The chief of staff to D.C. Council member Jim Graham was arrested on bribery charges Thursday, accused of taking trips and $1,500 in payoffs in exchange for pushing legislation that would reward some in the taxicab industry.
Ted G. Loza, 44, was taken into custody at his home on Columbia Road NW a little before 7 a.m., just hours before federal agents descended on his office at city hall to search records and computers.
Federal prosecutors allege that Loza accepted a “stream of things of value,” including cash, the use of vehicles and trips, to help an unnamed informant with a financial interest in the taxicab industry. The trips included one to Ethiopia and free limo rides to airports and other destinations in the D.C. area, two law enforcement sources said.
Graham (D-Ward 1) introduced legislation that would have benefited the informant, authorities said. The council member is not charged in the indictment and denied any wrongdoing. “I have had no engagement whatsoever in any illegal or unethical behaviors,” he said.
As part of the investigation, prosecutors said, the informant wore a hidden microphone. In July, after accepting a $500 bribe from the informant, Loza explained his motives for accepting the cash, prosecutors said. “You know I need it,” Loza said, according to the transcript of the conversation in court papers. “That’s why I take it, you know.”
Loza pleaded not guilty to two counts of receiving a bribe by a public official during a brief appearance Thursday before U.S. District Judge Paul L. Friedman. Loza, a native of Ecuador who is not a U.S. citizen, was ordered to surrender his passport and was released on personal recognizance. He faces up to 30 years in prison for each count if convicted.
Loza’s attorney, Pleasant S. Brodnax, said the Graham staffer did nothing wrong. “When all the facts come out and the entire context of this is understood, you will see that Mr. Loza is not guilty of bribery,” Brodnax said.
Graham, first elected to the council in 1998 and known for his bow ties, said he was “deeply troubled” by the indictment and will cooperate fully with federal investigators. The council member said he has “never had a conversation with Teddy Loza where he came to me and said, Will ‘you do this or will you do that?’ ”
And, Graham said, “nothing that has been alleged, whether it occurred or didn’t occur, had any influence on any action I took in terms of the legislation on taxicabs, which I introduced.”
Law enforcement sources said the probe is broad. Although the accusations against Loza are fairly recent, law enforcement sources said agents have been conducting a corruption investigation for at least a year. They also obtained wiretaps as part of the probe, said the sources, who, like other sources, spoke on condition of anonymity because the investigation is continuing.
On Thursday, federal agents spent most of the day searching Loza’s office. But, according to the search warrant, they were not authorized to go through Graham’s work space. They also seized files from the D.C. Council’s mainframe computer in the basement of the John A. Wilson Building. Graham was leading a meeting of the Metro board when the raids began.
The warrant said agents were searching for documents tied to taxicab legislation, licenses, medallions, a taxi company called United Fleet Management and Fiesta D.C., a nonprofit organization that puts on an annual Hispanic festival in Mount Pleasant.
According to the organization’s Web site, Graham is an honorary board member for the organization. Loza’s wife, Ligia X. Mu?oz, works for the organization and is in charge of its finances and administration. Loza was on the board until recent weeks.
Yitbarek Syume, owner of United Fleet Management, declined to comment.
Agents also were looking for any correspondence and financial information connecting Graham, Loza, the informant and “other Washington D.C. area public officials,” the search warrant says.
According to law enforcement sources and court documents made public Thursday, Loza is accused of taking bribes from an unidentified man with “financial interests in the taxi industry.” In a 10-page indictment, authorities allege that Loza accepted separate $1,000 and $500 cash payments in June and July from a man, identified only as “Individual Number 1” in the indictment. In exchange for the cash, trips and free car rides, Loza agreed to promote legislation and policies that helped the unnamed individual, the indictment alleges.
The indictment says Individual Number 1 wanted to limit the number of taxicab licenses issued by the District and to create an exception for hybrid vehicles under D.C. law.
Three sources familiar with the investigation identified Individual Number 1 as Abdulaziz Kamus, the executive director of the African Resource Center, a nonprofit organization that assists African immigrants, according to press accounts. Kamus, who hails from Ethiopia, has also been quoted in the media as an advocate for Ethiopian taxi drivers.
Kamus could not be reached Thursday. The number at the African Resource Center was disconnected.
Graham is not identified by name in the indictment but is referred to as “Public Official No. 1.” He is chairman of the council’s Committee on Public Works and Transportation. The committee has oversight of the D.C. Taxicab Commission.
The indictment says federal agents tape-recorded a meeting between Loza and Individual Number 1 on June 19. In that meeting, the individual handed Loza a “Father’s Day” present of an envelope containing $1,000 in cash, according to the indictment.
Individual Number 1 said the money was from him and another person, who apparently also works in the taxi industry.
“What do you want me to do?” Loza asked after receiving the cash, according to a transcript in the indictment. “What do you want me, I’ll talk to [Graham]. And I can call you back later on.”
Ten days later, the indictment alleges, Individual Number 1 met with Graham to discuss taxicab legislation with a hybrid car exemption. The council member “declared that he would introduce that legislation,” the indictment says.
The next day, June 30, Graham introduced a bill that he has said was designed to limit the number of cab operators in the city because he feared the District was being overrun by taxis. The bill would create a medallion system, similar to those in New York and Boston, in which users would buy licenses to operate a taxi. Under the bill, which was co-sponsored by Muriel Bowser (D-Ward 4), operators of “low emissions,” or hybrid, vehicles would get such medallions for free.
On July 10, Individual Number 1 and Loza met again. During the conversation, Loza handed the individual a copy of Graham’s bill.
“Beautiful, wow, beautiful,” the person said, according to a transcript in the indictment. “Really. I want to thank you very much.”
The person then asked about hybrid vehicles.
“Yeah, that’s the exception,” Loza said. “But, but, read it, and uh, then let me know if there’s something . . . that, that raises your eyebrows.”
Individual Number 1 then said the other unidentified person also “wanted to really thank you as well for this.”
“He does?” Loza asked. “What, didn’t he thank me or didn’t you guys thank me already?”
Individual Number 1 then handed Loza $500 in cash, the indictment says, and the council staffer pocketed the money.
Loza has known about the investigation for some time, said his attorney, Brodnax. Graham said Loza told him that he was under investigation several days ago.
“The fact of the matter is, in the course of a day of council activities, a great many people ask you to do a great number of things,” Graham said. “I would want to see this more specifically, but I know I have engaged in no such activities.”
MELBOURNE, AUSTRALIA (Bartamaha) — A GOODWILL mission has turned into a nightmare for a Melbourne man who has been imprisoned and tortured in Ethiopia, according to his family.
Sadiq Ahmed, 46, a food inspector from Heidelberg who is an Australian citizen, has been detained since May, his brother Abdalla said yesterday.
The father of four has been in Ethiopia for the past two years, helping to build a hospital with $100,000 in funds raised by Abdalla in Australia.
Abdalla and his sister Malyun yesterday made an impassioned plea for the Australian Government to try to secure his release.
Speaking in Melbourne yesterday, Abdalla said his brother was taken off a bus along with 10 other people by government-backed militia in the Somali province where the hospital is being built.
Somali-born Abdalla, 53, featured in The Age in June last year about how he had given up his job and was driving taxis so he could concentrate on raising money for the hospital in Raaso, a destitute town of 80,000 in the Ethiopian Somali province where his father came from.
Abdalla was in Ethiopia’s capital at the time of his brother’s arrest and was tipped off that the militia were looking for him. He contacted the Canadian consul – Australia has no consul in Ethiopia – who advised he go into hiding and to contact him to accompany him when he was ready to go to the airport, which he did a week later.
Abdalla, president of the Raaso project and a board member of Banyule Community Health, said his brother was imprisoned in the regional capital Jijiga and accused of ”creating unrest”. But Abdalla insisted that ”Sadiq spent two years working in the field and never interfered in any politics”.
He believed tribal rivalry may be behind the arrest, with sensitivities touched off by the project’s focus on neglect in Raaso, where ”every morning there is a row of babies waiting to be buried because the women can’t make it to a hospital”.
The family say Mr Ahmed has been shackled, beaten with rifle butts and sentenced to seven years’ jail without trial. Mr Ahmed’s wife Bishar, who is pregnant, managed to visit him recently and saw he was injured.
Malyun, a social worker, is angry that the only ”help” that the Department of Foreign Affairs has been providing is the passing of information that they already know, with no consular visit made to her brother.
In frustration, they wrote three weeks ago to Prime Minister Kevin Rudd and Foreign Minister Stephen Smith. ”I am sure if Australia’s prime minister was to phone Ethiopia’s prime minister, it would take one call for my brother to be released,” Abdalla said. They have not received a reply.
Ethiopia’s Bonnie and Clyde embarrass themselves on the red carpet:
Next arrives Ethiopian President the butcher of Addis Ababa Meles Zenawi, who clearly did something in the car to anger his wife because she glares at him, Mr. Obama, Mrs. Obama, and anyone unfortunate enough to cross her line of vision.
(Doug Mills/The New York TimesPresident Obama and First Lady Michelle Obama laughed while they waited for their guests to arrive.)
The Times’s Helene Cooper has an entertaining pool report on tonight’s dinner of world leaders at the Phipps Conservatory:
Well, there was no red carpet lining the walkway to the Phipps Conservatory for the leaders’ dinner tonight hosted by President Obama and First Lady Michelle Obama. But since the First Couple nonetheless spent almost two hours greeting each of their 60 or so guests as they arrived, one by one — or in the case of couples, two by two — and since your pooler’s dream job is actually to work for E Channel covering the Academy Awards Red Carpet, consider this your Red Carpet report.
At 6:15 p.m. Mr. and Mrs. Obama stepped out of the Phipps Conservatory, underneath an awning to greet their first guests. Mr. Obama in a dark blue suit, Mrs. Obama in a taupe, pink and green patterned cocktail dress with straps. Pink patent leather two-inch heels. Hair pulled back in a full, bouffant faux ponytail. Long pearl necklace, pearl earrings. No stockings.
Mr. Obama: “Where’d my First Lady go?”
Mrs. Obama: “Right here,” stepping beside him, as it started to drizzle.
Mr. Obama pokes fun at the pool, whispering something to Reggie Love and Mrs. Obama, then looking at pool and saying: “We’re talking about how you guys are all waiting to write something down.”
First to arrive is an Allegheny County official who’s name your pooler didn’t get. (There’ll be a lot of that to come).
Then the mayor of Pittsburgh, Luke Ravenstahl and his wife.
Mr. Obama: “Hey Luke, sorry about those Steelers, man.”
Mr. Ravenstahl: “So am I.”
There’s a pause for a while between arrivals, and the First Couple turns to the pool for entertainment.
Mrs. Obama: “You guys are so quiet. Somebody should sing.”
Mr. Obama: “We should have music. Where’s the music?”
Then, “I’m teasing, Emmett, don’t freak out,” looking back at, presumably, the first Music Supplier.
Then, to Mrs. Obama: “No, don’t stress these guys out.”
Long interval, then more arrivals, the director general of the WTO, Pascal Lamy, the chairman of the Financial Stability Board, Pennsylvania Congressman Mike Doyle.
Mr. Obama is teasing Mrs. Obama. “You’re standing on the wrong side of me.” She moves to his other side. He says, “I’m just teasing.” She stares straight ahead with a smile.
Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper arrives with his wife. They get a warm welcome from both Obamas, the warmest so far. There’s a lot of familiarity. Hugs, chats about daughters.
Next is Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, stag. He gets familiarity, but not so much warmth.
Robert Zoellick, World Bank president, in a royal blue suit.
Ooh, next is South African President Jacob Zuma! Which wife did he bring? The youngest of course, Nompumelelo Ntuli, who puts her arm around Mrs. Obama and holds her hand during the photo op. Mrs. Obama tells Mr. Zuma that she expects him to solve the global economic mess “by Friday.”
Next arrives Ethiopian President Meles Zenawi, who clearly did something in the car to anger his wife because she glares at him, Mr. Obama, Mrs. Obama, and anyone unfortunate enough to cross her line of vision.
The Obamas both look slightly taken aback by her. Wonder what happened in the car? The Ethiopian First Couple are quickly dispatched inside.
Thankfully, Angela Merkel of Germany, arriving stag, comes down the non-red carpet next, exuding warmth, familiarity, and chattiness. She’s wearing a pantsuit.
It’s 7:07, the Obamas have been greeting for almost an hour.
United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki Moon gets cordiality.
Australian head Kevin Rudd gets familiarity and warmth, and brings with him his wife, who brings with her the first cleavage of the evening, in a black suit with low low-cut top. Five-inch stilettos. “Kevin, you finally brought your better half,” says Mr. Obama.
Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan is next, with his wife, Ermine, wearing the first hijab of the evening.
British Prime Minister Gordon Brown and Mrs. Brown get hugs, kisses, more hugs, more kisses, handholding, you name it. Mrs. Brown holds Mr. Obama’s hand during the photo op. She’s the first woman to bring a handbag, a really cute black patent leather number with gold chain strap.
Prince Saud al Faisal of Saudi Arabia arrives stag.
President of Korea gets a mention because his wife is fabulous in a long dress that comes dangerously close to formal when everyone else is in cocktail attire.
Mr. Obama greets the Korean interpreter, then says to Mrs. Obama: “he’s the best-dressed interpreter.”
It’s 7:15 and here comes a fashion plate walking down the non-red carpet. It’s Argentine President Cristina Kirchner, resplendent in lavender silk suit with matching shoes and hair.
The Indonesian leader is next. Mr. Obama says “Selamat Malam.” Hah! Didn’t know your pooler could speak Indonesian, huh? The Indonesian First Lady is in a long silk tunic with a floor-length under skirt.
7:20 — Carla Bruni!!!!
Carla Bruni Sarkozy and Nicholas Sarkozy arrive. Sarko is wearing a suit. Carla Bruni is in a stunning black silk sheath dress, stops just below the knee. She’s holding a green wool scarf, and is wearing Christian Louboutins black evening shoes.
Mr. Obama kisses her four times. “I’m not going to get a chance to see you much.”
Mrs. Obama and Mrs. Sarkozy chat warmly. A lot of touching there too.
Hu Jintao comes stag.
Pennsylvania Gov. Ed Rendell appears not to know that these days people kiss on both cheeks, not one, withdrawing from Mrs. Obama as she is leaning in to kiss his other cheek, so he has to come back in as she’s pulling back. Sigh.
Then he tells Mrs. Obama that Mr. Obama “inspired me when he made fun of me over cheesesteaks so I decided to lose weight.”
Mr. Obama says, “He just lost like 20 pounds.”
Russian President Dimitri Medvedev is next, with his wife, who is in an ultra bright peach cocktail suit with frills around the collar with matching earrings and taupe pumps.
Mr. Obama says to Mr. Medvedev: “Dimitri, come, we don’t have enough pictures together.”
Mrs. Obama tells Mr. Medvedev to “figure it out tonight.”
Then it’s Brazilian President Lula da Silva, with his wife, and, finally, at 7:50 p.m., Japan’s new Prime Minister, Yukio Hatoyama, and his wife, Miyuki, back from Venus. She is in an elegant black suit with a bubble skirt and carries a burgundy shawl.
NICODEMUS — A new “it” grain is blooming in the fields of northwestern Kansas. Teff has a ready-made market of Ethiopian expatriates hungering for a taste of home with virtually no supply of the grain for their beloved injera bread. Teff packs more protein per pound than wheat. And because it produces gluten-free flour, it could open a buffet line of breads and pastas to people with celiac disease.
It also can withstand drought and floods and, so far, it hasn’t fallen prey to pests that bedevil other Midwestern crops.
Ethiopians have long adored the grain, raising it by hand in their highlands and making it the country’s staple cereal.
“People will definitely buy it,” said 52-year-old Gillan Alexander, a Graham County farmer who is among those experimenting with a crop that is ancient in Africa but new to Kansas.
But can America reap its harvest?
A tiny grain
A grain of teff is only slightly larger than the period at the end of this sentence. Walk through a field that Gary Alexander — a cousin of Gillan’s — has planted in wheat, and all the challenges of mechanizing teff production begin to show.
Start with the ground. Squint closely enough and you see that some of the tiny reddish seeds have fallen to the dirt, lost for any chance of harvest. In fact, the word “teff” translates to “loss” in the Ethiopian language of Amarigna.
The grass has begun to shed its seeds partly because the plants have matured at dramatically different rates. Some are bright green shoots just starting out, while others are browning in retreat.
No sooner does it reach maturity than the soft stem bends over. Modern farmers call it lodging, and they don’t like it. They prefer crops with good posture that stand up for vacuum-like harvest machinery.
Teff has proved all the more troublesome because even at full growth, it can vary in height by a foot or more. When teff is harvested, far too much chaff ends up with the Lilliputian grain.
“You can tell how the Ethiopians get the seed by whacking at this stuff by hand,” 62-year-old Gary Alexander said. “I don’t think my hands will last that long.”
He has pieced together two-by-fours and window screen to devise a sieve, and it works well enough. So it’s possible, but not yet practical, to harvest teff commercially.
Efficiency lacking
Ethiopian farming of teff only supports a national per capita income of $800 a year. To make the payments on Kansas farmland, to cover the cost of 21st-century farm equipment and to leave a little profit at the end will require something more efficient.
“So far, it’s been too labor-intensive,” said Josh Coltrain of Cloud County Community College.
Coltrain has been hired by the Kansas Black Farmers Association to oversee a project paid for by the U.S. Department of Agriculture to determine whether teff has potential in America’s breadbasket.
Just a few hundred acres have been planted so far, scattered among several farmers in an area where one person sometimes tends more than 1,000 acres. Grants issued through the Solomon Valley Resource Conservation Development Area since the test plots were first planted in 2005 add up to less than $200,000.
The grain’s promise, Coltrain said, doesn’t come in its yields. Farmers can get perhaps three times as many bushels per acre from wheat. But the premium paid for teff — at a few health food stores and groceries that cater to African immigrants and to Ethiopian restaurants — could quickly make up for the smaller bounty.
“I get calls all the time from people wanting to buy it from us, mainly for Ethiopian restaurants and bakeries,” he said. “I have to tell them we haven’t got everything figured out yet.”
Coltrain thinks it ultimately will be a good Great Plains crop. It can withstand wild weather springs, and in many ways the dry spells common to western Kansas are similar to those in Ethiopia. The trick, he said, will be cross-breeding varieties that bring more uniformity to the plants and increase the amount of grain a teff plant produces.
‘Cotton candy for horses’
Teff’s cultivation dates at least to the 13th century B.C., and the grain today hasn’t changed much. By comparison, wheat, grain sorghum, corn and the other grains popular in this part of the world are finely tuned, sometimes genetically modified hybrids.
In the meantime, farmers and agricultural economists say teff looks worthwhile as a forage crop — cut for hay without bothering to harvest the seed.
“That’s a decent fallback,” said Bruce Anderson, a professor of agronomy at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln.
Teff tends to grow quickly enough to cut up to four times in a year and pack into bales. And for Kansas fields planted in fall for winter wheat, plant scientists said it makes a good rotation crop.
What’s more, the softer leaves and stems make it ideal for pampered livestock such as alpacas or llamas that sometimes have difficulty digesting hay, or end up with bloody snouts from eating rougher products.
“I call it cotton candy for horses,” Gary Alexander said. “They just love it.”
The push to bring the grain to Kansas began with Edgar Hicks, an official at the Nebraska State Grange who works with minority farmers. He hopes Nicodemus will be to American teff what the Champagne region of France is to sparkling wine.
Next is Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, stag. He gets familiarity, but not so much warmth.
NICODEMUS — A new “it” grain is blooming in the fields of northwestern Kansas. Teff has a ready-made market of Ethiopian expatriates hungering for a taste of home with virtually no supply of the grain for their beloved injera bread. Teff packs more protein per pound than wheat. And because it produces gluten-free flour, it could open a buffet line of breads and pastas to people with celiac disease.