Ex-Aide Testifies Stockman Planned to Have Him ‘Take the Blame for Everything’
‘I had been a complete fool for trusting Mr. Stockman,’ onetime aide says in former congressman’s fraud trial
A former aide to former Rep. Steve Stockman testified Tuesday that the Texas Republican told him that he would be the person to take the blame for a fraud scheme.
Jason Posey is one of two aides who pleaded guilty and agreed to testify against Stockman in his fraud trial in hopes of a more lenient sentence.
Posey tried to avoid federal investigators by fleeing to Egypt, sold his car and put all of his belongings in storage at Stockman’s urging, the Houston Chronicle reported.
During this time, he lived in an apartment above a church in Cairo and continued to send money to bank branches in Istanbul and Frankfurt for Stockman’s money scheme to defraud conservative donors.
Posey said Stockman initially pledged he would “would come clean about everything” about the use of charitable contributions to pay for personal and campaign expenses. But Posey said he realized that Stockman would not protect him and after meeting with the FBI, he flew back to Texas to face criminal charges.
“He told me, ‘You’re going to take the blame for everything,’ and he was going to run for office,” Posey said. “That was when I realized that I had been a complete fool for trusting Mr. Stockman and he never intended to keep his pledge.”
Stockman is currently on trial for siphoning $1.25 million in charitable contributions to pay for personal and campaign-related expenses for his 2012 congressional campaign and his 2014 primary challenge against Texas Republican Sen. John Cornyn.
Posey said he knew Stockman since 1996 and helped shift money to sham charitable organizations to pay for Stockman’s expenses, all the while knowing they were breaking the law.
The trial is expected to continue into next week.
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