bruce Alpert
New Orleans Times-Picayune
ALEXANDRIA, Va. — Defense attorneys for former U.S. Rep. William Jefferson played a recording Wednesday from a May 2005 lunch meeting in which Brett Pfeffer, a former Jefferson aide, assured investor Lori Mody that their dealings with the Democratic congressman were perfectly legal.
At the time of the conversation, Pfeffer worked for Mody, who ran a Virginia educational foundation. It was Pfeffer who brought Jefferson and Mody together and led Mody to sink $3.5 million into a deal to buy the Nigerian distribution rights for a telecommunications technology that Jefferson was promoting.
Asked by Jefferson attorney Amy Jackson how he squared the taped comments with his testimony Tuesday that he knew from the beginning that his and Mody’s dealings with Jefferson were illegal, Pfeffer said he didn’t want to say anything that would scare Mody away from a project he assumed would make him rich.
