Raymond F. Lederer

Raymond F. Lederer, 1977

Raymond Francis Lederer (born May 19, 1938 in Philadelphia , Pennsylvania , † December 1, 2008 ibid) was an American politician ( Democratic Party ), member of the House of Representatives of the United States and convicted in the course of Operation Abscam of the FBI .

Life

Raymond F. Lederer had a seat in the Pennsylvania House of Representatives from 1974 to 1977 . In 1976 he was elected to Congress for the Third District of Pennsylvania . He took up his mandate in January 1977 and was confirmed in 1978. He defeated each of his competitors of the Republican Party (Republican Party) with over 70% of the vote.

Corruption and Operation Abscam

To fight corruption and the trade in stolen goods, the FBI launched Operation Abscam in 1978 . In this context, the investigative authorities founded the company "Abdul Enterprises, Ltd." and undercover FBI agents posing as Middle Eastern businessmen . In secret meetings with officials, which were recorded on video, the agents promised this money in exchange for political support for the benefit of an unnamed sheikh. On September 11, 1979, Lederer was filmed in a motel in New York taking a $ 50,000 bribe in cash with the words “I can give you me” . In a later negotiation, Lederer u. a. Sentenced to prison. Of all the convicted politicians from the Abscam negotiations, he was the only one to be re-elected in the 1980 elections, but resigned to forestall a decision by the Ethics Committee . Raymond Francis Lederer spent 10 months in prison and died of lung cancer at the age of 70 .

Web links

• Raymond F. Lederer in the Biographical Directory of the United States Congress (English)
• Report in the New York Times
• Report on Abscam and Lederer
• Report on the Abscam scandal ( Memento from December 2, 2013 in the Internet Archive )