“What I have to decide is, are you a statesman or a politician?” Federal Judge Stephen Clark asked former 21st Ward alderman John Collins Muhammad on Tuesday afternoon. “Is there a ‘stress of the soul,’” Clark asked.
Muhammad, along with fellow disgraced former aldermen, Jeffrey Boyd and Lewis Reed, was sentenced to 45 months of incarceration in federal prison. Reed also received 45 months, and Boyd received 36 months; all three will have to serve three years of supervised release after they are released from their yet-to-be-determined prison facilities.
Clark expressed what troubled him the most about each defendant’s respective involvement in tax abatement bribery with “John Doe,” identified as North City gas station owner Muhammad Almuttan. For Collins Muhammad, the judge expressed his concerns about the “ease” with which the young alderman committed his admitted crimes. There was “no hesitation in giving your price,” Clark stated, and added that Collins Muhammad had taken bribes like they were an “appropriate, acceptable, and uneventful way of doing business in the City of St. Louis.”
As for Boyd, what the judge found most objectionable was that his victims were seemingly countless, citing statements several victims impacted provided to the court. “But for the letters of support,” Clark said, he would have given Boyd a much more harsh sentence.
Judge Clark spoke to Reed last. He was joined in the courtroom by notable figures including lobbyist Dave Sweeney, former 24th ward committeewoman Teri Powers, his former chief of staff Tom Shephard, and Reed’s wife, former Judge Mary Entrup. Standing next to his attorney, famed criminal defense lawyer Scott Rosenblum, Reed was asked the same question as the other two: are you a statesman, or are you a politician?
Reed, Judge Clark decided, was just another politician. This finding was greeted with vigorous head-shaking and disapproving whispers of Reed’s family and friends in the gallery. Assistant U.S. Attorney Hal Goldsmith reminded the court – and audience – that for 15 years, Reed served as the second-highest elected official in the City of St. Louis. Goldsmith recounted with some irony the 2013 mayoral election, when Reed challenged then-mayor Francis G. Slay. Back then, Reed held a press conference to accuse Slay of engaging in pay-to-play politics.
“Every dollar in St. Louis goes through the Board of Estimate & Apportionment,” Goldsmith said. Reed had a seat at that table. Reed’s wife and family hushedly voiced their disagreement with these statements. It seems as if they didn’t believe that Reed was guilty of the crime he committed – and admitted. But what troubled Clark the most about Reed’s behavior was “how coolly and calculated he accepted bribes from Doe.”
A politician, Clark said, “does not experience stress of soul.” Acknowledging Reed’s life barriers and how he overcame them, Clark noted that Reed initially refused to resign as President of the Board of Aldermen because he claimed that he did nothing wrong and that Reed had lied to FBI investigators when he was first confronted about the bribes he accepted.
After announcing Reed’s sentence of 45 months of incarceration, Entrup angrily grabbed her belongings and stormed out of the courtroom, with her family loudly in tow. Reed’s behavior, Clark said, was a “scar that will long be on the City of St. Louis.”
The three aldermen will receive their facility assignments in the coming days, and each will be given a date to report to that facility. Collins Muhammad was fined $19,500, Boyd was fined $23,688, and Reed was fined $18,500.
Meanwhile…
Meanwhile the Board of Aldermen is in the midst of a power struggle between new Board President Megan Green and…the majority of her colleagues who happened to have endorsed her recent opponent, fellow alderman Jack Coatar (Ward 7). With the impending Aldergeddon – where every single ward seat will be up for election – and ward reduction. It was expected that the Board was going to experience some chaos, but the timing of some of the disagreements just can’t be ignored. Of course, there were some expected attacks by Alderwoman Sharon Tyus (Ward 1) on President Green’s first day presiding over the Board, and then there is the recent repeal of 2012 oversight reform for the firefighters pension, opposed by F.I.R.E., the union that represents Black firefighters, and supported by Tyus.
For years, the “other” firefighters’ union has been fighting to repeal a decade-old law that placed a city-dominant (read: independent) board in charge of the firefighters’ pension fund, instead of firefighters who, you know, probably have conflicts of interest. But Alderman Tom Oldenburg (Ward 16) pushed the bill through committee and the full board. The Mayor’s office hasn’t yet indicated whether or not Mayor Jones will veto the board bill. Despite his cocky statements, Oldenburg is not expected to have enough votes to override a mayoral veto.
As the bickering continues and aldermen try to differentiate themselves from the forming packs, more newcomers are expected to enter ward races for the March 2023 nonpartisan primary. Remember: under St. Louis City’s new municipal election laws, city voters will get to vote for as many candidates as we want during the primary, where political party designation is left off the ballot. The top two vote receivers will then move on to the general election in April. For most of the new aldermanic wards, a path to victory will not be an easy one.
Interestingly, (per the Board of Election’s November 30 report, the most recent one on the date of our publishing), no one has filed for alderperson of Ward 11. Tyus also has not yet filed to run for Ward 12, leaving one to wonder if her courting of firefighter and police union groups goes beyond the boundaries of her fiefdom. Could Tyus be considering a run for President of the Board of Aldermen in the spring?
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We’ve noticed that Show Me Victories has been getting a lot of local air time recently, but we want to know: where are their victories?
By the EYE’s count, the Michael Kelley-led political operation losses included Coatar’s recent bid for Board President, Reed’s 2021 mayoral run, Alex Lange’s 2020 challenge to County Councilman Ernie Trakas, and former County Prosecutor Bob McCulloch’s 2018 race. To their credit, they did win (barely in a multi-candidate primary race) Lyda Krewson’s 2017 mayoral race, as well as Reed’s 2019 aldermanic president race, and Steve Stenger’s 2018 county executive race. Two of those three terms won were cut short by federal grand jury indictments and convictions.
Not an impressive record to stand on, yet political consultant Braxton Payne has become a frequent guest on KMOX’s Dave Glover Show, and Kelley himself has his Fox 2 segment, “Hancock and Kelley,” with Republican political consultant John Hancock.
Why are these politicos being upheld as reputable observers of local politics when their records show otherwise? What gives them credibility?
Can you imagine the outrage if KMOX or Fox 2 gave free air time to the Mayor’s office and allowed a spokesperson to speak uninterrupted for 15, 20, 30 minutes about progress made by Mayor Jones’ administration? And yet, these Kelley group-paid political operatives are given free rein to do so by local media. In addition they are not being held to the same journalistic standards expected by others in the industry.
So why are paid politicos being given free air time as “personalities,” to push the political agenda of their clients?
Answer: because the Kelley Group’s white privilege allows them to keep failing up.
