Former state Rep. Tyrone Brooks said he accepted responsibility for the crimes outlined in the one count of tax fraud and five counts of mail and wire fraud but at the same time he offered an excuse as to how some of the fraud could have happened.
On Friday, Brooks spoke for less than two minutes before U.S. District Court Judge Amy Totenberg who announced she would sentence him at 10 a.m. Monday. He is seeking probation after being convicted of diverting to his personal bank account almost $1 million in donations between 1993 and 2012 from a labor union and five major corporations. The contributions were solicited for an illiteracy program that Brooks said was sponsored by a sham charity he had created, Universal Humanities.
Federal prosecutors are asking that he be sentenced to two years in prison. They say he should not be given any reduction because he does not accept responsibility. They have cited news accounts in which Brooks said even after he pleaded guilty and no contest in April that the case was brought against him because of his pressure on the federal government to investigate the lynchings of two black couples outside of Monroe at Moore's Ford Bridge in 1943.
Totenberg questioned Brooks specifically on testimony that he listed people as members of his board of directors who were not even aware of Universal Humanities or the literacy program it supposedly ran.
“People forget. People don’t remember,” Brooks said in answer to a question after he made his statement. “I do understand it’s been a long time. I’ve never deliberately or intentionally used someone else’s name.”
Totenberg said, “I accept your statements but of course there is other evidence.”
Totenberg had planned to sentence Brooks Friday but said she will delay her decision until Monday, wanting to take the weekend to think about what has been presented during four days in the sentencing hearing.
Several stalwarts of the civil rights movement, who have known Brooks since he joined it as a teenager, urged the judge to allow Brooks to remain free so he can continue his work. One of his lawyers is former Gov. Roy Barnes and another former Georgia governor, Zell Miller, sent a letter supporting Brooks and referencing his decades of working for civil rights.
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