Judge upholds charges against DeLay

AUSTIN, Texas -- A judge dismissed a conspiracy charge Monday against Rep. Tom DeLay but refused to throw out the far more serious allegations of money laundering, dashing the congressman's hopes, for now, of reclaiming his post as House majority leader.\nTexas Judge Pat Priest, who is presiding over the case against the Republican, issued the ruling after a hearing late last month in which DeLay's attorney argued that the indictment was fatally flawed.\nWhen he was indicted in September, DeLay was required under House rules to relinquish the leadership post he had held since early 2003. While Monday's ruling was a partial victory for DeLay, he cannot reclaim his post because he remains under indictment.\nThe ruling means the case will move toward a trial next year, though other defense objections to the indictments remain to be heard by the judge.\n"The court's decision to dismiss Ronnie Earle's numerous charges against Mr. DeLay underscores just how baseless and politically motivated the charges were," DeLay spokesman Kevin Madden said, referring to the Democratic district attorney who brought the case.\n"Mr. DeLay is very encouraged by the swift progress of the legal proceedings and looks forward to his eventual and absolute exoneration based on the facts and the law."\nDeLay and two GOP fund-raisers, John Colyandro and Jim Ellis, are accused of illegally funneling $190,000 in corporate donations to 2002 Republican candidates for the Texas Legislature. Under Texas law, corporate money cannot be directly used for political campaigns, but it can be used for administrative purposes.\nIn asking that the case be thrown out, DeLay lawyer Dick DeGuerin argued that one of the charges -- conspiracy to violate the Texas election code -- did not even take effect until September 2003, a year after the alleged offenses occurred.\nProsecutors, however, said the crime of conspiracy was already on the books, and could be applied to the election code even though such uses were not explicitly in state law at the time.\nThe judge was not persuaded by that argument and dismissed the conspiracy charge. But the judge upheld charges of money laundering and conspiracy to commit money laundering. Those charges involve an alleged attempt by DeLay to conceal the source of the campaign contributions by funneling the money through his own political action committee and then an arm of the Republican National Committee.\nIn trying to have those charges thrown out, the defense argued that the Texas money laundering law does not apply to funds in the form of a check, just coins or paper money. But the judge said that checks "are clearly funds and can be the subject of money laundering."\nThe defense attorneys also argued that the definition of money laundering in Texas involves the transfer of criminal proceeds. Because the money in this case was not illegal to begin with, they argued, money laundering never occurred.\nBut the judge rejected that argument.\nConspiracy to violate the election code carries up to two years in prison. Money laundering is punishable by five years to life. Conspiracy to commit money laundering carries two years.\nThe alleged campaign-finance scheme had far-reaching political effects: With DeLay's fund-raising muscle, the GOP took control of the Texas House for the first time in 130 years, then pushed through a congressional redistricting plan engineered by DeLay that resulted in more Texas Republicans going to Congress.