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In the lead up to sentencing for lying to FBI agents about making payments to Sulaimon Brown, former Gray campaign Howard Brooks has sent a letter asking to be spared jail time. “This is a fall from grace I would not wish on worst enemy,” Brooks says of the punishment he’s already received from having his names in the newspapers for more than a year and having pleaded guilty to a felony.
It’s likely that Brooks will be granted his request. The U.S. Attorney’s Office isn’t seeking jail time because Brooks turned into an uber-cooperative source once the feds nailed him. It was Brooks who helped put a case on the Gray campaign’s de facto treasurer, Thomas Gore.
Brooks’ attorneys also submitted several letters from friends and family members vouching for Brooks’ character. One letter sticks out: that from Gray campaign chairwoman Lorraine Green‘s daughter, Leslie Green.
Leslie Green says she’s known Brooks—”Mr B.” as she calls him—and that he’s been like a second father figure to her. “He is one of the kindest, most generous people I know and has served as a superb role model for both me and my brother,” Green wrote.
It’s no surprise that Leslie Green would be close to Brooks. Her mother, Lorraine Green, testified to the D.C. Council that she has a “close, personal friendship” with Brooks as well.
But the letter is a little surprising from a public relations standpoint, in light of Brown’s version of events that has Green facilitating the payments from Brooks. Court records filed in Brooks’ case indicate that an unidentified campaign aide—who both LL and the Post have reported is Green—knew of the payments to Brown, something Green has denied under oath.
Reached by phone today, Leslie Green confirmed she wrote the letter but declined to comment further.
Photo by Darrow Montgomery