County says NO! to Freebery.
Thank God. I do not want my tax dollars going to a corrupt felons like Sherry Freebery or Tom Gordon.
Council voted 11-1 against the proposal [giving Freeberry $3.7 million for her legal expenses], saying they agreed with a recommendation from a special consultant who determined that the county’s indemnification law is too narrowly drawn to require a reimbursement.
“When you look at the plain language of the provision, which is unlike Delaware corporate law, our provision is permissive,” said Councilman John Cartier, D-8th District.
“A lot of the charges constituted a pattern of a breach of the public trust.”
Freebery, the former Chief Administrative Officer of the County, and her boss, former County Executive Tom Gordon, were brought up on charges of “running the government as a criminal enterprise and misusing county resources for their personal and political gain.” In a plea deal prior to trial, Freebery pleaded guilty to one felony count of making a false statement to a bank for failing to include on a mortgage application that she had a $2.3 million loan from du Pont heiress and developer Lisa Dean Moseley.
I am not sure why Freebery needs the County to pay her bills. Surely she can get another “loan” from a du Pont heiress.
I guess Freeberry’s extortion threats didn’t work. What ever happened to the good old days when NCC would pay someone $3 million to go away?
Oh that’s right, Freebery and Gordon are not calling the shots anymore.
So get ready for an even larger lawsuit….now she can sue for multi millions!
And she will rack up even more debt. The language of the indemnification provision is permissive, thus it is the council’s discretion to award the money or not.
Just because the US Attorney could not prove the case doesn’t mean she isn’t guilty. She will not see a dime from this county.
Did Sherry ever pay back that ‘loan’ she got?
If it was a gift, were gift taxes paid? They would seem to be do?
When I first read of the incident, I thought that an elderly woman with more money than functioning brain cells was swindled out of a lot of money. But if appears that there could have been some quid pro quo that made the ‘loan’ a form of ‘investment’ that can send both the donor and donee to the Big House.
Beating the rap was guaranteed when a ‘senior judge’ appointed by LBJ was brought in. Senility may have trumped partisanship.
Why everyone wants to forget that a sitting Judge in Delaware’s courts was a party to this extortive pile of money? Sheesh. Farnan should retire.
Several questions remain.
If this was truly an loan and there was no intent to pay it back was Sherry involved with fraud?
If it was a gift out of gratitude for unsuccessful help in beating a murder rap, was there a payment of gift tax? If not, why no prosecution from the IRS?
If there was a bit of quid pro quo re a lucrative rezoning of some real estate, do not the bribery statutes apply?
Was the ‘loan’ ever repaid?
We should look with suspicion on public officials whose wealth increases substantially while they spend a working (?) lifetime in public office in a manner not explainable by salary, inheritance, or strategic marriage. Only two presidents have raised such strong suspicions and candidate Gore came close.