DALLAS — Two individuals associated with the public corruption investigation of Dallas County Commissioner John Wiley Price, one of whom was indicted last July with Commissioner Price, pleaded guilty before U.S. Magistrate Judge Paul D. Stickney Wednesday morning, through plea agreements and factual resumes, to federal offenses, announced John Parker, Acting U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of Texas
Christian Lloyd Campbell, 45, of Oklahoma, a consultant who, through his company, Christian Consulting Group, provided consulting services for businesses pursuing public and private sector contracts, pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy to commit bribery concerning a local government receiving federal benefits, as was charged in the indictment. Campbell faces a maximum statutory penalty of five years in federal prison and a $250,000 fine. However, according to the plea agreement filed, if the Court accepts the plea, the parties agree that the maximum term of imprisonment shall be no more than 36 months.
Karen Manning, who owned the Millennium 2000 art gallery in Dallas, which among other things, according to the factual resume filed, sold African art for Commissioner Price, pleaded guilty to an Information filed today charging one count of subscribing to a false and fraudulent U.S. individual income tax return. She faces a maximum statutory penalty of three years in federal prison and a $250,000 fine.
A factual resume is a statement of facts that support a defendant’s guilty plea. All persons named in Campbell and Manning’s factual resumes are entitled to the presumption of innocence until proven guilty.
Sentencing dates were not set.
The Federal Bureau of Investigation and Internal Revenue Service Criminal Investigation are conducting the investigation. Assistant U.S. Attorneys Walt M. Junker and J. Nicholas Bunch and Deputy Criminal Chief Assistant U.S. Attorney Katherine Miller are prosecuting.
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Why are federal prosecutors are so narrowly focused on the small-time crooks like Campbell and Price? Are these lawyers concerned that their career ambitions are threatened unless they too engage in honest services frauds against the public interests. We have seen this play out in the US District Court for the Northern District of Texas when the judge in this case, Barbara Lynn, was unduly lenient with the admitted bribers Brian and Cheryl Potashnik (https://www.scribd.com/doc/221876320/FBI-FOIA-Request-Judge-Barbara-M-G-Lynn). Lynn's past "performance" makes it predictable that she will rubber-stamp the AUSA's deal with Christian Lloyd Campbell's Bracewell & Giuliani mouthpieces. Contrary to her oath of office, Lynn is allowing her government lawyer buddies to scapegoat low lying fruit like Campbell while ignoring the crimes of her elite-class of friends, political supporters and her husband's employers who serve as the kingpins and queenpins of public corruption in North Texas. The Potashnik case and the Campbell case show how public corruption has metastasized to the state and the federal, the judicial and the law enforcement organs of government. When this case broke, Campbell’s Bracewell & Giuliani mouthpiece, Terence J. Hart, quickly hired new-partner, Shamoil Tamin Shiphandler, away from his AUSA job where he had participated in an inside-job derailing the DoJ’s public corruption investigation of Hart's client Lisa Blue-Baron that arose from Blue-Baron's bribery of Dallas DA Watkins as quid pro quo for Watkins’ honest services frauds in the malicious prosecution of Blue-Baron's (former) clients in the Hill v Hunt litigation. Blue-Baron used Watkins' prosecutorial power as a threat to extort tens of millions of dollars in unjustified fees she was demanding the Hills pay her and her lawyer racketeer partners. When the Hills did not yield to her threats, the scam blossomed into fraud upon several generations of recusing federal judges installed by federal chief judge and long-time Blue-Baron crony, Sidney Fitzwater. Also in exchange for Blue-Baron's guarantees of post-government-service "business opportunities," Watkins and Price sold their votes to approve a 25% (no-bid) contingency fee contract for Blue-Baron and her gang to file a federal lawsuit against MERS--to be "handled" by the same judge that eventually was forced to recuse in the Blue-Baron fee scam (https://www.scribd.com/doc/81083863/Case-MDL-No-2119-Document-198-Filed-02-02-12).
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