Highlights
- FBI agents found $90,000 in cash wrapped in aluminum foil and hidden inside frozen pie crust boxes at Congressman William Jefferson’s Washington D.C. home
- Jefferson was caught on video accepting $100,000 from an FBI informant, money intended as a bribe for Nigeria’s Vice President
- The Lake Providence native became Louisiana’s first Black congressman since Reconstruction before receiving the longest prison sentence ever given to a representative
- The case sparked a constitutional crisis when FBI agents conducted the first-ever raid on a congressional office in U.S. history
- Jefferson’s fall from Harvard Law School graduate to federal prisoner exemplifies Louisiana’s tradition of colorful political corruption
From Sharecropper’s Son to “Cold Cash”: How Louisiana’s Historic Congressman Became America’s Most Notorious Bribe-Taker
When FBI agents opened the freezer in a Washington D.C. townhouse on August 3, 2005, they discovered what would become the most infamous evidence in congressional corruption history – and cement Louisiana’s reputation for producing politicians as colorful as they are corrupt.
LAKE PROVIDENCE, La. (KPEL News) — The discovery that made international headlines and turned a Louisiana congressman into a punchline was as bizarre as it was damning: $90,000 in cash, meticulously wrapped in aluminum foil and stuffed inside Boca Burger containers and Pillsbury pie crust boxes, sitting in the freezer of William “Dollar Bill” Jefferson’s home.
But the frozen money was just the tip of the iceberg in a corruption scandal that would stretch from the cotton fields of East Carroll Parish to the highest levels of African government, ultimately landing Louisiana’s first Black congressman since Reconstruction in federal prison with the longest sentence ever imposed on a member of Congress.
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The story of William Jefferson reads like a classic Louisiana political tale – equal parts American dream and cautionary fable, featuring the kind of larger-than-life characters and jaw-dropping details that have made the Pelican State synonymous with political excess for generations.
The Discovery That Shocked America
The FBI had been watching Jefferson for months when agents simultaneously raided his homes in Washington D.C. and New Orleans on that sweltering August morning in 2005. What they found in his freezer would become the signature image of congressional corruption: nine bundles of $10,000 each, wrapped in foil with the care of someone preparing leftovers, hidden among frozen food containers…