Name: 10 Shocking Cases That Exposed Corruption In The U.S. Justice System
Uploaded: 2025-11-24T16:54:12.000Z
Duration: 16 min 22 s
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A Scranton jury, it convicted a former Pennsylvania judge in a so called kids for cash scheme.

Relative clauses (Restrictive vs. nonrestrictive)

And today we're breaking down cases that reveal what happens when power is abused within the very institutions meant to uphold fairness and truth.

Officers in the Rampart Division are now accused of rigging deportation orders for suspected gang members or witnesses to police misconduct.

The case of a corrupt California FBI agent.

In One of the FBI's ugliest recent scandals, Babak Brumond, a supervisory special agent based in California, took at least $150,000 in cash and gifts, including luxury travel and a motorcycle from Edgar Sargassyan, a Beverly Hills lawyer with ties to Armenian organized crime.

In return, Broman searched FBI and law enforcement databases and funneled inside information to help Sargizyan and associates check whether they were under investigation and evade scrutiny.

Jurors convicted bromond in October 2022 of conspiracy, bribery, and unlawful monetary transactions.

A judge sentenced him to six years in federal prison in February 2023.

The case exposed how even a senior national security agent could be compromised by money and access, an institutional breach that demanded a hard reset on internal safeguards.

Tennessee lawmakers caught in a corruption sting.

The FBI agent from the Tennessee Waltz case tells us that anytime he sees video of searches happening in the administration building, it reminds him of that investigation from 2003.

Bribery, extortion legislation to benefit a fake company.

All part of a secretive undercover investigation into corruption at the state Capitol.

When the very individual's drafting laws engage in illicit activities, it exposes a fundamental flaw in the democratic process and the justice system it creates.

Former Tennessee state senator John Ford, a powerful figure in state politics, was convicted in 2007 on federal bribery and extortion charges as part of an FBI sting operation dubbed Operation Tennessee Waltz.

And Ford accepted cash payments from an undercover agent posing as a representative of a fictitious company seeking legislative favors.

part of a pattern that saw several Tennessee lawmakers ensnared in the widespread corruption probe.

Ford was eventually released from prison in 2012, five years after his initial conviction.

The investigation eventually led to the arrests of a dozen people, including Senator Ford, multiple other state senators, a representative, and

Burns says most corruption cases are smaller, but this one was unusual.

When you have the more systemic, it's more expansive.

The Oklahoma county commissioner's scandal.

Corruption at the local level might sound less dramatic than federal scandals, but

but its pervasive nature can erode public trust just as deeply.

In the 1980s, Oklahoma was rocked by a scandal involving nearly half of its 77 county commissioners who were implicated in a widespread kickback scheme.

These elected officials would conspire with road contractors, inflating prices for equipment and materials, then splitting the excess profit.

The decades long fraud siphoned millions of taxpayer dollars intended for crucial infrastructure projects, turning public service into a personal ATM for corrupt officials.

Ultimately, the sheer scale of the scandal revealed a systematic weakness in oversight and accountability within the state's local governance.

The Fall of Philadelphia DA R Seth Williams Former Philadelphia District Attorney Seth Williams is sentenced to five years in prison after pleading guilty this summer to accepting a bribe.

Today a judge imposed the maximum penalty in that case.

The integrity of the justice system depends on fair and impartial prosecutors.

Yet in Philadelphia, the city's top law enforcement official betrayed that trust.

Seth Williams was indicted in March 2017 on a 23 count federal corruption charge that included bribery, extortion and honest services fraud.

The first signs of trouble began in August of 2015 when federal agents subpoenaed records from his political action committee.

In January, Williams was fined $62,000 for failing to disclose gifts and sources of income.

That was the largest ethics fine in city history.

A trip to Punta Cana, a Jaguar convertible, a custom sofa, thousands in cash and checks in exchange for his agreement to perform official acts.

Williams was sentenced to 60 months in federal prison in October of 2017.

The scandal exposed how the power of the prosecutor's office can become a tool for personal gain and erode public confidence in justice.

I wasn't convicted of bribery, accepting bribes, but they're gifts I should not have accepted.

I should have reported all of the gifts and I accept responsibility for that.

Prosecutorial misconduct in the trial of Senator Ted Stevens, that closely contested Senate race in Alaska appears to be over.

The Associated Press projects that Republican Ted Stevens has lost his bid for re election just weeks after being convicted on federal ethics charges.

Even seemingly successful prosecutors can reveal deep seated corruption when justice is ultimately perverted by those wielding the power of the state.

The 2008 conviction of Alaska Senator Ted Stevens, then the longest serving Republican in Senate history on charges of making false statements became a notorious example of prosecutorial misconduct.

The 85 year old Stevens, the longest serving Republican Senator in history, was convicted with wiretapped phone conversations.

We ought to really lay low Right now because this grand jury's meeting.

Convicted of hiding $250,000 worth of gifts and home renovations.

The conviction was later overturned when a federal judge found that prosecutors had deliberately withheld exculpatory evidence from the defense.

His attorney said Stevens never should have been prosecuted in the first place.

The jury verdict here was obtained unlawfully.

The misconduct of the prosecutors was stunning to me.

This stunning reversal led to a rare public apology from the attorney general and an internal Justice Department investigation that detailed a pattern of systemic negligence and intentional concealment.

The government's egregious actions denied Stevens a fair trial, exposing how even federal prosecutors can undermine the very justice they're sworn to uphold.

Attorney General Eric Holder promised to drop all charges, saying it is in the interest of justice to dismiss the indictment and not proceed with a new trial.

The 1999 Tulea sting operation that destroyed dozens of lives.

I was still asleep, and I answered the door.

I opened the door and he said, billy, we got a warrant for your arrest.

You have a delivery of a controlled substance.

The small town of Tulea, Texas, became a sobering symbol of racial injustice and law enforcement malfeasance in the late 1990s.

In 1999, roughly 10% of the town's black population, 47 individuals, were arrested on drug charges based solely on the uncorroborated testimony of an undercover officer, Tom Coleman.

Coleman, later exposed as an unreliable informant with a record of misconduct, offered inconsistent accounts and no physical evidence.

In a letter to the Tulia Herald, Coleman wrote he was only trying to protect decent citizens from drug dealers.

With the ACLU and NAACP lawsuit pending, Coleman, the sheriff and the district attorney refused to speak with 2020 on camera.

They deny the charges in the civil rights lawsuit, and

McEachern told our local affiliate that he checked Coleman out before they hired him.

The resulting convictions led to lengthy prison sentences devastating an entire community.

Delivery three counts, controlled substance to an undercover Tom Coleman.

So I sold him three, eight bottles of powder cocaine.

That was until overwhelming proof of fabrication and racial bias prompted then Texas Governor Rick Perry to pardon 35 defendants in 2003.

Corruption on the 1965 Oklahoma Supreme Court.

For years, Oklahomans had selected their judges through a party election system, Republican and Democrat.

There have been charges of Corruption throughout that time.

And in 1960s, Oklahoma Supreme Court Justice N.S.

horn, who was 80 years old at the time, testified that he had taken a $150,000 bribe to fix a tax case.

When the highest judicial body in the state is compromised, the entire framework of justice risks collapsing.