3/5/2021
Updated 3/10/2021By Star Moffatt, Founder & CEO
Moffatt Media (M&M)
Palmdale, California
Former Congressman Rick Renzi (R-AZ) received a Presidential Pardon from President Trump, making Renzi one out 116 Pardons granted back on January 20, 2021. Relevancy of this societal issue still exists because what happened to Renzi, could very well happen to your family member, friend or yourself.
Renzi said, from day one, the case against me has been nothing more than political targeting because I was defending land of an Apache Tribe.
Renzi was convicted on federal criminal charges on 17 of 49 original counts. On October 28, 2013, Renzi was sentenced to three years in federal prison and released January 6, 2017.
From 2003 to 2009, Renzi had served the people of Arizona as their Congressman for Arizona’s First Congressional District – until crooked prosecutors, corrupt business interests, and political operatives conspired to cut my political career short and take me down. The FBI had even promised to pay a prosecution witness, tainting his conviction for corruption related to a land deal, said Renzi.
Renzi attorney Kelly Kramer of Mayer Brown LLP said the panel of federal prosecutors hid the scheme that their key witness, investor Philip Aries, had changed his account of a land deal after agents had promised what Aries thought would be as much as $25,000.00, if he collaborated.
“It is a fact, verified by court sanctions during a post-trial misconduct hearing, that the FBI offered money through a payoff scheme to manipulate the key witness in my case while this witness was going through bankruptcy. The prosecution then deliberately sponsored this lie to the jury and hid this scheme from my attorneys and the court.”
Such information became material evidence and would have allowed Renzi’s defense counsel to impeach Aries at trial, Kramer said. Contrary, prosecutors invoked Aries’ testimony 90 times in closing arguments and told the jury Aries hadn’t received “one thin dime” for his cooperation in this case, despite Aries later testimony that he thought he was going to receive would be like “hitting the lottery”
“The Presidential Pardon received by President Trump will allow my life to begin again. More importantly, my family and many friends who did not give up on me can begin to heal and together we can all move forward.” says Renzi.
“When one is truly innocent they will not plead guilty to a crime they did not commit, I did not commit any crimes and refused to plead guilty; the crimes were actually committed against me and my family due to FBI and prosecutorial misconduct schemes,” by rogue FBI agents, said Renzi.
Renzi ended with saying, “my life after pardon with innocence restored, because I fought them over the last 14 years every step of the way, and I paid a heavy price. Now, I will fight for the innocence of other people who have been the subject of abuse of power.”