FILE - In this March 20, 2012, file photo taken in Chicago, then-Rep. Jesse Jackson Jr., D-Ill. speaks at a Democratic primary election night party. The former and his wife Sandra were charged Feb. 15, 2013, with spending $750,000 in campaign funds on personal expenses. (AP Photo/M. Spencer Green, File)
FILE - In this March 20, 2012, file photo taken in Chicago, then-Rep. Jesse Jackson Jr., D-Ill. speaks at a Democratic primary election night party. The former and his wife Sandra were charged Feb. 15, 2013, with spending $750,000 in campaign funds on personal expenses. (AP Photo/M. Spencer Green, File)
FILE - In this Feb. 16, 2011 file photo, Chicago Alderman Sandi Jackson, wife of U.S. Rep. Jesse Jackson Jr., is seen in her Chicago office. On Friday, Feb. 15, 2013, Sandi Jackson, who resigned from the City Council in January 2013, was charged with filing false joint tax returns. Her husband was charged with spending $750,000 in campaign funds on personal expenses. (AP Photo/M. Spencer Green, File)
FILE - In this March 9, 2012 file photo, Rep. Jesse Jackson Jr. , D-Ill., and his wife, Chicago Alderman Sandi Jackson, ask each other for their support and votes as they arrive at a polling station for early voting in Chicago. On Friday, Feb. 15, 2013, Jackson, who resigned last year after nearly 17 years in office, was charged with spending $750,000 in campaign funds on personal expenses. His wife, Sandi, who resigned from the City Council in January 2013, was charged with filing false income tax forms. (AP Photo/M. Spencer Green, File)
WASHINGTON (AP) ? In a spectacular fall from political prominence, former U.S. Rep. Jesse Jackson Jr. and his wife agreed Friday to plead guilty to federal charges growing out of what prosecutors said was a scheme to use $750,000 in campaign funds for lavish personal expenses, including a $43,000 gold watch and furs.
Federal prosecutors filed one charge of conspiracy against the former Chicago congressman and charged his ex-alderman wife, Sandra, with one count of filing false joint federal income tax returns for the years 2006 through 2011 that knowingly understated the income the couple received. Both agreed to plead guilty in plea deals with federal prosecutors.
The son of a famed civil rights leader, Jackson, a Democrat, entered Congress in 1995 and resigned last November. Sandi, as she's known, was a Chicago alderman, but resigned last month amid the federal investigation.
Jackson used campaign money to buy such things as a $43,350 on a gold-plated, men's Rolex watch and $9,587.64 on children's furniture, according to court papers filed in the case. His wife spent $5,150 on fur capes and parkas, the document said.
"I offer no excuses for my conduct, and I fully accept my responsibility for the improper decisions and mistakes I have made," the ex-congressman said in a written statement released by his lawyers. "I want to offer my sincerest apologies ... for my errors in judgment and while my journey is not yet complete, it is my hope that I am remembered for things that I did right."
The government said, "Defendant Jesse L. Jackson Jr., willingly and knowingly, used approximately $750,000 from the campaign's accounts for personal expenses" that benefited him and his co-conspirator, who was not named in the one-count criminal information filed in the case. The filing of a criminal information means a defendant has waived the right to have a grand jury consider the case; it is used by federal prosecutors when they have reached a deal for a guilty plea.
The prosecutors' court filing said that upon conviction, Jackson must forfeit $750,000, plus tens of thousands of dollars worth of memorabilia items and furs. The memorabilia includes a football signed by U.S. presidents, a Michael Jackson and Eddie Van Halen guitar, a Michael Jackson fedora, Martin Luther King Jr. memorabilia, Malcolm X memorabilia, Jimi Hendrix memorabilia and Bruce Lee memorabilia ? all from a company called Antiquities of Nevada.
Published reports said Jackson could face 46 to 57 months in prison under sentencing guidelines, but there was no immediate confirmation of what, if any, sentence he and prosecutors had agreed to recommend to U.S. District Court Judge Reggie Walton, who was assigned the case.
Tom Kirsch, an attorney for Jackson's wife said she has signed a plea agreement with federal prosecutors and would plead guilty to one tax count.
Kirsch said his client and her husband have supported each other. He said the episode has been stressful for Sandi Jackson, but she "expected to be held responsible ... and wants to put (it) behind her and her family."
The charge against Sandi Jackson carries a maximum of three-year prison sentence. But Kirsch says the agreement "does not contemplate a sentence of that length."
The court papers said that Jackson filed false financial reports with the U.S. House of Representatives in an attempt to conceal his and his wife's conversion of campaign funds for their personal benefit.
A black and red cashmere cape cost $1,500, a mink reversible parka cost $1,200 and a black fox reversible cost $1,500, prosecutors wrote.
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Associated Press writer Michael Tarm in Chicago contributed to this report.
Associated Press
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