A former campaign consultant for Council Chairman Kwame “Fully Loaded” Brown says he gave the FBI financial records last summer but hasn’t been in contact with federal authorities since.
Charles Hawkins‘ Banner Consulting was paid $380,000 by Brown’s 2008 reelection campaign. An audit by the Office of Campaign Finance shows that Banner paid $240,000 to a company owned by Brown’s brother, Che Brown. Several of the payments from the campaign to Banner found their way to Che Brown’s company “in close proximity to the time frames if not the same day and the same amounts,” the audit says.
Both Hawkins and Kwame Brown told the Post after the audit came out in April that there had been no wrongdoing. But last July, the Board of Elections and Ethics referred Brown’s campaign finance issues to the U.S. Attorney’s Office, with then-BOEE Chairman Togo West bluntly telling reporters that he thought there was evidence of “criminal” behavior. The U.S. Attorney’s Office replied with a statement indicating that they’d already been investigating.
Hawkins says he delivered documents to the FBI—including bank statements, canceled checks, and invoices—last June. He added he’s not heard from the FBI or the U.S. Attorney’s Office since he handed over the records, nor has he hired a lawyer.
Bill Miller, a spokesman for the U.S. Attorney’s Office, says the investigation, whose status is the topic of frequent speculation at the Wilson Building, is still ongoing.
The attorney representing Brown’s campaign in the investigation, Fred Cooke Jr., did not immediately return a call for comment.