Howard Brooks has become the second figure in Mayor Vincent Gray’s 2010 campaign probe to plead guilty to a federal judge in the wide-ranging investigation regarding the campaign’s alleged misuse of funds. Brooks appeared in U.S. District Court in Washington, D.C. on Thursday and admitted that he was “instructed” to secretly pay a fringe candidate, known for his verbal attacks, to stay in the 2010 mayoral race. He recognized that he gave money orders worth $2,810 to Sulaimon Brown, who claimed last year that he accepted money and a job offer to scold the incumbent, Adrian Fenty, in campaign forums.
Neither Brooks nor his attorney, Glenn F. Ivey, acknowledged the person who gave the instruction to pay Brown. Brooks, 64, pleaded guilty to lying to FBI agents who were looking into Brown’s claims about a month after they first appeared in The Washington Post. Under a preliminary determination of federal sentencing guidelines, Brooks could face up to six month in prison, but will be eligible for a sentence of probation only. Earlier this week, assistant campaign treasurer and close friend of Mayor Gray, Thomas Gore, 56, was the first to plead guilty. On Tuesday, he admitted to obstructing justice by shredding a notebook containing records of payments to Brown, as well as campaign-finance misdemeanors related to the payments.
