CM Thomas due for plea hearing at 11:15 am Friday

WaPo reports:

D.C. Council member Harry Thomas Jr. was charged with embezzling more than $300,000 in city funds and filing a false tax return, according to court papers filed Thursday in the District’s federal court.

The charges came in a “criminal information,” a type of charging document that can only be filed with the defendant’s consent and generally signals that a plea deal has been reached.

A plea hearing in Thomas’ case has been set for 11:15 a.m. Friday before U.S. District Judge John D. Bates, according to a court docket entry.

Federal prosecutors and Thomas’ attorney have spent the last few days negotiating an agreement in the case. Thomas’s resignation has been a key part of those talks.

As it happens, GLAA has to put our questionnaire packets in the mail to D.C. Council primary candidates on Saturday. (The deadline for ballot petitions was COB yesterday.) We held off printing our policy brief in case new developments required an update. But we have to go to press on Friday morning, so I updated the brief's reference to Mr. Thomas to indicate that his resignation appeared imminent as of press time. Now it appears that we will also have to deal with a special election a month or so after the primary. C'est la guerre.

Harry Thomas Jr.'s record on LGBT issues was mixed. On one hand, he strongly opposed the relocation of our clubs that were displaced by the baseball stadium. On the other hand, he stepped up and eloquently defended marriage equality during the debate on that legislation, despite his ward being a hotbed of opposition. His brave support for the most important issue in GLAA's 40-year history will always have my respect. That he misused public funds makes me sad. Without punishment for such abuses of office, we can only expect them to proliferate.

HTJ's story, however, does not have to end here. Here's hoping that he finds redemption once he has paid his penalty. In the meantime, there does not appear to be a surplus of political heavyweights in Ward 5. The previous challengers who have expressed interest in the seat include Delano Hunter, who was backed in 2010 by the anti-gay National Organization for Marriage. The marriage battle is behind us (barring action by Congress, which appears increasingly unlikely), but our city hardly needs a council member who seeks to stoke social divisions. In the event of a special election, Mr. Hunter will have an opportunity to repudiate his anti-gay stance of 2010. We'll see.