Jan.29, 2010

The FBI gave an informant $10,000 to arrange bribes to former City Councilwoman Monica Conyers and her chief of staff, Sam Riddle, in 2007, according to a document federal prosecutors filed Thursday in Riddle's ongoing public corruption trial.

The informant, Brandon Rosenberg, posed as "a real estate developer who had investors from California interested in developing commercial buildings in Detroit," prosecutors wrote.

In reality, Rosenberg apparently was cooperating with federal investigators in lieu of going to prison after he was convicted of money laundering in 2006. He was indicted in 2003 on charges involving fraud, money laundering and dealing marijuana.

Prosecutors wrote that Rosenberg wore a wire in September 2007 to record conversations with Rayford Jackson, a consultant sentenced to five years in prison for paying bribes to Conyers in return for support of a $1.2-billion sludge disposal contract for Houston-based Synagro Technologies. Conyers has pleaded guilty to bribery and awaits sentencing.

The revelation emerged from a memo that federal prosecutors filed Thursday, seeking a judge's permission to use Rosenberg's secret recordings at Riddle's trial in U.S. District Court. Prosecutors said Conyers used Riddle as a bagman and to conceal payments to her.

Riddle attorney John Minock filed a response to the prosecutors' memo later Thursday that said federal investigators left out other recordings -- made by a tap on Jackson's phone -- in which Jackson indicated that he didn't pay out all of the money he told Rosenberg he would use to bribe officials.

Minock wrote that Jackson made so many inconsistent statements in recorded conversations about what he did with money he received to pay bribes that he has no credibility.

The prosecutors' memo also notes that Jackson told Rosenberg he needed $3,400 to secure the support of someone identified only as "Alberta." The only council member by that name at the time was Alberta Tinsley-Talabi, but prosecutors would not comment on whether the document was referring to her.

Prosecutors wrote that after Rosenberg gave Jackson $10,000, he and Jackson went to Detroit City Council offices to meet with Riddle and Conyers. Jackson said he gave Riddle $2,500 and Conyers $5,000, and that he would give $3,400 to "Alberta."

"Alberta gonna do what she say she gonna do, but Monica is a fighter. She likes to kick, scream, you seen her," Jackson said on the recordings, prosecutors wrote in the memo.

Prosecutors declined to comment. Tinsley-Talabi, who has not been accused of wrongdoing by federal officials, did not return calls Thursday seeking comment.

Detroit lawyer Mark Kriger, who does not represent Tinsley-Talabi but represented several people in the investigation, cautioned about taking all of Jackson's claims at face value.

"He made false claims about other officials," Kriger said.

Jackson told Rosenberg that payments to Conyers and Riddle were a regular part of his business.

Jackson told Rosenberg: "She sends him out there to shake me, this happens all the time."

Jackson also told Rosenberg that he and Riddle used services Riddle supposedly provided to the Nation of Islam to disguise the payments.

Rosenberg pleaded guilty in U.S. District Court in Detroit in July 2006 in a money-laundering conspiracy involving marijuana. Under a plea agreement, he was sentenced to 30 months last November but is free pending testimony in the Riddle case.