An interesting local story has come to a conclusion with the conviction of Loren Jennings (D) on charges of mail fraud and money laundering. Jennings was the state representative for our district for 18 years before being defeated by Pete Nelson, whose campaign for re-election I worked on last year.
This story has loads of local connections and I actually delved into it for a short time before realizing that it was beyond my pay grade. My sources inside the county Republican Party were feeding me tidbits of information, including that FBI agents were pouring over documents all over the state in order to make this case. But my sources dried up once certain individuals were called to testify and were no longer allowed to discuss the case in any capacity.
The whole case centers on a company called Northern Pole, which received generous amounts of grant money, at Jennings behest, for purposes of refurbishing used light poles. No one that I talked to could recall a single pole being turned out by the company, despite receiving over a half million dollars for that express purpose.
A solid chunk of that money went to pay off previous bank loans secured by Jennings, who also had an undisclosed interest in Northern Pole that actually exceeded the grant amount.
It is a massive blow to the local Democratic Party that will make upcoming challenges, and highly sought after seats, much harder to secure. So much so, in fact, that I am afraid to even bring it up with various local Democratic Party leaders. Although I consider a couple of them to be friends, the mention of this is sure to set them off.
Instead I will keep my glee to myself, and quietly celebrate the fact that Jenning's conviction is a fairly major setback and sure to be a black mark on the party for the foreseeable future.
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