ATLANTA (AP) – A former Georgia state lawmaker and civil rights activist told a judge Friday he regrets making the mistakes that landed him in federal court on fraud charges and said he takes full responsibility for his actions.
Tyrone Brooks, an Atlanta Democrat, pleaded guilty in April to one count of filing a false tax document and no contest to five counts of mail and wire fraud. U.S. District Judge Amy Totenberg said she wants to think about the case over the weekend and will announce Brooks’ sentence Monday.
Prosecutors have asked for two years in prison. Brooks’ lawyers are seeking five years’ probation, citing his years of dedicated civil rights work.
“I take full responsibility for all that has occurred. No one is to blame but me,” Brooks said. “I regret the mistakes I’ve made in doing this work.”
As a lawmaker, Brooks was best known for his nearly two-decades’ struggle to remove the Confederate battle cross from Georgia’s state flag, which saw success in 2001. He also prodded federal authorities to reopen an investigation into an infamous 1946 lynching of four people at Moore’s Ford in Walton County.
Prosecutors acknowledged the good work Brooks has done over the years and his positive impact in Georgia, but they said he used the goodwill he had built up to carry out fraudulent schemes.
The indictment alleged that Brooks solicited about $1 million in contributions from the mid-1990s to 2012 from individuals and corporate donors and said the money would be used for specific causes such as fighting illiteracy in underserved communities. The contributions were made to the Georgia Association of Black Elected Officials, which Brooks had led since 1994, and to Universal Humanities, a tax-exempt organization he founded in 1990. Prosecutors have called it a sham charity.
Brooks’ statement to the court was brief, only about two minutes. He said he should have had proper accounting procedures in place and did not. He takes full responsibility for that, he said.
Totenberg asked him if he wanted to address prosecutors’ allegations during the three and a half days of the sentencing hearing that Brooks had failed to accept responsibility, such as his statements to the media that the prosecution was government retaliation for his civil rights work.
“Your Honor, I do not minimize my responsibility. I do not run from my responsibility,” Brooks said in response. “I am fully aware of the mistakes I made.”
Totenberg pressed him further, asking if he wanted to comment on the fact that some of his close friends testified they were disappointed and upset that their names appeared without their permission on Brooks’ documents showing them involved in a charity they knew nothing about.
Brooks said whenever he prepared materials like that, they were sent to the people mentioned in the documents. Perhaps, he said, he didn’t follow up adequately.
“I would never, ever use a person’s name without their permission,” Brooks said, but he added that he understands that sometimes people forget and that much of this happened a long time ago.
Totenberg said she accepts his statement but that she must consider other evidence and that some of the activity in question took place in recent years.
Federal prosecutor Kamal Ghali argued that Brooks has made “frivolous denials of core facts.” Brooks devised a scheme to defraud donors, never told the people listed as board members in his alleged charity that their names were being used and told donors their money was going toward literacy programs that never happened, Ghali said.
Brooks is not charged with making mistakes or bad accounting but rather faces charges of mail and wire fraud, and he has not admitted to that or accepted any responsibility for it, Ghali argued.