Erich Mielke Imprisonment Why was Erich imprisoned? Mielke was then put on trial for ordering the shootings of East Germans who were trying to defect to the West.
was he found guilty?
was Erich Mielke found guilty?
Mielke was then put on trial for ordering the shootings of East Germans who were trying to defect to the West. In November 1994, the presiding judge closed the proceedings, ruling that Mielke was not mentally fit to stand trial.  During his incarceration, at JVA Moabit corrections officers supplied Mielke with a red telephone like the one in his office at Stasi Headquarters. Although it was not connected to the outside world, Mielke enjoyed having imaginary conversations with non-existent Stasi agents. His other favorite pastime was watching game shows on television.  In 1995, parole officers and Mielke's attorneys argued that he was "totally confused" and obtained his release. At 87 years of age, Erich Mielke was Germany's oldest prison inmate and had been incarcerated for 1,904 days. Days before his release, the Public Prosecutor of Berlin announced that he was "not interested in chasing an 87 year old man anymore" and that all further prosecution of Mielke had been indefinitely suspended.  According to Koehler:  [Mielke's] bank account, which held more than 300,000 marks (about US $187,500), was confiscated. Before his arrest in 1989, the most feared man in East Germany had lived in a luxurious home with access to an indoor pool. In addition, he owned a palatial hunting villa, complete with a movie theater, trophy room, 60 servants, and a 15,000 acre hunting preserve. After he was released from prison Mielke was obliged to move into a two room, 600-square-foot flat. Like all Stasi pensioners, he would henceforth have to live on 802 marks (about US$512) a month. CANNOTANSWER
In November 1994, the presiding judge closed the proceedings, ruling that Mielke was not mentally fit to stand trial.
Erich Fritz Emil Mielke (; 28 December 1907 – 21 May 2000) was a German communist official who served as head of the East German Ministry for State Security (Ministerium für Staatsicherheit – MfS), better known as the Stasi, from 1957 until shortly after the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989.

A native of Berlin and a second-generation member of the Communist Party of Germany, Mielke was one of two triggermen in the 1931 murders of Berlin Police captains Paul Anlauf and Franz Lenck. After learning that a witness had survived, Mielke escaped arrest by fleeing to the Soviet Union, where the NKVD recruited him. He was one of the key figures in the decimation of Moscow's German Communists during the Great Purge as well as in the persecution of suspected anti-Stalinists in the International Brigade during the Spanish Civil War.

Following the end of World War II in 1945, Mielke returned to the Soviet Zone of Occupied Germany, which he helped organize into a Marxist-Leninist satellite state under the Socialist Unity Party (SED), later becoming head of the Stasi. According to historian Jack Koehler, he was "the longest serving secret police chief in the Soviet Bloc".

The Stasi under Mielke has been called by historian Edward Peterson the "most pervasive police state apparatus ever to exist on German soil". In a 1993 interview, Holocaust survivor and Nazi-hunter Simon Wiesenthal has said that, if one considers only the oppression of their own people, the Stasi under Mielke was "much, much worse than the Gestapo".

During the 1950s and 1960s Mielke led the process of forcibly forming collectivised farms from East Germany's family-owned farms, which sent a flood of refugees to West Germany. In response, Mielke oversaw the construction (1961) of the Berlin Wall and co-signed orders to shoot fatally all East Germans who attempted to leave the country. He also oversaw the establishment of pro-Soviet police states and paramilitary insurgencies in Western Europe, Latin America, Africa, and the Middle East.

In addition to his role as head of the Stasi, Mielke was also an Army General in the National People's Army (Nationale Volksarmee), and a member of the SED's ruling Politburo. Dubbed "The Master of Fear" () by the West German press, Mielke was one of the most powerful and most hated men in East Germany.

After German reunification in 1990, Mielke was arrested (1991), prosecuted (1992), convicted, and incarcerated (1993) for the 1931 murders of Paul Anlauf and Franz Lenck. Released from prison early due to ill health in 1995, he died in a Berlin nursing home in 2000.

Early life 
 
Erich Mielke was born in a tenement in Berlin-Wedding, Brandenburg, on 28 December 1907. During the First World War, the neighborhood was known as "Red Wedding" due to many residents' Marxist militancy. In a handwritten biography written for the Soviet secret police, Mielke described his father as "a poor, uneducated woodworker," and said that his mother died in 1911. Both were, he said, members of the Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD). After his remarriage to "a seamstress," the elder Mielke and his new wife joined the Independent Social Democratic Party of Germany and remained members when it was renamed the Communist Party of Germany (KPD). His son Erich claimed "My younger brother Kurt and two sisters were Communist sympathisers."

Despite his family's poverty, Erich Mielke was academically gifted enough to be awarded a free scholarship in the prestigious Köllnisches Gymnasium, but was expelled on 19 February 1929, for being "unable to meet the great demands of this school." While attending the Gymnasium, Mielke joined the Communist Party of Germany in 1925, and worked as a reporter for the communist newspaper Rote Fahne from 1928 to 1931.

During the Weimar Republic, the KPD was the largest communist party in Europe and was seen as the "leading party" of the communist movement outside the Soviet Union. Under Ernst Thälmann's leadership, the KPD was completely obedient to Soviet Premier Joseph Stalin, and from 1928 the Party was both funded and controlled by the Comintern in Moscow.

Until the end of the Republic, the KPD viewed the Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD), which dominated German politics between 1918 and 1931, as their mortal enemy. In keeping with Stalin's policy towards social democracy, the KPD considered all SPD members to be "social fascists". The KPD also believed that all other political parties were "fascist" and regarded itself as "the only anti-fascist Party" in Germany. Nevertheless, the KPD closely collaborated with the Nazi Party during the early 1930s and both Parties intended to replace the democratically elected government of the Weimar Republic with a totalitarian single party state.

Soon after joining the Party, Mielke joined the KPD's paramilitary wing, or Parteiselbstschutz ("Party Self Defense Unit"). At the time, the Parteiselbstschutz in Berlin was commanded by KPD Reichstag Representatives Hans Kippenberger and Heinz Neumann.

According to John Koehler, "Mielke was a special protege of Kippenberger's having taken to his paramilitary training with the enthusiasm of a Prussian Junker. World War I veterans taught the novices how to handle pistols, rifles, machine guns, and hand grenades. This clandestine training was conducted in the sparsely populated, pastoral countryside surrounding Berlin. Mielke also pleased Kippenberger by being an exceptional student in classes on the arts of conspiratorial behavior and espionage, taught by comrades who had studied at the secret M-school of the GRU in Moscow."

According to John Koehler, members of the Parteiselbstschutz "served as bouncers at Party meetings and specialized in cracking heads during street battles with political enemies." Besides the ruling SPD and its paramilitary Reichsbanner forces, the arch-enemies of the Parteiselbstschutz were the Stahlhelm, which was the armed wing of the Monarchist German National People's Party (DVNP), Trotskyites, and "radical nationalist parties."

According to Koehler, the KPD's Selbstschutz men "always carried a Stahlrute, two steel springs that telescoped into a tube seventeen centimeters long, which when extended became a deadly, 35-centimeter weapon. Not to be outdone by the Nazis, these street-fighters were often armed with pistols as well."

In a 1931 biography written for the Cadre Division of the Comintern, Mielke recalled, "We took care of all kinds of work; terror acts, protecting illegal demonstrations and meetings, arms-trafficking, etc. The last work, which was accomplished by a Comrade and myself, was the Bülowplatz Affair" ().

Bülowplatz murders

Planning

During the last days of the Weimar Republic, the KPD had a policy of assassinating two Berlin police officers in retaliation for every KPD member killed by the police.

On 2 August 1931, KPD Members of the Reichstag Heinz Neumann and Hans Kippenberger received a dressing down from Walter Ulbricht, the Party's leader in the Berlin-Brandenburg region. Enraged by police interference and by Neumann and Kippenberger's failure to follow the policy, Ulbricht stated, "At home in Saxony we would have done something about the police a long time ago. Here in Berlin we will not fool around much longer. Soon we will hit the police in the head."

Enraged by Ulbricht's words, Kippenberger and Neumann decided to assassinate Paul Anlauf, the 42-year-old Captain of the Berlin Police's Seventh Precinct. Captain Anlauf, a widower with three daughters, had been nicknamed "Schweinebacke", or "Pig Face" by the KPD.

According to historian John Koehler, "Of all the policemen in strife-torn Berlin, the reds hated Anlauf the most. His precinct included the area around KPD headquarters, which made it the most dangerous in the city. The captain almost always led the riot squads that broke up illegal rallies of the Communist Party."

On the morning of Sunday 9 August 1931, Kippenberger and Neumann gave a last briefing to the hit-team in a room at the Lassant beer hall. Mielke and Erich Ziemer were selected as the shooters. During the meeting, Max Matern gave a Luger pistol to fellow lookout Max Thunert and said, "Now we're getting serious. We're going to give Schweinebacke something to remember us by."

Kippenberger then asked Mielke and Ziemer, "Are you sure that you are ready to shoot Schweinebacke?" Mielke responded that he had seen Anlauf many times during police searches of Party Headquarters. Kippenberger then instructed them to wait at a nearby beer hall which would permit them to overlook the entire Bülow-Platz. He further reminded them that Anlauf was accompanied everywhere by Senior Sergeant Max Willig, whom the KPD had nicknamed, "Hussar".

Kippenberger concluded, "When you spot Schweinebacke and Hussar, you take care of them." Mielke and Ziemer were informed that, after the assassinations were completed, a diversion would assist in their escape. They were then to return to their homes and await further instructions.

That evening, Anlauf was lured to Bülow-Platz by a violent rally demanding the dissolution of the Prussian Parliament.

According to Koehler, "As was often the case when it came to battling the dominant SPD, the KPD and the Nazis had combined forces during the pre-plebiscite campaign. At one point in this particular campaign, Nazi propaganda chief Joseph Goebbels even shared a speaker's platform with KPD agitator Walter Ulbricht. Both parties wanted the parliament dissolved because they were hoping that new elections would oust the SPD, the sworn enemy of all radicals. That fact explained why the atmosphere was particularly volatile this Sunday."

Murder at the Babylon Cinema

At eight o'clock that evening, Mielke and Ziemer waited in a doorway as Anlauf, Willig, and Captain Franz Lenck walked toward the Babylon Cinema, which was located at the corner of Bülowplatz and Kaiser-Wilhelm-Straße. As they reached the door of the movie house, the policemen heard someone scream, "Schweinebacke!"

As Anlauf turned toward the sound, Mielke and Ziemer opened fire at point blank range. Willig was wounded in the left arm and the stomach. However, he managed to draw his Luger pistol and fired a full magazine at the assailants. Lenck was shot in the chest and fell dead in front of the entrance. Willig crawled over and cradled the head of Anlauf, who had taken two bullets in the neck.

Meanwhile, Mielke and Ziemer made their escape by running into the theater and out an emergency exit. They tossed their pistols over a fence, where they were later found by Homicide Detectives from the elite Mordkommission. Mielke and Ziemer then returned to their homes.

According to Koehler, "Back at Bülowplatz, the killings had triggered a major police action. At least a thousand officers poured into the square, and a bloody street battle ensued. Rocks and bricks were hurled from the rooftops. Communist gunmen fired indiscriminately from the roofs of surrounding apartment houses. As darkness fell, police searchlights illuminated the buildings. Using megaphones, officers shouted, "Clear the streets! Move away from the windows! We are returning fire!" By now the rabble had fled the square, but shooting continued as riot squads combed the tenements, arresting hundreds of residents suspected of having fired weapons. The battle lasted until one o'clock the next morning. In addition to the two police officers, the casualties included one Communist who died of a gunshot wound and seventeen others who were seriously wounded."

Anlauf's wife had died three weeks earlier of kidney failure. The murder of Anlauf thus left their three daughters as orphans. Their oldest daughter was forced to rush her planned wedding in order to keep her sisters from being put in an orphanage. Lenck was survived by his wife. Willig was hospitalized for 14 weeks, but made a full recovery and returned to active duty. In recognition for Willig's courage, the Berlin Police promoted him to Lieutenant.

After the murders, the act was celebrated at the Lichtenberger Hof, a favorite beer hall of the Rotfrontkämpferbund, where Mielke boasted: "Today we celebrate a job that I pulled!" ()

Fugitive

According to Koehler, "Kippenberger was alarmed when word reached him that Sergeant Willig had survived the shooting. Not knowing whether the sergeant could talk and identify the attackers, Kippenberger was taking no chances. He directed a runner to summon Mielke and Ziemer to his apartment at 74 Bellermannstrasse, only a few minutes walk from where the two lived. When the assassins arrived, Kippenberger told them the news and ordered them to leave Berlin at once. The parliamentarian's wife Thea, an unemployed schoolteacher and as staunch a Communist Party member as her husband, shepherded the young murderers to the Belgian border. Agents of the Communist International (Comintern) in the port city of Antwerp supplied them with money and forged passports. Aboard a merchant ship, they sailed for Leningrad. When their ship docked, they were met by another Comintern representative, who escorted them to Moscow."

Beginning in 1932, Mielke attended the Comintern's Military Political school under the alias Paul Bach. He later graduated from the Lenin School shortly before being recruited into the OGPU.

Trial

According to Koehler, "In mid-March 1933, while attending the Lenin School, Mielke received word from his OGPU sponsors that Berlin police had arrested Max Thunert, one of the conspirators in the Anlauf and Lenck murders. Within days, fifteen other members of the assassination team were in custody. Mielke had to wait six more months before the details of the police action against his Berlin comrades reached Moscow. On 14 September 1933, Berlin newspapers reported that all fifteen had confessed to their roles in the murders. Arrest warrants were issued for ten others who had fled, including Mielke, Ziemer, Ulbricht, Kippenberger, and Neumann."

Koehler also stated, "Defenders of Mielke later claimed that confessions had been obtained under torture by the Nazi Gestapo. However, all suspects were in the custody of the regular Berlin city criminal investigation bureau, most of whose detectives were SPD members. Some of the suspects had been nabbed by Nazi SA men and probably beaten before they were turned over to police. In the 1993 trial of Mielke, the court gave the defense the benefit of the doubt and threw out a number of suspect confessions."

On 19 June 1934, the 15 conspirators were convicted of first degree murder. The three deemed most culpable, Michael Klause, Max Matern, and Friedrich Bröde were sentenced to death. Their co-defendants received sentences ranging from nine months to fifteen years incarceration at hard labor. Klause's sentence was commuted to life in prison based upon his cooperation. Bröde hanged himself in his cell. As a result, only Matern was left to be executed by beheading on 22 May 1935.

Matern was subsequently glorified as a martyr by KPD and East German propaganda. Ziemer was officially killed in action while fighting on the Republican-side during the Spanish Civil War. Mielke, however, would not face trial for the murders until 1993.

Career in Soviet intelligence

The Great Terror

Although Moscow's German Communist community was decimated during Joseph Stalin's Great Purge, Mielke survived and was promoted.

In a handwritten autobiography prepared after World War II, Mielke recalled, "During my stay in the S.U. (Soviet Union), I participated in all Party discussions of the K.P.D. and also in the problems concerning the establishment of socialism and in the trials against the traitors and enemies of the S.U."

Among the German communists executed as a result of these "discussions" were Mielke's former mentors Heinz Neumann and Hans Kippenberger.

Mielke further recalled, "I was a guest on the honor grandstand of Red Square during the May Day and October Revolution parades. I became acquainted with many comrades of the Federation of World Communist Parties and the War Council of the Special Commission of the Comintern. I will never forget my meeting with Comrade Dimitrov, the Chairman of the Comintern, whom I served as an aide together with another comrade. I saw Comrade Stalin during all demonstrations at Red Square, especially when I stood on the grandstand. I mention these meetings because all these comrades are our models and teachers for our work."

During his time in the USSR, Mielke also developed a lifelong reverence for Felix Dzerzhinsky, the Polish aristocrat who founded the Soviet secret police. Mielke also began an equally permanent habit of calling himself a Chekist.

In a citation written decades later, Mielke described his philosophy of life, "The Chekist is the political combatant. He is the loyal son of... the workers' class. He stands at the head of the battle to strengthen the power of our workers' and peasants' state."

Spanish Civil War

From 1936 to 1939, Mielke served in Spain as an operative of the Servicio de Investigación Militar, the political police of the Second Spanish Republic. While attached to the staff of, "veteran GRU agent," and future Stasi minister Wilhelm Zaisser, Mielke used the alias Fritz Leissner. Bernd Kaufmann, the director of the Stasi's espionage school later said, "The Soviets trusted Mielke implicitly. He earned his spurs in Spain."

At the time, the S.I.M. was heavily staffed by agents of the Soviet NKVD, whose Spanish rezident was General Aleksandr Mikhailovich Orlov. According to author Donald Rayfield, "Stalin, Yezhov, and Beria distrusted Soviet participants in the Spanish war. Military advisors like Vladimir Antonov-Ovseenko, journalists like Koltsov were open to infection by the heresies, especially Trotsky's, prevalent among the Republic's supporters. NKVD agents sent to Spain were therefore keener on abducting and murdering anti-Stalinists among Republican leaders and International Brigade commanders than on fighting Franco. The defeat of the Republic, in Stalin's eyes, was caused not by the NKVD's diversionary efforts, but by the treachery of the heretics."

In a 1991 interview, Walter Janka, a fellow German communist exile and company commander in the International Brigade, recalled his encounters with Mielke. During the winter of 1936, Janka was summoned by the SIM and interrogated by Mielke. Mielke demanded to know why Janka had voluntarily traveled to Spain rather than being assigned there by the Party. When he told Mielke to get lost, the SIM demoted Janka to the ranks and then expelled him from the International Brigade. Years later, Janka recalled, "While I was fighting at the front, shooting at the Fascists, Mielke served in the rear, shooting Trotskyites and Anarchists."

Upon the defeat of the Spanish Republic, Mielke fled across the Pyrenees Mountains to France, where he was interned at Camp de Rivesaltes, Pyrénées-Orientales. Mielke, however, managed to send a message to exiled KPD members and, in May 1939, escaped to Belgium. Although the Public Prosecutor of Berlin learned of Mielke's presence and filed for his extradition, the Belgian Government refused to comply, regarding the assassinations of Captains Anlauf and Lenck as "a political crime."

The NKVD and the SIM's witch hunt for both real and imagined anti-Stalinists had serious consequences. It horrified numerous formerly pro-Soviet Westerners who had been witnesses, including John Dos Passos, Arthur Koestler and George Orwell, and caused them to permanently turn against the USSR.

Mielke's belief that anti-Soviet Marxists had collaborated with Franco and stabbed the Republic in the back continued to shape his attitudes for the rest of his life. In a 1982 speech before a group of senior Stasi officers, he said, "We are not immune from villains among us. If I knew of any already, they wouldn't live past tomorrow. Short shrift. It's because I'm a Humanist, that I'm of this view."

In the same speech, Mielke also said, "All this blithering over to execute or not to execute, for the death penalty or against—all rot, Comrades. Execute! And, when necessary, without a court judgment."

World War II

During World War II, Mielke's movements remain mysterious. In a biography written after the war, he claimed to have infiltrated Organisation Todt under the alias Richard Hebel, but historian John O. Koehler considers this unlikely.

Koehler admits, however, "Mielke's exploits must have been substantial. By war's end, he had been decorated with the Order of the Red Banner, the Order of the Great Patriotic War First Class, and twice with the Order of Lenin. It is likely that he served as an NKVD agent, at least part of the time with guerrilla units behind German lines, for he knew all the partisan songs by heart and sang them in faultless Russian."

Occupied Germany

Komissariat-5

In April 1945, Mielke returned to the Soviet Zone of Occupied Germany aboard a special Soviet aircraft that also carried fellow German Communists Walter Ulbricht, Wilhelm Zaisser, Ernst Wollweber, and many of the future leaders of the East Germany.

That same month, Mielke's future handler, NKGB General Ivan Serov, travelled to Germany from Warsaw and, from his headquarters in the Berlin suburb of Karlshorst, divided the Soviet Zone into "Operative Sectors."

On 10 July 1945, Marshal Georgy Zhukov signed SMA Order No. 2, which legalized the re-establishment of "anti-fascist" political parties like the Communist Party of Germany (KPD).  On 15 July 1945, Mielke walked into the KPD's headquarters and volunteered his services.

In an autobiography written for the KPD, Mielke disclosed—truthfully—his involvement in the 1931 murders of Berlin Police Captains Anlauf and Lenck, and—mistakenly or misleadingly—that for this he had been tried in absentia, found guilty, and sentenced to death.  In actuality, Mielke's "name was mentioned in the 1934 trials but he was never tried".  He admitted—truthfully—fighting on the Republican side during the Spanish Civil War, but claimed—falsely—that he had been released from the French internment camps and had worked in Belgium for an underground Communist newspaper under the code name "Gaston".  Furthermore, Mielke concealed his past and contemporaneous involvement with the NKVD, NKGB, and the Nazi Organisation Todt (which he asserted he'd infiltrated).

According to Koehler, "As might be expected, Mielke's account of his past was approved by the Soviets. Had Serov not been part of the conspiracy, Mielke would have been instantly arrested or at least subjected to an intense internal investigation because of his membership in the Nazi Organisation Todt, which used thousands of slave laborers. But he was cleared in record time and by the end of June the Soviets had installed him as a station commander of the newly formed Volkspolizei (Vopo), the People's Police."

On 16 August 1947, Serov ordered the creation of Kommissariat 5, the first German political police since the defeat of Nazi Germany.

According to Anne Applebaum, however, not everyone approved of the plan. In Moscow, Soviet Interior Minister Viktor Abakumov argued that a new secret police force would be demonized by Western governments and the media, which would paint the K-5 as a "new Gestapo." Furthermore, Abakumov, like Stalin, intensely distrusted German Communists and alleged that there "were not enough German cadres who have been thoroughly checked."  Notwithstanding Abakumov's objections, however, recruitment into the K-5 began almost immediately. It is possible, as Norman Naimark suspects, that the NKGB had realized that their officers' lack of fluency in the German language was engendering massive popular resentment.

Wilhelm Zaisser, who had been Mielke's commanding officer in Republican Spain, was appointed the K-5's head. Mielke was installed as his deputy.

According to John Koehler, "The K-5 was essentially an arm of the Soviet secret police. Its agents were carefully selected veteran German communists who had survived the Nazi-era in Soviet exile or in concentration camps and prisons. Their task was to track down Nazis and anti-communists, including hundreds of members of the Social Democratic Party. Mielke and his fellow bloodhounds performed this task with ruthless precision. The number of arrests became so great that the regular prisons could not hold them. Thus, Serov ordered the establishment or re-opening of eleven concentration camps, including the former Nazi death camps of Buchenwald and Sachsenhausen."

According to Anne Applebaum, "One of the few documents from that era to survive (most were removed by the KGB or perhaps destroyed, in 1989 or before) mentions a departmental training meeting and included a list of attendees. Topping the list is a group of Soviet advisers. In this sense, K-5 did resemble the political police in the rest of Eastern Europe: as in Hungary, Poland, and the USSR itself, this new political police force was initially extra-governmental, operating outside the ordinary rule of law."

According to Edward N. Peterson, "Not surprisingly, K-5 acquired a reputation as bad as that of Stalin's secret police and worse than that of the Gestapo. At least with the Nazis, albeit fanatically racist, their victims did not suddenly disappear into the GULAG."

The Amalgamation

Despite the K-5's mass arrests of members of the Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD) in the Soviet Zone, the number of SPD members continued to grow. By March 1946, SPD members outnumbered KPD members by more than 100,000. Fearing that they would lose the elections scheduled for the autumn, the leadership of the KPD asked for and received Stalin's permission to merge the two parties. When the SPD's leadership agreed only to schedule a vote for the rank and file to decide, permission was denied by the Soviet occupation authorities. The K-5 then began mass arrests of SPD members who refused to support the merger.

On 22 April 1946, the remaining leaders of the SPD in the Soviet Zone announced that they had united with the KPD to form the Socialist Unity Party of Germany (SED). The SPD in the western zones of Occupied Germany responded by forming the SPD East Bureau in order to support and finance those Social Democrats who refused to accept the merger. Those who joined or worked with the East Bureau were, however, in serious danger of arrest by the K-5 and trial by Soviet military tribunals. By 1950, more than 5,000 SPD members and sympathisers had been imprisoned in the Soviet Zone or transferred to the GULAG. More than 400 were either executed or died during their imprisonments.

John Koehler has written that, prior to the spring of 1946, many Germans in the Soviet Zone, "merely shrugged at the wave of arrests, believing that the victims were former Nazi officials and war criminals." But then came the mass arrests of Social Democrats who opposed the merger, who, "were joined by people who had been denounced for making anti-communist or anti-Soviet remarks, among their number hundreds who were as young as fourteen years. Although these arrests were made by Germans purporting to be officials of the criminal police, the existence of the K-5 political police eventually was exposed. Mielke, meanwhile, had risen to the post of vice-president of the German Administration for Interior Affairs – the equivalent of the NKVD – and continued his manipulations from behind the scenes."

Investigation

In January 1947, two retired Berlin policemen recognized Mielke at an official function. Informing the head of the criminal police in West Berlin, the policemen demanded that Mielke be arrested and prosecuted for the murders of Captains Anlauf and Lenck. Wilhelm Kühnast, the Public Prosecutor of Berlin, was immediately informed and ordered a search of the Kammergericht archives. To his astonishment, the files of the 1931 murders had survived the wartime bombing of Germany. Finding ample evidence of Mielke's involvement, Kühnast ordered the arrest of the communist policeman.

According to John Koehler, "At that time, the city administration, including the police, was under the control of the Allied Control Commission, which consisted of U.S., British, French, and Soviet military officers. All actions by city officials, including the judiciary, were to be reported to the Commission. The Soviet representative alerted the MGB. Action was swift. Marshal Vasily Sokolovsky, who had replaced Zhukov, protested, and his representatives at the Commission launched a vicious campaign to discredit Kühnast."

The Soviet representatives falsely claimed that Kühnast, a jurist with an impeccable anti-Nazi record, had been an official of Roland Freisler's People's Court. Taking the Soviets at their word, the Western Allies removed Kühnast from his position and placed him under house arrest. During the Berlin airlift, Kühnast fled from his home in East Berlin and was granted political asylum in the American Zone.

Meanwhile, the Soviet authorities confiscated all documents relating to the murders of Captains Anlauf and Lenck. According to Koehler, "The Soviets handed the court records to Mielke. Instead of destroying the incriminating papers, he locked them in his private safe, where they were found when his home was searched in 1990. They were used against him in his trial for murder."

Deutsche Wirtschaftskommission 
In 1948, Mielke was appointed as security chief of the German Economic Commission (), the precursor to the future East German government.

Mielke's task was to investigate the theft and sale of state property on the black market. He was also charged with intercepting the growing number of refugees fleeing to the French, British, and American Zones.

Those his security forces caught while attempting to defect were used as slave labor in the uranium mines that were providing raw material for the Soviet atomic bomb project.

German Democratic Republic

Independence
In 1949, the Soviet Military Administration ceded its legal functions to the newly created German Democratic Republic.

On 14 January 1950, Marshal Vasili Chuikov announced that all Soviet "internment camps" on German soil had been closed. Soon after, the DWK was absorbed into the newly created Ministry for State Security.  In keeping with earlier syllabic abbreviations along the same lines (see OrPo, KriPo, and GeStaPo) East Germans immediately dubbed it the "Stasi" (from Staatssicherheit). With the approval of the Soviets, Mielke's commanding officer from Spain and in the K5, Wilhelm Zaisser, was appointed as the Stasi's head. Mielke was appointed to his staff with the rank of State Secretary. Mielke was also granted a seat in the SED's ruling Politburo.

According to John Koehler, "In the five years since the end of World War II, the Soviets and their vassals had arrested between 170,000 and 180,000 Germans. Some 160,000 had passed through the concentration camps, and of these about 65,000 had died, 36,000 had been shipped to the Soviet Gulag, and another 46,000 had been freed."

In 1949, as a response to the remilitarization of East Germany and the Soviet blockade of West Berlin, the United States, Great Britain, France, Belgium, the Netherlands, Luxembourg, and Portugal formed the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, or NATO. In 1950, as a response to the outbreak of the Korean War, West Germany was also permitted to join NATO, which was then upgraded into a military alliance.

According to Koehler, however, "As the Cold War intensified, living conditions in Soviet-occupied East Germany showed little improvement beyond the postwar level of bare subsistence. The new government of the DDR – a mere puppet of the Kremlin – relied more and more on the Stasi to quell discontent among factory workers and farmers. Ulbricht, claiming that the social unrest was fomented by capitalist agents, once ordered Mielke to personally visit one large plant and 'arrest four or five such agents' as an example to the others. The Stasi deputy 'discovered' the agents in record time."

Field show trials
Also in 1949, Noel Field, an American citizen who had spied for the NKVD from inside the U.S. State Department, the Office of Strategic Services, and the CIA, fled from his posting in Switzerland to Communist Czechoslovakia after his cover was blown by fellow mole Whittaker Chambers. On 11 May 1949, the Czechoslovakian secret police, or StB, in obedience to a direct order from KGB chief Lavrenti Beria, arrested Field in Prague. Field was then handed over to the Hungarian ÁVO. After his interrogation in Budapest, Fields was used as a witness at show trials of senior Soviet Bloc Communists who, like László Rajk and Rudolf Slánský, stood accused of having spied for the United States. The real reason for the trials was to replace homegrown Communists in Eastern Europe with those who would be blindly loyal to Joseph Stalin and to blame the division of Germany on the intrigues of U.S. intelligence.

At the Rajk show trial, the prosecutor declared, "Noel Field, one of the leaders of American espionage, specialized in recruiting spies from among left-wing elements."

In August 1950, six senior SED members, including Willi Kreikemeyer, the director of Deutsche Reichsbahn and head of Berliner Rundfunk, were accused of "special connections with Noel Field, the American spy." All were either imprisoned or shot.

John Koehler writes, "Similar purges were conducted in Czechoslovakia, Hungary, and Bulgaria, where Field appeared as a witness in show trials that resulted in some death sentences. The Soviets simply distrusted all Communists who had sought exile in the West. All the while, Mielke remained untouched and continued to serve as the deputy secret police chief. His survival reinforced the belief that he had spent the war years in the Soviet Union instead of France and Belgium as he had claimed in the 1945 questionnaire."

In June 1950, Erica Wallach, Noel Field's adopted daughter, decided to search for him. From Paris, she telephoned Leo Bauer, the editor-in-chief of Berliner Rundfunk. The call was monitored by agents of the Soviet Ministry for Internal Affairs, and Bauer's handler instructed him to invite Mrs. Wallach to East Berlin, where she was immediately arrested. Mielke personally interrogated her and, at one point, offered Mrs. Wallach immediate release if she named the members of her fictitious spy network. She was condemned to death by a Soviet military tribunal in East Berlin and shipped to the Lubianka prison in Moscow for her execution. After Joseph Stalin's death in on 5 March 1953, Erica Wallach's sentence was reduced to hard labor in Vorkuta, a region of the Gulag located above the Arctic Circle. She was released during the Khrushchev thaw in October 1955. At first, she was unable to join her husband and daughters in the U.S. because of the U.S. State Department's concern over her former membership in the Communist Party of Germany. It took the personal intervention of CIA Director Allen Dulles to reunite Erica Wallach with her family in 1957. Wallach's memoir of her experiences, Light at Midnight, was published in 1967.

Death of Stalin

After Soviet Premier Joseph Stalin died inside his Kuntsevo Dacha on 5 March 1953, the Central Committee of the East German Socialist Unity Party met in a special session and eulogized the dictator as the "great friend of Germany who was always an advisor of and help to our people."

Two months later, on 5 May 1953, the SED's General Secretary, Walter Ulbricht, and the rest of the leadership increased work quotas by 10%. They also decided to rename Chemnitz Karl-Marx-Stadt and to institute the Order of Karl Marx as the GDR's highest award.

Two weeks later, Mielke accused "a group of Party officials" of "plotting against the leadership", which "resulted in more expulsions from the Politburo and the Central Committee."

East German uprising of 1953

Discontent among factory workers about a 10% increase of work quotas without a corresponding wage hike boiled over. On 16 June 1953, nearly one hundred construction workers gathered before work for a protest meeting at Stalinallee, in East Berlin. Words spread rapidly to other construction sites and hundreds of men and women joined the rally, which marched to the House of Ministries. The protesters chanted slogans for five hours, demanding to speak to Walter Ulbricht and Otto Grotewohl. Only Heavy Industry Minister Fritz Selbmann and Professor Robert Havemann, president of the GDR Peace Council, emerged. Their speech, however, was answered with jeers and the Ministers retreated into the heavily armed building. The regular and the Kasernierte Volkspolizei were summoned from their barracks, but made no move to attack the protesters, who returned to Stalinallee, where a general strike was called.

Following West Germany's Federal Minister for All-German Questions Jakob Kaiser's admonition in a late night broadcast to East Germans to shy away from provocations, RIAS, starting with its 11 pm news broadcast, and from then on in hourly intermissions, repeated the workers' demand to continue the strike the next day, calling specifically for all East Berliners to participate in a demo at 7am on the 17th at Strausberger Platz.

The following day, 17 June 1953, more that 100,000 protesters took to the streets of East Berlin. More than 400,000 protesters also took to the streets in other cities and towns throughout the German Democratic Republic. Everywhere, the demands were the same: free elections by secret ballot.

Outside of Berlin, the main centres of the protests included the industrial region around Halle, Merseburg, and Bitterfeld, as well as middle-size towns like Jena, Görlitz, and Brandenburg. No more than 25,000 people participated in strikes and demonstrations in Leipzig, but there were 32,000 in Magdeburg, 43,000 in Dresden, 53,000 in Potsdam – and in Halle, a figure close to 100,000.

In West Berlin, the American radio station RIAS and several other West German stations reported on the protests and on plans for a general strike. As East Germans listened to the broadcasts, 267,000 workers at State-owned plants in 304 cities and towns joined the general strike. In 24 towns, outraged East Germans stormed the Stasi's prisons and freed between 2,000 and 3,000 political prisoners.

In response to orders, the Soviet Occupation Forces, the Stasi and the Kasernierte Volkspolizei went on the attack. Bloody street battles ensued and hundreds of policemen defected to the side of the protesters. Both police and Stasi stations were overrun and some government offices were sacked. The Party leadership retreated into a fortified compound in the Pankow district of East Berlin.

At noon, the Soviet authorities terminated all tram and metro traffic into the Eastern sector and all but closed the sector borders to West Berlin to prevent more demonstrators from reaching the city centre. An hour later, they declared martial law in East Berlin.

The repression took place outside East Berlin police HQ – where Soviet tanks opened fire on "the insurgents".

According to John Koehler, "... by late afternoon, Soviet tanks accompanied by Infantry and MVD troops had rolled into East Berlin and other cities in the Soviet Zone. This made the people even angrier. At Berlin's Potsdamer Platz, which bordered on the American Sector, irate protesters ignored machine gun fire and the menacing barrels of tank guns. They ripped cobblestones from the streets and hurled them at the tanks."

Fighting between the Red Army (and later GDR police) and the demonstrators persisted into the afternoon and night. In some cases, the tanks and the soldiers fired directly into the crowds.

Overnight, the Soviets (and the Stasi) started to arrest hundreds of people. Ultimately, up to 10,000 people were detained and at least 20, probably as many as 40, people were executed, including Red Army soldiers who refused to obey orders. With the SED leadership effectively paralysed at the Soviet headquarters in Karlshorst, control of the city passed to the Soviets.

In honor of the uprising, West Germany established 17 June as a national holiday, called Day of German Unity. The extension of the Unter den Linden boulevard to the west of the Brandenburg Gate, formerly called Charlottenburger Chaussee, was also renamed Straße des 17. Juni ("17 June Street") in honor of the uprising.

According to John Koehler, "Provisional prison camps were set up to hold the thousands of Stasi victims. Nearly 1,500 persons were sentenced in secret trials to long prison terms. On 24 June, Mielke issued a terse announcement that one Stasi officer, nineteen demonstrators, and two bystanders had been killed during the uprising. He did not say how many were victims of official lynching. The numbers of the wounded were given as 191 policemen, 126 demonstrators, and 61 bystanders."

Also according to Koehler, "Calm returned to the streets of the Soviet Zone, yet escapes to the West continued at a high rate. Of the 331,390 who fled in 1953, 8,000 were members of the Kasernierte Volkspolizei, the barracked people's police units, which were actually the secret cadre of the future East German Army. Also among the escapees were 2,718 members and candidates of the SED, the ruling Party."

The Khrushchev thaw

Purges

Alarmed by the uprising, Lavrenty Beria, the First Deputy Premier of the Soviet Union and head of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, personally travelled from Moscow to East Berlin. He conferred with Stasi Minister Wilhelm Zaisser and with Mielke, his deputy, both of whom he had known since the early 1930s. During both conversations, Beria demanded to know why the Stasi had failed to recognize the extreme discontent of the population and inform the Party leadership, which could then have prevented the uprising by taking extremely repressive measures in advance. Both Zaisser and Mielke answered Beria's questions circumspectly, and were accordingly left in their posts.

In response to the uprising, Beria decided to replace several hundred MVD officers, including Major General Ivan Fadeykin, the MVD resident of East Germany. The Stasi, according to John Koehler, "generally remained untouched except for the arrests and dismissals, for dereliction of duty, of a handful of officers in the provinces. One high-ranking Stasi officer shot himself."

Following Beria's return to Moscow, however, he was arrested on 26 June 1953, in a coup d'état led by Nikita Khrushchev and Marshal Georgy Zhukov. Beria was tried on charges of 357 counts of rape and high treason. He was sentenced to death and shot by Red Army Colonel-General Pavel Batitsky on 23 December 1953.

In an interview to Neues Deutschland, the official party newspaper of East Germany, on 30 June 1953, the Party's Minister of Justice, Max Fechner, declared that, "illegal arrests," had been made and that being a member of a strike committee or suspicion of being a ringleader was not in itself grounds for arrest and conviction.

Meanwhile, when the East German Politburo met on 8 July, it seemed that Ulbricht would be deposed as Party General Secretary. Zaisser conceded that the whole Politburo was responsible for the "accelerated construction of socialism" and of the subsequent fallout. But he also added that to leave Ulbricht as Premier, "would be opposed catastrophic for the New Course".

By the end of the meeting, only two Politburo members still supported Ulbricht's leadership: Free German Youth League chief Erich Honecker and Party Control Commission Chairman Hermann Matern. Ulbricht only managed to forestall a decision then and there with a promise to make a statement at the forthcoming 15th SED CC Plenum, scheduled for later that month.

Meanwhile, Mielke informed a Party commission looking for scapegoats that his boss, Stasi Minister Wilhelm Zaisser, was calling for secret negotiations with West Germany and that, "he believed the Soviet Union would abandon the DDR."

By late July, Ulbricht was completely certain that he had the support of the new Soviet Premier, Nikita Khrushchev. Therefore, he expelled his main opponents, Zaisser, Hernstadt and Ackermann, from the Politburo, and thus strengthened his position further.

SED Minister of Justice Max Fechner was personally arrested by Mielke and replaced by Hilde Benjamin, who was known to East German citizens as "Red Hilde", "The Red Freisler," and as, "The Red Guillotine," for her role as a judge in the SED's show trials.

Fechner was convicted of being, "an enemy of the Party and the State," and served three years in Bautzen Prison.

Wilhelm Zaisser was replaced as head of the Stasi by Ernst Wollweber and Mielke remained on staff as his deputy.

Tenure as Stasi head 

Mielke headed the Stasi from 1957 until the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989.   There was, under the East German system, no provision for parliamentary oversight. However, starting in 1971 Mielke was required to provide a detailed intelligence briefing to party secretary Erich Honecker each Tuesday, directly following the weekly Politburo meeting. (Before 1971, under Walter Ulbricht, Mielke was not involved in routine intelligence briefings to the leadership which, instead, were provided directly to Ulbricht by Intelligence Chief Markus Wolf.)

Internal discipline
During his tenure, Mielke enforced "political and personal discipline reminiscent of the early French Foreign Legion". New recruits were required to take a solemn oath pledging "to fight alongside the state security organs of all socialist countries against all enemies of socialism" on pain of "the severest punishment under the Republic's laws and the contempt of the workers." Recruits were also required to sign a security pledge vowing never to make unauthorized visits to any "capitalist countries" and to report on any members of their families who did so.

Violations of the oath resulted in expulsion from the Stasi and blacklisting from all but the most menial jobs. Serious violations were tried before secret tribunals and led an estimated 200 Stasi agents to be shot. Colonel Rainer Wiegand once said, "There was only one way to leave the MfS without being haunted for the rest of your life. You either retired or you died."

Domestic activities

Under Erich Mielke's leadership, the Stasi employed 85,000 full-time domestic spies and 170,000 civilian informants () (IMs). East Germans coined a term to describe the Stasi's pervasive surveillance of the population "All-Covered" (). For this reason, Anna Funder has referred to East Germany as, "the most perfected surveillance state of all time."

According to John Koehler, "...the Stasi's tentacles probed every aspect of life. Full-time officers were posted to all major industrial plants. Without exception, one tenant in every building was designated as a watchdog reporting to an area representative of the Volkspolizei...In turn, the police officer was the Stasi's man. If a relative or friend came to stay overnight, it was reported.  Schools, universities and hospitals were infiltrated from top to bottom. German academe was shocked to learn that Heinrich Fink, professor of theology and vice-chancellor of East Berlin's Humboldt University, had been a Stasi informer since 1968. After Fink's Stasi connections came to light, he was summarily fired. Doctors, lawyers, journalists, writers, actors, and sports figures were co-opted by Stasi officers, as were waiters and hotel personnel. Tapping about 100,000 telephone lines in East Germany and West Berlin around the clock was the job of 2,000 officers... Churchmen, including high officials of both Protestant and Catholic denominations, were recruited en masse as secret informants. Their offices and confessionals were infested with eavesdropping devices. Even the director of Leipzig's famous Thomas Church choir, Hans-Joachim Rotzsch, was forced to resign when he was unmasked as a Spitzel, the people's pejorative for a Stasi informant."

In an interview with journalist Anna Funder, an ex-Stasi officer recalled, "Most often, people we approached would inform for us. It was very rare that they would not. However, sometimes we felt that we might need to know where their weak points were, just in case. For example, if we wanted a pastor, we'd find out if he'd had an affair, or had a drinking problem—things that we could use as leverage. Mostly though, people said yes."

On Mielke's orders, and with his full knowledge, Stasi officers also engaged in arbitrary arrest, kidnapping, brutal harassment of political dissidents, torture, and the imprisonment of tens of thousands of citizens.

In a 1991 interview, Jewish Holocaust survivor and Nazi hunter Simon Wiesenthal said, "The Stasi was much, much worse than the Gestapo, if you consider only the oppression of its own people. The Gestapo had 40,000 officials watching a country of 80 million, while the Stasi employed 102,000 to control only 17 million."

Activities abroad

During Mielke's tenure, the Stasi's operations beyond East Germany were overseen by Markus Wolf and the Hauptverwaltung Aufklärung (MfS-HVA).

Mielke and Wolf provided money, training, and surveillance equipment to help build pro-Soviet secret police forces in Fidel Castro's Cuba, Baathist Syria, Sandinista-ruled Nicaragua, Mengistu Haile Mariam's Ethiopia, Idi Amin's Uganda, Kwame Nkrumah's Ghana, and South Yemen.

After the opening of Stasi archives, it was revealed that West Germany was riddled with MfS-HVA moles. In what John Koehler has dubbed, "The Invisible Invasion", some West German citizens collaborated out of Marxist beliefs, but others were recruited through blackmail, greed, career frustrations, or sexual favors from Stasi operatives.

Another tactic was for Stasi military advisers assigned to African and Middle Eastern countries to request the arrest of West German tourists. Local police would then turn the prisoner over to the Stasi agent, who would offer the West German a choice between espionage or incarceration.

Senior politicians from the Social Democratic Party of Germany, the Free Democratic Party of Germany, and the Christian Democratic Union were exposed and, when still alive, prosecuted.

Mielke and Wolf also seriously compromised West Germany's police departments, foreign and domestic intelligence services, diplomatic corps, military-industrial complex, and journalistic profession.

The Stasi compromised the United States military and diplomatic presence in West Germany.

The most damaging American to spy for the Stasi was United States Army Sergeant James Hall III, who volunteered his services to Soviet and East German intelligence in November 1981.

Sergeant Hall sold the Stasi 13,088 pages of classified documents, including detailed information about Project Trojan, a worldwide electronic network with the ability to pinpoint armored vehicles, missiles and aircraft by recording their signal emissions during wartime and the complete National SIGINT Requirements List (NSRL), a 4258-page document about NSA operations at home and abroad.

In 1988, Sergeant Hall was tricked into confessing his espionage career to an undercover FBI Special Agent named Dmitri Droujinsky, a Russian-American who was posing as an agent of the KGB. When news of Sergeant Hall's arrest became public, one Washington intelligence official called the breach, "the Army's Walker Case."

Collusion with Nazism

Beginning in 1960, Mielke and Wolf used false flag recruitment to secretly organize and finance Neo-Nazi organizations, which they then instructed to vandalize Jewish religious and cultural sites throughout West Germany. During the Jerusalem trial of Adolf Eichmann, Stasi agents sent letters to West German Neo-Nazis and Waffen-SS veterans, urging them to speak out and to raise money for Eichmann's defense attorney. This was done in order to lend credibility to Communist propaganda about the allegedly Fascist and neo-Nazi orientation of the Federal Republic of Germany.

According to German historian Michael Wolffsohn, "There is no doubt that in the 1960s as now, there were Nazis who were unreconstructed, unchangeable and evil, but without the help of East Germany, these Nazis were incapable of a national, coordinated campaign. That was true of right-wing extremist criminals in the 1980s as well. The East German Communists used anything they could against West Germany, including the... fears by Western countries and Jews that a new Nazism could be growing in West Germany. There is... evidence that the East Germans continued to use Anti-Semitism as a tool against West Germany in the 1970s and perhaps right up until 1989."

In a 1991 interview with John Koehler, Holocaust survivor and Nazi hunter Simon Wiesenthal said of the Stasi, "They not only terrorized their own people worse than the Gestapo, but the government was the most Anti-Semitic and Anti-Israeli in the entire Eastern Bloc. They did nothing to help the West in tracking down Nazi criminals; they ignored all requests from West German judicial authorities for assistance. We have just discovered shelves of files on Nazis stretching over four miles. Now we also know how the Stasi used those files. They blackmailed Nazi criminals who fled abroad after the war into spying for them. What's more, the Stasi trained terrorists from all over the world."

Support for paramilitary and terrorist groups
During a 1979 visit to the GDR by senior PLO member Salah Khalaf, Mielke said, "We are paying great attention to the Palestine resistance and the other revolutionary forces fighting against the policies of the United States and against the provocations of the Israeli aggressor. Together with the Soviet Union and other socialist countries, we will do everything to support this just battle."

With this in mind, Mielke ordered the Stasi to finance, arm, and train, "urban guerrillas," from numerous countries. According to former Stasi Colonel Rainer Wiegand, Mielke's ties to violent paramilitary groups were overseen by Markus Wolf and Department Three of the MfS-HVA. Members of the West German Baader-Meinhoff Group, the Chilean Manuel Rodríguez Patriotic Front, and Umkhonto we Sizwe, the paramilitary wing of the African National Congress, were brought to East Germany for training in the use of military hardware, insurgent tactics, and, "the leadership role of the Party." Similar treatment was meted out to Palestinians from the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, Abu Nidal, and Black September.

Other Stasi agents worked as military advisers to Soviet-backed African guerrilla organizations and the governments they later formed. They included the Namibian SWAPO and the Angolan MPLA during the South African Border War, the FRELIMO during the Mozambican War of Independence and civil war, and Robert Mugabe's ZANLA during the Rhodesian Bush War.

Colonel Wiegand revealed that Mielke and Wolf provided bodyguards from the Stasi's counter-terrorism division for Venezuelan-born PLO terrorist Carlos the Jackal and Black September leader Abu Daoud during their visits to the GDR. Col. Wiegand had been sickened by the 1972 Munich massacre and was horrified that the GDR would treat the man who ordered it as an honored guest. When he protested, Wiegand was told that Abu Daoud was, "a friend of our country, a high-ranking political functionary," and that there was no proof that he was a terrorist.

During the 1980s, Wiegand secretly blackmailed a Libyan diplomat into spying on his colleagues. Wiegand's informant told him that the La Belle bombing and other terrorist attacks against American and West German citizens were being planned at the Libyan Embassy in East Berlin. When Wiegand showed him a detailed report, Mielke informed the SED's Politburo, which ordered the Colonel to continue surveillance but not interfere with the plans of the Libyans.

According to John Koehler, "Murder, kidnapping, extortion, bank robbery, and arson were felonies under the East German criminal code. However, if these offenses were committed under the banner of the 'anti-imperialist struggle,' the communist system would look the other way. Moreover, it had assigned the Stasi to make sure that terrorists were properly trained for murder and sowing mayhem. There was no limits to the East German regime's involvement with terrorism, so long as it could be ideologically justified."

The Peaceful Revolution

According to John Koehler, "Increasingly concerned over the growing popular opposition, Stasi Minister Mielke early in 1989 ordered the creation of a special elite unit for crushing disturbances. Its personnel were carefully selected members of the counterespionage and counterterrorism directorate. They were equipped with special batons similar to electric cattle prods but much more powerful. In a secret speech to top-ranking Stasi officers on 29 June, Mielke warned that, 'hostile opposing forces and groups have already achieved a measure of power and are using all methods to achieve a change in the balance of power. Former Stasi Colonel Rainer Wiegand told me he was horrified when Mielke compared the situation with that of China two months earlier. Chinese students in Beijing had begun massive protests in April and in May, during a student demonstration in Tiananmen Square, security troops had opened fire on them killing hundreds. 'Mielke said our situation was comparable and we had to be ready to counter it with all means and methods,'  Wiegand recalled. 'Mielke said that the Chinese leadership had succeeded in smothering the protests before the situation got out of hand.'"

Despite Mielke's attempts to suppress them, East Germany's protesters grew more emboldened with every arrest.

40th anniversary of the GDR

As the fortieth anniversary of the GDR approached, Mielke ordered, "We must stop the internal enemy. At the least hint of a disturbance of the celebration, isolate and arrest them."

One former Stasi Major recalled, "We mixed inconspicuously with the demonstrators, accompanied by our IMs. Hundreds of us stood at the sides of the street in order to stop any activity before it got started. We barely got any sleep toward the end. Never did I sense that the people were afraid of the MfS. The Stasi was more afraid of the people than the people were of them."

According to Koehler, "Despite the unrest, the regime celebrated its fortieth with a huge, pompous ceremony in Berlin on 7 October, while tens of thousands of  outside the ornate building of the State Council. The People's Police cordons were utterly ineffectual. As Stasi Minister Erich Mielke drove up and was greeted by General Günter Kratsch, the counterintelligence chief, Mielke screamed at police: "Club those pigs into submission!" () The police ignored Mielke's ranting.

As more and more East Germans were arrested for protesting the 40th anniversary celebrations, many of them sang The Internationale in Vopo and Stasi custody to imply that they, rather than their captors, were the real working class and the real revolutionaries.

According to Anna Funder, "There was a sea of red flags, a torchlight procession, and tanks. The old men on the podium wore light-grey suits studded with medals. Mikhail Gorbachev stood next to Honecker, but he looked uncomfortable among the much older Germans. He had come to tell them that it was over, to convince the leadership to adopt his reformist policies. He had spoken openly about the danger of not 'responding to reality.' He pointedly told the Politburo that, 'life punishes those who come too late.' Honecker and Mielke ignored him, just as they ignored the crowds when they chanted, "Gorby, help us! Gorby, help us!"

Plan X
  
On 8 October 1989, Mielke and Honecker ordered the Stasi to implement "Plan X"—the SED's plan to arrest and indefinitely detain 85,939 East Germans during a state of emergency. According to John Koehler, Plan X had been in preparation since 1979 and was, "a carbon copy of how the Nazi concentration camps got their start after Hitler came to power in 1933."

By 1984, 23 sites had been selected for "isolation and internment camps." Those who were to be imprisoned in them ran into six categories; including anyone who had ever been under surveillance for anti-state activities, including all members of peace movements which were not under Stasi control.

According to Anna Funder, "The plans contained exact provisions for the use of all available prisons and camps, and when those were full for the conversion of other buildings: Nazi detention centers, schools, hospitals, and factory holiday hostels. Every detail was foreseen, from where the doorbell was located on the house of each person to be arrested to the adequate supply of barbed wire and the rules of dress and etiquette in the camps..."

However, when Mielke sent the orders, codenamed "Shield" (), to each local Stasi precinct to begin the planned arrests, he was not obeyed. Terrified of an East German version of the mass lynchings of Hungarian secret police agents during the 1956 Revolution, Stasi agents throughout the GDR fortified their office-buildings and barricaded themselves inside.

Toppling Honecker

Even as orders were going out to implement Plan X, Mielke had already thrown his support behind the anti-Honecker faction in the SED's Politburo. Although he was of the same generation as Honecker and had matured in an environment where following orders was the rule, he was sober enough and politically savvy enough to realize this approach no longer worked. During a session on 10 October 1989, Mielke delivered a report attacking Honecker's desire to violently suppress the demonstrations rather than offer concessions.

In what Edward N. Peterson has called "a remarkable disclaimer of responsibility for the violence," Mielke declared that Honecker's orders to him "were built on false situation judgments." He added that Honecker's commands on 7 and 8 October "were false and undifferentiated condemnations of those who think differently. Despite this evaluation, there was never any instructions to use violence against persons. There is nothing in our basic principles to consider a demonstration as part of a possible counterrevolutionary coup."

Mielke also claimed that "the Party judged the situation falsely. We tried to tell them the true situation, but enough was not done." Mielke argued in favor of solving the demonstrations politically and giving "every DDR citizen the right to travel."

On 17 October 1989, Mielke and the rest of the GDR's Politburo met to follow Gorbachev's demand, voiced in August, for Honecker be removed as General Secretary of the SED and State Council chairman. Suspecting that Honecker's personal bodyguards might try to arrest the members of the Central Committee when they met to vote Honecker out in favour of Egon Krenz, Mielke saw to it that Stasi agents who were loyal to him were stationed near the meeting room. While deliberations were underway, Mielke told Honecker that "we simply cannot start shooting with tanks," and tried to impress upon Honecker that it was "the end".

After the vote to oust Honecker passed, Mielke "got nasty," and accused Honecker of corruption. Honecker responded that Mielke should not open his mouth so much. Mielke responded by putting the last nail into Honecker's coffin. He announced that the MfS had a file on the now-ousted leader. It contained proof of Honecker's corrupt business practices, sexual activities, and how, as a member of the underground Communist Party of Germany during the Nazi years, he had been arrested by the Gestapo and had named names.

To the shock of both the Politburo and the Stasi, Krenz's first televised addresses failed to win popular support. Despite his assurances that the SED was at last ready to embrace Gorbachev's policies of Glasnost and Perestroika, Krenz's approval ratings remained extremely low.

Former Politburo member Günter Schabowski later recalled, "We made a palace revolution without offering a real alternative... We had not quickly and thoroughly enough whittled away from Stalin's methods."

Defeat
On 7 November 1989, Mielke resigned, along with eleven out of eighteen members of the SED's Council of Ministers, in response to the increasing disintegration of the GDR.

Two days later, Schabowski announced on television that the east–west border was open without restriction.

According to Anna Funder, there was panic at Stasi Headquarters in Berlin-Lichtenberg, "Stasi officers were instructed to destroy files, starting with the most incriminating–those naming westerners who spied for them, and those that concerned deaths. They shredded the files until the paper shredders overheated and shorted out. Among other shortages in the East, there was a shredder shortage, so they had to send agents out under cover to West Berlin to buy more. In Building 8 alone, the citizens' movement found over a hundred burnt out shredders. When they ran out of working shredders from the West and could not procure more they began using scissors to cut the documents by hand.

According to William F. Buckley, Jr., "In the weeks after 9 November, Stasi offices were stormed in various cities around East Germany. Stasi commissars in three of those cities committed suicide. But not one was lynched or executed."

Televised humiliation

On 13 November 1989, Mielke was summoned to deliver a briefing about the protests to the GDR parliament, or Volkskammer. Formerly a "rubber stamp parliament," the disintegration of the SED's power had allowed the Volkskammer to begin exercising real authority over the GDR. Therefore, Mielke, as the head of the Stasi (known as the "shield and sword of the [SED] party"), was summoned before the newly empowered parliament to justify his position in government.

As his speech was broadcast live, Mielke began by using overly bombastic, flag-waving language, saying "We have, comrades, dear assembly members, an extraordinarily high amount of contact with all working people" (). To his shock, the Volkskammer responded with boos, whistles, and catcalls.

His face grief-stricken and pale, Mielke then tried to defuse the situation, "Yes, we have such contact, let me tell you-let me tell you why. I am not afraid to stand here and to give you an unbiased answer" (). Mielke continued, speaking of the "triumph" of the socialist economy, continuing all the while to address the members of the Volkskammer as "Comrades" ().  In response, Volkskammer member Dietmar Czok of the Christian Democratic Union, rose from his seat and raised his hand. The Volkskammer's president, Günther Maleuda, interrupted Mielke and urged Czok to speak.

With his voice dripping with contempt, Czok told Mielke, "As a point of order, I will not tell you this again. There are more people sitting in this Chamber than just your Comrades!" (). In response, many in the Volkskammer burst into applause, cheers, and shouts of "We are not your Comrades!" ()

Trying to appear magnanimous, Mielke responded, "This is a natural, Humanistic question! This is just a question of formality."  (), leading to further shouts of displeasure from the members of the Volkskammer. In a last ditch effort, Mielke "raised his arms like an evangelist," and cried, "I love all – all Humanity! I really do! I set myself before you!" ()

Everyone in the room, including staunch SED members, burst out laughing. Then Mielke started to cry. John Koehler later wrote, "Mielke was finished."

Mielke's address to the Volkskammer remains the most famous broadcast in the history of German television. Anna Funder has written, "When they think of Mielke, East Germans like to think of this."

The Fall
On 17 November 1989, the Volkskammer renamed the MfS the Amt für Nationale Sicherheit (AfNS – Office for National Security). The following day, Mielke's tenure in office ended when the Volkskammer appointed Generalleutnant Wolfgang Schwanitz as the new director of the AfNS.

On 1 December 1989, the Volkskammer nullified the clause of the GDR constitution that enshrined the SED's "leading role" in the government and formally ending Communist rule in East Germany. Two days later, the SED announced that Mielke's party membership had been permanently revoked. Years later, he lamented, "Millions have died for nothing. Everything we fought for – it has all amounted to nothing." He also said, "If the party had given me the task, then there would perhaps still be a GDR today. On that you can rely."

Prosecution

Indictments
 
On 7 December 1989, Erich Mielke was arrested and placed in solitary confinement for embezzlement of public funds in order to improve his hunting estate. He was charged with "Damaging the People's Economy" (Schädigung der Volkswirtschaft). On 7 January 1990, he was further charged with high treason and conspiring with Erich Honecker to bug the telephones and open the mail of every one of East Germany's citizens.

Meanwhile, the Federal Constitutional Court announced that Mielke had also been indicted for having ordered two terrorist attacks by the Baader-Meinhoff Group against United States military personnel who were stationed on West German soil. The first was the car bomb attack against the United States Air Force at Ramstein Air Base on 31 August 1981. The second was the attempted murder with an RPG-7 anti-tank rocket of United States Army General Frederick Kroesen, his wife, and the West German police officer who was driving their armored Mercedes at Heidelberg on 15 September 1981.

After German reunification in October 1990, Mielke was also indicted for ordering the shootings of defectors at the Berlin Wall. He was also charged with misuse of office, breach of trust, and incitement to pervert the course of justice.

Bülowplatz trial

In February 1992, Mielke was put on trial for the 1931 first degree murders of Berlin Police Captains Anlauf and Lenck as well as the attempted murder of Senior Sergeant Willig. The evidence for Mielke's guilt was drawn from the original police files, the transcripts from the 1934 trial of his co-conspirators, and a handwritten memoir in which Mielke revealed that his role in, "the Bülowplatz Affair," had been his reason for fleeing to Moscow from the Weimar Republic in 1931. All had been found in Mielke's house safe during a police search in 1990. Mielke was believed to have kept the documents for the purpose of "blackmailing Honecker and other East German leaders." Former Associated Press reporter and White House Press Secretary John Koehler also testified that Mielke had boasted of his involvement in the Bülowplatz murders during a confrontation at Leipzig in 1965.

During his trial, Mielke appeared increasingly senile, admitting his identity but otherwise remaining silent, taking naps, and showing little interest in the proceedings. In a widely publicized incident, Mielke appeared to mistake the presiding judge for a prison barber. When a journalist for Der Spiegel attempted to interview him in Plötzensee Prison, Mielke responded, "I want to go back to my bed" (). Opinion was divided whether Mielke was suffering from senile dementia or was pretending in order to evade prosecution.

After twenty months of one-and-a-half-hour daily sessions, Erich Mielke was convicted on two counts of murder and one of attempted murder. On 26 October 1993, a panel of three judges and two jurors sentenced him to six years' imprisonment. At his sentencing, Mielke started to cry. In pronouncing sentence, Judge Theodor Seidel, told Mielke that he "will go down in history as one of the most fearsome dictators and police ministers of the 20th century."

Imprisonment
Mielke was then put on trial for ordering the shootings of East Germans who were trying to defect to the West. In November 1994, the presiding judge adjourned the proceedings, ruling that Mielke was not mentally competent to stand trial.

During his incarceration, at JVA Moabit corrections officers supplied Mielke with a red telephone like the one in his office at Stasi Headquarters. Although it was not connected to the outside world, Mielke enjoyed having imaginary conversations with non-existent Stasi agents. His other favorite pastime was watching game shows on television.

In 1995, parole officers and Mielke's attorneys argued that he was "totally confused" and obtained his release. At 87 years of age, Erich Mielke was Germany's oldest prison inmate and had been incarcerated for 1,904 days. Days before his release, the Public Prosecutor of Berlin announced that he was "not interested in chasing an 87-year-old man anymore" and that all further prosecution of Mielke had been indefinitely suspended.

According to Koehler, "[Mielke's] bank account, which held more than 300,000 Marks (about US$187,500), was confiscated. Before his arrest in 1989, the most feared man in East Germany had lived in a luxurious home with access to an indoor pool. In addition, he owned a palatial hunting villa, complete with a movie theater, trophy room, 60 servants, and a 60 square kilometers hunting preserve. After he was released from prison Mielke was obliged to move into a two-room, 55-square-meter flat. Like all Stasi pensioners, he would henceforth have to live on 802 marks (about US$512) a month."

Death

Erich Mielke died on 21 May 2000, aged 92, in a Berlin nursing home. After being cremated at the crematorium in Meissen, an urn containing Mielke's ashes was buried in an unmarked grave at the Zentralfriedhof Friedrichsfelde in Berlin. An estimated 100 people reportedly attended the funeral. Erich Mielke's grave is outside the memorial section established at the entrance in 1951 by East German leaders for communist heroes. Within hours of his funeral, the flowers and wreaths left at Mielke's grave were ripped to shreds by persons unknown.

Legacy
Writing in 2003, Australian journalist Anna Funder declared, "The name Mielke has now come to mean 'Stasi.' Victims are dubiously honored to find his signature in their files: on plans for someone to be observed 'with all possible methods', on commands for arrest, for kidnapping, instructions to judges for sentencing, orders for 'liquidation'. The honor is dubious because... he signed so many."

In 2012, the museum at the former Stasi headquarters opened Mielke's office as a permanent exhibit. Soon after, The Guardian correspondent Tam Eastley visited the exhibit and numerous sites in Berlin connected to Mielke's life, times, and legacy. When she visited Mielke's grave, Eastley found that it had become a shrine for adherents of Ostalgie.

Personal life
Erich Mielke was a fitness enthusiast, a non-smoker, and drank very little. He was a keen hunter and owned a large area of ground where he would hunt animals with other East German and visiting Soviet officials.

During the late 1940s, when Mielke was working as security chief of the DWK, he began a relationship with Gertrud Mueller, a seamstress. On 18 December 1948, shortly after the birth of their son Frank Mielke, Erich and Gertrud married in a civil ceremony.

According to the newspaper Bild, the Mielkes adopted an orphaned girl named Ingrid, who was born in 1950. Like her adopted brother Frank, Ingrid Mielke attended the Wilhelm Pieck School. She ultimately became a captain in the Stasi and married a Stasi Lieutenant named Norbert Knappe. As of 1999, the Knappes had both refused to grant an interview to Bild reporters.

In popular culture
Erich Mielke has appeared as a character in both films and novels set in the GDR.

 Volker Schlöndorff's The Legend of Rita (2000), which focuses on Stasi collusion with the West German far-left terrorist organization Rote Armee Fraktion. In conversation with fictional Stasi officer Erwin Hull (Martin Wuttke), Mielke (Dietrich Körner) expresses admiration for the RAF's campaign against the United States, West Germany, and the State of Israel, which he compares with his own activities against the Weimar Republic and the Nazis. The RAF members are then brought to a training camp, where Stasi agents instruct them in the use of grenade launchers and other kinds of military hardware. Mielke's name is never disclosed and Agent Hull addresses him only as, "Comrade General." ()
 Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck's The Lives of Others (2006), which focuses on the Stasi's surveillance and repression of the East German population. In the film, a previously loyal GDR playwright named Georg Dreymann (Sebastian Koch) publishes an anonymous article in the West German magazine Der Spiegel which accuses East Germany's Minister of Culture of having persecuted a blacklisted stage director until he hanged himself. Soon after the article goes to press, Mielke's voice is heard over the telephone giving a dressing down to fictional Stasi Lieutenant Colonel Anton Grubitz (Ulrich Tukur). Addressed only as "Genosse Armeegeneral" (Mielke was the only person to ever hold that rank in the Stasi), Mielke threatens to throw Grubitz in front of a firing squad if he fails to identify and arrest the article's author.
 In Philip Kerr's novel Field Grey (2010), Mielke first appears in 1931 Berlin, when protagonist Bernie Gunther saves him from being murdered by Nazi Brownshirts. The novel then flashes forward to 1954, when Gunther is recruited into a CIA plot to abduct Mielke from East Berlin.

Honours and awards
Mielke received a large number of awards and commemorative medals from organisations within the German Democratic Republic and from allied states. A more complete list is available (in German) at Liste der Orden und Ehrenzeichen des Erich Mielke.

Awards of the German Democratic Republic
 Patriotic Order of Merit in gold (7 October 1954)
 Six Orders of Karl Marx (28 December 1957, 20 November 1973, 1 December 1975, 28 December 1977, 28 June 1982, 28 December 1982)
 Twice Hero of Labour of the GDR (5 October 1964, 24 February 1968)
 Twice Hero of the GDR (1 December 1975, 28 December 1982)
 Banner of Labour (8 May 1960)
 Medal for Exemplary Border Service (26 April 1956)
 Medal for Faithful Service in the National People's Army;
Bronze (7 October 1957)
Silver (8 February 1959)
Gold (1 July 1960)
Gold for 20 years service (8 February 1965)
 Medal for Fighters Against Fascism (6 September 1958)
 Gold Medal of Merit of the National People's Army (1 March 1957)
 Scharnhorst Order, twice (25 September 1979, 7 October 1984)

Awards of the Soviet Union
 Hero of the Soviet Union (25 December 1987)
 Four Orders of Lenin (12 June 1973, 28 December 1982, 1 April 1985, 28 December 1987)
 Order of the Patriotic War, 1st class (6 May 1970)
 Four Orders of the Red Banner (23 October 1958, 5 February 1968, 28 December 1977, February 1980)
 Jubilee Medal "50 Years of the Soviet Militia" (20 December 1967)
Jubilee Medal "In Commemoration of the 100th Anniversary since the Birth of Vladimir Il'ich Lenin" (1970)
 Medal "For Distinction in Guarding the State Border of the USSR" (6 January 1970)
 Order of the October Revolution (February 1975)

Other states
 Order of Georgi Dimitrov (Bulgaria, 28 December 1982)
 Order of Friendship (Czechoslovakia) (28 December 1982)
 Order of the Red Star (Czechoslovakia) (16 November 1970)

References

Further reading
Buckley, Jr., William F. (2004), The Fall of the Berlin Wall, John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
Funder, Anna (2003), Stasiland: True Stories from Behind the Berlin Wall, Granta Books, London.

 Kuchel, Dany (2011) "Le Glaive et le Bouclier", une histoire de la Stasi en France.
 Otto, Wilfriede, Erich Mielke, Biographie: Aufstieg und Fall eines Tschekisten. Dietz-Verlag, Berlin 2000, .
 Peterson, Edward N. (2002). The Secret Police and the Revolution: The Fall of the German Democratic Republic, Praeger Publications, Westport, Connecticut. London.  
Pickard, Ralph (2007).  STASI Decorations and Memorabilia, A Collector's Guide. Frontline Historical Publishing.  
Pickard, Ralph (2012).  STASI Decorations and Memorabilia Volume II.  Frontline Historical Publication.  

1907 births
2000 deaths
Politicians from Berlin
Communist Party of Germany politicians
Members of the Politburo of the Central Committee of the Socialist Unity Party of Germany
Government ministers of East Germany
Members of the 3rd Volkskammer
Members of the 4th Volkskammer
Members of the 5th Volkskammer
Members of the 6th Volkskammer
Members of the 7th Volkskammer
Members of the 8th Volkskammer
Members of the 9th Volkskammer
East German spies
German Comintern people
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Great Purge perpetrators
Interwar-period spies
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Murders of Paul Anlauf and Franz Lenck
Perpetrators of political repression in the Second Spanish Republic
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Recipients of the Banner of Labor
Foreign Heroes of the Soviet Union
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Recipients of the Order of Georgi Dimitrov
20th-century German criminals
People from Mitte
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Criminals from Berlin
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This list includes American politicians at the state and local levels who have been convicted of felony or misdemeanor crimes committed while in office.

At the bottom of the article are links to related articles which deal with politicians who are involved in federal scandals (political and sexual), as well as differentiating among federal, state and local convictions. Also excluded are crimes which occur outside the politician's tenure in office unless they specifically stem from acts during his time of service.

Entries are arranged by date, from most current to less recent, and by state.

2020–present

Alabama 
State Senator David Burkette (D) convicted of campaign violations. (2020)

California

Local 
Los Angeles Councilman Mitchell Englander (R) was sentenced to one year and one day in prison for obstructing a probe into his alleged corruption. (2021)

Idaho 
State Representative John Green (R) convicted of fraud. (2020)

Illinois 
State Representative Eddie Acevedo (D) convicted of tax evasion. (2021)
State Senator Terry Link (D) was convicted of tax evasion. (2020)
State Senator Martin Sandoval (D) convicted of bribery. (2020).

Louisiana 
State Senator Wesley T. Bishop (D) pleaded guilty to making false statements. (2020)

Maryland 
State Delegate Cheryl Glenn (D) pleaded guilty to accepting $33,000 in bribes. (2020).
State Delegate Tawanna P. Gaines (D) pleaded guilty to misuse of campaign funds (2020)

Local 
Mayor of Baltimore Catherine Pugh (D) convicted of fraud and perjury. (2020)

Massachusetts 
State Representative David Nangle (D) convicted of wire fraud. (2020)

Michigan 
 State Representative Bryan Posthumus (R) was sentenced to 15 days in jail for "operating while intoxicated". (2021)

Local 
Detroit City Councillor Andre Spivey (D) convicted of bribery. (2022)
Detroit City Councillor Gabe Leland (D) convicted of misconduct. (2021)

Missouri 
State Representative Courtney Allen Curtis (D) convicted of fraud. (2020)

New Hampshire 
State Senator Jeff Woodburn (D) convicted of domestic violence and criminal mischief. (2021)
State Representative Robert Forsythe (R) pleaded guilty to two counts of assault. (2021)

New York

Local 
New York City Council member Chaim Deutsch (D) convicted of fraud. (2021)

North Carolina 
State Representative David R. Lewis (R) convicted of making false statements to a bank. (2020)

Ohio

Local 
Councilman Kenneth Johnson (D) convicted of tax violations and federal conspiracy to defraud the government. Johnson's aide, Garnell Jamison, was convicted of 11 charges as well. (2021)
Porter Township trustee Edward Snodgrass (R) pleaded guilty to falsification. (2021)
Cincinnati City Council President Tamaya Dennard (D) convicted of fraud. (2020)

Oregon 
State Representative Mike Nearman (R) pleaded guilty to official misconduct for allowing rioters to enter the Oregon State Capitol. (2021)

Pennsylvania 
State Representative Margo L. Davidson (D) convicted of theft. (2021)
State Senator Mike Folmer (R) was convicted of possession of child pornography and served one year in prison. (2020)

Tennessee 
State Senator Katrina Robinson (D) convicted of wired fraud. (2021)

2010–2019

Alabama 
State Senator Zeb Little (D) convicted of theft of client funds. (2019)
State Representative Ed Henry (R) convicted of fraud. (2019)
State Representative Micky Hammon (R) was convicted of fraud (2017)
State Representative Oliver Robinson (D) was convicted of bribery. (2017)
Governor of Alabama Robert J. Bentley (R) resigned after pleading guilty to two misdemeanor charges: failing to file a major contribution report, in violation of Code of Alabama § 17-5-8.1(c); and knowingly converting campaign contributions to personal use, in violation of Code of Alabama § 36-25-6." (2017)
Speaker of the Alabama House of Representatives Mike Hubbard (R) was convicted on 12 of 23 felony charges. (2016)
State Representative Greg Wren (R) pleaded guilty to an ethics violation. He resigned from the Alabama Legislature as a condition of his plea deal and was given a 12-month suspended sentence and ordered to pay $24,000. (2014)
State Representative Terry Spicer (D) pleaded guilty to accepting more than $3,000 per month in bribes. (2011)

Arizona 
State Senator Frank Antenori (R) convicted of trespassing. (2016)
State Representative Ceci Velasquez (D) was convicted of theft. (2016)
State Representative Richard Miranda (D) pleaded guilty to wire fraud and tax evasion. (2012)
State Representative Ben Arredondo (D) was charged with bribery, fraud and extortion. He was sentenced to 18 months of house arrest. (2012)
State Senator Scott Bundgaard (R) agreed to participate in domestic violence classes for six months after assaulting his girlfriend. (2011)

Local 
Sheriff of Maricopa County Joe Arpaio (R) was convicted of contempt of court. He was pardoned by President Donald Trump before his sentencing. (2017)

Arkansas 
State Senator Jeremy Hutchinson (R) convicted of bribery. (2019)
State Representative Hank Wilkins (D) convicted of bribery. (2018)
State Senator Jake Files (R) was convicted of fraud. (2018)
State Representative Jon Woods (R) convicted of bribery. (2018)
State Representative Eddie Cooper (D) convicted of embezzlement. (2018)
State Representative Micah Neal (R) was convicted of bribery. (2017)
State Representative Steven B. Jones (D) convicted of bribery. (2015)
State Senator Paul Bookout (D) pleaded guilty to mail fraud. (2014)
State Treasurer Martha Shoffner (D) convicted on the charges of extortion and bribery and sentenced to 30 months. (2014)
State Representative Hudson Hallum (D) pleaded guilty to voter bribing. (2012)

California 
State Senator Roy Ashburn (R) pleaded no contest to driving under the influence and was sentenced to two days in prison. (2010)
State Senator Ron Calderon (D), brother of Tom, was convicted of money laundering. (2016)
State Assemblyman Tom Calderon (D), brother of Ron, was convicted of money laundering. (2016)
State Senator Leland Yee (D) pleaded guilty to one count of racketeering (2015) and was sentenced to five years in prison. (2016)
State Senator Roderick Wright (D) was convicted of eight counts of perjury and voter fraud. He was sentenced to 90 days and barred him from ever holding public office again and will be required to perform 1,500 hours of community service and three years' probation under the terms of his conviction. (2014) Wright was pardoned in 2018.
State Assemblywoman Mary Hayashi (D) was charged with felony grand theft after being caught on video surveillance allegedly shoplifting $2,445 worth of merchandise from San Francisco's Neiman Marcus store. She was sentenced to $180 fine and three years' probation and was ordered to stay more than 50 feet from the store. (2011)

Local 
District Attorney for Contra Costa County Mark Peterson (D) convicted of perjury. (2017)
Los Angeles County Sheriff of Los Angeles Lee Baca (D) convicted of obstructing the FBI. (2017)
Mayor of Gardena Paul Tanaka (R) convicted of civil rights abuses. (2016)
Sheriff of San Francisco Ross Mirkarimi (D) convicted of false imprisonment. (2013)
Mayor of San Diego Bob Filner (D) given three months of house arrest, three years' probation, and partial loss of his mayoral pension after pleading guilty to state charges of false imprisonment and battery. (2013)

Colorado 
State Representative Timothy J. Leonard (R) was found guilty of Contempt of Court and sentenced to 14 days in jail. (2016)
State Senator Steve King (R) pleaded guilty to embezzlement of public property and misdemeanor first-degree official misconduct. Sentenced to serve two years' probation and complete 80 hours of useful public service. (2015)
State Representative Douglas Bruce (R), was convicted on four counts of felony criminal activity including, money laundering, attempted improper influence of a public official, and tax fraud. He was sentenced on February 13, 2012, to a total of 180 days in jail, $49,000 in fines, and six months of probation which included extensive disclosure requirements. (2011)
Secretary of State Scott Gessler (R) was found guilty of violating Colorado's ethics laws by using state money to attend a Republican event in Florida (2012)

Connecticut 
State Representative Victor Cuevas (D) convicted of bank fraud. (2016)
State Senator Ernie Newton (D) was sentenced to six months in prison for three counts of illegal practices in campaign financing. Newton had also been sentenced to four years for federal charges of accepting a $5,000 bribe, evading taxes and pilfering campaign contributions to pay for personal expenses. (2015)
State Representative Christina Ayala (D) convicted of election fraud. (2014)
State Senator Thomas Gaffey (D) convicted of larceny. (2011)

Local 
Mayor of Hartford, Connecticut Eddie Perez (D), was sentenced to eight years, suspended after three years, with three years in prison, to be followed by three years of probation for corruption. (2010)

Florida 
State Representative Daisy Baez (D) convicted of perjury. (2017)
State Representative Erik Fresen (R) convicted of tax evasion. (2017)
State Representative Dwayne L. Taylor (D) convicted of fraud. (2017)
State Representative Reggie Fullwood (D) convicted of fraud. (2016)
State Senator M. Mandy Dawson (D) convicted of fraud. (2011)

Local 
Tallahassee Mayor Scott Maddox (D) convicted of corruption. (2019)

Georgia 
State Representative Tyrone Brooks (D) convicted of tax fraud. (2015)

Hawaii 
State Senator Rod Tam (D) convicted of theft. (2011)

Idaho 
State Senator John McGee (R) pleaded guilty to probation violation and a disturbing the peace charge related to sexual harassment that had occurred at the Idaho State Capital Building and was jailed for 44 days. (2012) He had previously been arrested for grand theft auto and driving under the influence. McGee pleaded guilty to DUI and was sentenced to 180 days, serving 5 in jail, plus community service, 175 days' probation, plus fines and restitution. (2011)

Illinois 
State Representative Keith Farnham (D) convicted of distributing child pornography. (2014)
State Representative Derrick Smith (D) was arrested and convicted of accepting a $7,000 bribe. (2014)
State Representative Constance A. Howard (D) convicted of mail fraud. (2013)
State Representative La Shawn Ford (D) convicted of fraud. (2012)
State Representative Ron Stephens (R) was found guilty of repeated drug abuse and DUI (2010)

Local 
 Alderman of Chicago Willie Cochran (D) convicted of fraud. (2019)
 Chief Executive Officer of Chicago Public Schools Barbara Byrd-Bennett (D) convicted of bribery. (2015)
 Alderman of Chicago William Beavers (D) convicted of tax fraud. (2013)
 Alderman of Chicago Sandi Jackson (D) pleaded guilty to one count of filing false tax returns. (2013)
 Comptroller and Treasurer of Dixon, Rita Crundwell (D) was sentenced to 19 years and 7 months in prison for fraud, having embezzled $53 million. (2013)
Alderman of Chicago Isaac Carothers (D) convicted of corruption. (2010)

Indiana 
Secretary of State Charlie White (R) was convicted on 6 of 7 felony charges including perjury, theft and voter fraud. (2012)

Local 
Mayor of East Chicago George Pabey (D) was convicted by a federal court jury on September 24, 2010, of conspiracy and theft of government funds. (2010)

Iowa 
State Senator Kent Sorenson (R) pleaded guilty to one count of falsely reporting expenditures and one count of obstruction of justice. (2013)

Kansas 
State Representative Trent K. LeDoux (R) pleaded guilty to one count of bank fraud. He was sentenced Monday to 18 months in federal prison for defrauding Farmers and Merchants Bank of Colby, Kan., of more than $460,000. (2014)

Local

Kentucky 
State Representative Keith Hall (D) was convicted of bribery and sentenced to seven years in prison. (2016)
State Representative Ben Waide (R) convicted of campaign violations. (2016)
Commissioner of Agriculture Richie Farmer (R) was convicted of corruption and sentenced to 27 months in prison. (2014)

Louisiana 
State Representative Girod Jackson, III (D) convicted of tax evasion. (2013)

Local 
Mayor of New Orleans Ray Nagin (D) was found guilty on 20 counts of bribery and was sentenced to ten years in federal prison. (2014)
Mayor of Mandeville Eddie Price III (R) was sentenced to 60 months on charges of income tax evasion and corruption. (2010)

Maine 
State Representative David R. Burns (R) pleaded guilty to misdemeanor forgery and theft charges and was sentenced to six months. (2012)
State Representative Frederick Wintle (R), pleaded guilty to a concealed weapons charge (2011)

Maryland 
State Delegate Cheryl Glenn (D) convicted of fraud. (2019)
State Senator Nathaniel T. Oaks (D) was convicted of corruption and sentenced to  years. (2018)
State Delegate Michael L. Vaughn (D) was convicted of bribery. (2017)
State Delegate Will Campos (D) was convicted of bribery. (2015)
State Delegate Tiffany T. Alston (D) was convicted of embezzlement. (2013)
State Delegate Don H. Dwyer Jr. (R) was operating a motorboat when it collided with another vessel injuring five others. Dwyer pleaded guilty, but appealed his 30-day jail sentence. The sentence was ultimately upheld after another incident in which Dwyer was stopped and arrested for a DUI and received an additional 30-day sentence, for a total of 60 days. (2012)

Local 
Police Commissioner of Baltimore Darryl De Sousa (D) convicted of tax crimes. (2019)
Anne Arundel County Executive John R. Leopold (R) convicted of misconduct in office. (2013)
Prince George's County Executive Jack B. Johnson (D) pleaded guilty to extortion and, witness and evidence tampering. He was sentenced to seven years and three months in Butner federal prison in North Carolina. He was also fined $100,000. (2011)
Prince George's County Councillor Leslie Johnson (D), was sentenced to one year and one day in prison for political corruption. (2011)
Mayor of Baltimore Sheila Dixon (D) was convicted of fraudulent misappropriation and was sentenced to four years of probation. (2010)

Massachusetts 
State Representative Carlos Henriquez (D) was convicted of two counts assault and battery charges and sentenced to 2½ years, with six months to be served in the Middlesex County House of Correction and Jail in Billerica, Massachusetts and the remaining two years to be spent on probation. (2014)
State Representative Stephen Stat Smith (D) pleaded guilty to two misdemeanor counts of deprivation of rights under color of law for his role in a voter fraud scheme. (2012)
Speaker of the House Salvatore DiMasi (D) was found guilty of using his position to secure multimillion-dollar state contracts for Cognos, a business intelligence software company, in exchange for kickbacks. (2011)
State Senator Anthony D. Galluccio (D) was given one year in prison after failing a sobriety test and violating his probation from a previous hit and run accident. (2010)

Local 
Boston Councillor Chuck Turner (G) was expelled from the Boston City Council on December 1, 2010, following his conviction on federal bribery charges. (2010)

Michigan 
State Senator Bert Johnson (D) was convicted of fraud. (2018)
State Representative Brian Banks (D) was convicted of fraud for filing false financial statements (2017)
State Senator Virgil Smith, Jr. (D) was convicted of assault and was sentenced to 10 months in jail, five years of probation and not be allowed to hold public office. (2015)
Justice of the Michigan Supreme Court Diane Hathaway (D) was sentenced to 366 days in prison for criminal mortgage fraud. (2013)

Local 
Detroit City Councillor Charles Pugh (D) was sentenced to 5 1/2 to 15 years for sex with a teenage boy under the age of 16. (2016)
Flint City Councilman Eric Mays was sentenced to 28 days in jail for impaired driving. (2016)
Ingham County Prosecutor Stuart Dunnings III (D) convicted of misconduct. (2016)
Mayor of Detroit Kwame Kilpatrick (D) was sentenced to 18 months to 5 years in prison for violating his probation in 2010. In 2013 he was sentenced to 28 years in prison for federal charges including racketeering and extortion. (2013)
Detroit City Councillor Monica Conyers (D) pleaded guilty to conspiring to commit bribery and served just over 27 months at the Alderson Federal Prison Camp in West Virginia. (2010)

Mississippi 
State Senator Chris Massey (R) was arrested for aggravated assault with a shovel for an argument with two maintenance workers. He was found guilty and given six months' probation. (2016)
State Representative Greg Davis (R) was indicted on state charges of embezzlement, false pretense and making fraudulent statements. He was convicted and sentenced to serve 2½ years in state prison. (2012)
Judge Bobby DeLaughter (D) pleaded guilty of one count of lying to the FBI and was sentenced to 18 months in prison. (2010)

Missouri 
State Representative Steve Webb (D) convicted of theft. (2013)
Governor of Missouri Roger B. Wilson (D) was fined $2,000 by the Missouri Ethics Commission. In July he was sentenced to two years of probation on the money laundering charge. (2012)
State Representative Ray Salva (D) convicted of fraud. (2011)
State Representative Talibdin El-Amin (D) convicted of bribery. (2010)
Speaker of the Missouri House of Representatives Rod Jetton (R) was arrested for "recklessly causing serious physical injury" to an unnamed woman during sadomasochistic sex and pleaded guilty to misdemeanor assault. He was sentenced to probation and fined. (2010)

Local
County Executive of St. Louis County Steve Stenger (D) convicted of bribery. (2019)
County Executive of Jackson County, Missouri Mike Sanders (D) convicted of fraud. (2018)

Montana 
State Senator Jason Priest (R) pleaded guilty to two counts of assault and resisting arrest. (2014)
State Representative Tony Belcourt (D) was convicted of four federal corruption charges involving projects on the Rocky Boy Indian Reservation. He was sentenced to 7½ years in prison. (2014)
State Representative Joel Boniek (R) was found guilty of "quid pro quo corruption" in taking $9,060 in contributions from the Western Tradition Partnership. (2010)
State Representative Mike Miller (R) admitted to accepting "unlawful corporate contributions" from Western Tradition Partnership, was found guilty, was fined $4K and agreed not run for public office for four years. (2010)
State Senator Scott Sales (R) from Bozeman, was accused of accepting unlawful contributions from Western Traditions Partnership. He pled guilty, was fined and forced to "express regret" in settling the accusations. (2010)
State Senator Art Wittich (R) was found guilty of campaign violations by coordinating with and taking illegal corporate contributions from, the Western Tradition Partnership. (2014)

Nevada 
State Senator Kelvin Atkinson (D) convicted of fraud. (2019)
State Assemblyman Steven Brooks (D) convicted of making threats to kill. (2013)

New Jersey 
Deputy Executive Director of the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey Bill Baroni (R) convicted over the Fort Lee lane closure controversy (2016)
State Assemblyman Alberto Coutinho (D) convicted of theft and falsifying records. (2013)
State Assemblyman Robert Schroeder (R) pled guilty to misconduct and theft (2012)
State Assemblyman Neil M. Cohen (D) jailed for child pornography. (2010)
State Assemblyman Anthony Chiappone (D) jailed for filing false campaign finance reports. (2010)

Local 
Mayor of Atlantic City Frank Gilliam (D) was convicted of wire fraud (2019)
 Mayor of Trenton Tony F. Mack (D) was indicted for bribery, fraud, extortion and money laundering on February 7, 2014, he was convicted on all counts. (2014) He was sentenced to nearly five years in prison.
 Mayor of Hamilton John Bencivengo (R) was sentenced to 38 months in prison for corruption (2013)
Mayor of Perth Amboy Joseph Vas (D) and his longtime top mayoral aide, Melvin Ramos, were indicted by a federal grand jury for mail fraud, misapplication of funds, and making false statements to the Federal Election Commission. sentenced to six-and-a-half years for federal corruption. (2011)

New Hampshire 
State Representative Thomas Katsiantonis (D) convicted of tax evasion. (2018)
State Representative Kyle Tasker (R) was charged with three drug offenses and one count of using a computer to lure a teen. The teen was actually a police officer working undercover. He was sentenced to 3–10 years. (2016)
State Representative Albert 'Max' Abramson (R) was found guilty of one felony count of reckless conduct for shooting a firearm. He received a suspended jail sentence and was ordered to pay a fine and complete community service. (2012)
State Representative Gary Wheaton (R) was arrested for a second offense of speeding and driving on a suspended license. He pled guilty to recklessly endangerment. (2011)
State Representative James E. Ryan (D) stole checks from contributors that were intended for the Committee to Elect House Democrats. He pled guilty to felony charges of theft, forgery and issuing bad checks. (2009)

New Mexico 
State Senator Phil Griego (D) was convicted of corruption. (2017)
Secretary of State Dianna Duran (R) was convicted of fraud. (2015)

New York 
State Senator George D. Maziarz (R) pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor for offering a false instrument for filing to avoid five felony counts and a trial for filing false campaign expenditure reports. (2018)
State Senator Marc Panepinto (D) convicted of sexual harassment. (2018)
State Assemblywoman Pamela Harris (D) pleaded guilty to two counts of wire fraud, one count of making false statements to the Federal Emergency Management Agency, and one count of witness tampering. Sentenced to $10,000 restitution, six months in jail followed by three years of supervised release, 400 hours of community service, and restitution of $70,400. (2018)
Majority Leader of the New York State Senate Dean Skelos (R) convicted of federal corruption. (2018)
Minority Leader of the State Senate John L. Sampson (D) was convicted of obstructing justice and making false statement. (2015)
Speaker of the New York State Assembly Sheldon Silver (D) was convicted on federal corruption charges. (2015)
Majority Leader of the State Senate Malcolm Smith (D) was found guilty in federal court of conspiracy, wire fraud, bribery and extortion for trying to bribe a Republican Party official to let him onto the Republican ballot in the 2013 New York City mayoral race. (2014)
State Assemblywoman Gabriela Rosa (D) sentenced to a year in jail for entering into a sham marriage in order to gain U.S. citizenship. (2014)
State Assemblyman William Boyland, Jr. (D) convicted of bribery (2014)
State Assemblyman Eric Stevenson (D) found guilty of bribery, conspiracy and other related charges. (2014)
State Assemblyman Nelson Castro (D) convicted of perjury (2013)
State Senator Shirley Huntley (D) convicted of mail fraud. She was sentenced to one year and a day in prison. (2013)
Majority Leader of the State Senate Pedro Espada Jr. (D) On May 14, 2012, a federal jury found Espada guilty of embezzling money from federally funded healthcare clinics, after 11 days of deliberation he was sentenced to five years in prison. (2012)
State Senator Vincent Leibell (R) found guilty of felony bribery, tax evasion, and obstruction of justice charges related to $43,000 in cash kickbacks he took from 2003 to 2006. (2012)
State Senator Nicholas Spano (R), Spano pleaded guilty to a single count of tax evasion. He was sentenced to 12 to 18 months in federal prison. (2012)
New York State Comptroller Alan Hevesi (D), was convicted on charges surrounding a "pay to play" scheme regarding the New York State Pension Fund, and was sentenced to 1–4 years. (2011)
State Senator Carl Kruger (D) resigned his seat and pleaded guilty to charges of corruption and bribery. (2011)
State Senator Efrain Gonzalez Jr. (D) was convicted of fraud and embezzling $400,000 from the West Bronx Neighborhood Association Inc. and was sentenced to seven years in federal prison (2010)

Local 
County Executive of Nassau County Ed Mangano (R) convicted of bribery and fraud. (2019)
New York City Council member Ruben Wills (D) convicted of fraud. (2017)
New York City Council member Dan Halloran (R) convicted of taking bribes and orchestrating payoffs. (2014)
New York City Council member Larry Seabrook (D) On February 9, 2010, a federal grand jury indicted Seabrook on 13 counts of money laundering, extortion, and fraud. Seabrook was convicted on nine charges. (2012)
President of the New York City Council Andrew Stein (D) was convicted of tax evasion regarding a Ponzi scheme. (2010)

North Carolina 
State Representative Rodney W. Moore (D) pleaded guilty to making false statements (2019)
State Senator Fletcher L. Hartsell, Jr. (R) convicted of fraud for misusing campaign contributions and falsely labeling them as expenses. Sentenced to eight months. (2016)
State Representative Deb McManus (D) resigned her State House seat and pleaded guilty to a tax charge. (2013)
State Representative Stephen LaRoque (R) convicted on 12 counts including theft, money laundering and filing false tax returns. (2013)
Governor Mike Easley (D) was convicted of a federal campaign law felony. (2010)

Local 
Mayor of Charlotte Patrick Cannon (D) charged with accepting bribes. (2014)
Mayor of High Point Bernita Sims (D) convicted of a worthless check charge. (2014)

Ohio 
State Representative Ron Gerberry (D) found guilty of charge of unlawful compensation of a public official. (2015)
State Representative Steve Kraus (R) convicted of a fifth-degree felony. (2015)
State Representative Peter Beck (R) convicted of perjury. (2015)
State Representative Dale Mallory (D) found guilty to a first-degree misdemeanor count of filing a false disclosure form and a fourth-degree misdemeanor charge of improper gratuities and was sentenced to a total of $600 in fines and a year of probation. (2014)
State Representative Sandra Williams (D) convicted of filing a false report. (2014)
State Representative Clayton Luckie (D) convicted of corruption. (2013)
State Representative W. Carlton Weddington (D) was convicted on bribery charges and sentenced to three years in prison. (2012)

Local 
Cuyahoga County Common Pleas Judge Lance Mason (D) convicted of domestic abuse and assault. He was sentenced to two years in prison. (2015)

Oklahoma 
State Senator Ralph Shortey (R) convicted of child sex trafficking. (2018)
State Representative Gus Blackwell (R) was accused of perjury and embezzlement for using both state funds and campaign funds to pay for the same trips. In a plea bargain he pled guilty and agreed to pay restitution. (2017)
State Senator Bryce Marlatt (R) convicted of sexual battery and was sentenced to 90 days' probation, fined $500, plus court costs. (2017)
State Senator Kyle Loveless (R) was sentenced to three years of probation and restitution after pleading guilty to embezzling campaign funds. (2017)
State Representative Rick Brinkley (R) was convicted of fraud. (2015)
State Senator Debbe Leftwich (D) was found guilty of bribery in connection with the 2010 Oklahoma political corruption investigation. (2013)
State Representative Randy Terrill (R) was found guilty of bribery in connection with the 2010 Oklahoma political corruption investigation. Terrill was sentenced to one year in prison. (2013)
President pro tempore of the Oklahoma Senate Mike Morgan (D) was found guilty of accepting $12,000 in bribes (2012)

Pennsylvania 
State Representative Movita Johnson-Harrell (D) convicted of felony theft. (2019)
State Representative Vanessa L. Brown (D) convicted of bribery. (2018)
Treasurer of Pennsylvania Barbara Hafer (D) convicted of lying to the FBI. (2017)
State Representative Marc Gergely (D) convicted of conspiracy. (2017)
State Representative Leslie Acosta (D) convicted of embezzlement. (2016)
Attorney General of Pennsylvania Kathleen Kane (D) was convicted of perjury. (2016)
State Representative Louise Bishop (D) was convicted of corruption. (2016)
State Representative Michelle Brownlee (D) was convicted of a conflict of interest. (2015)
State Representative Harold James (D) was convicted of corruption. (2015)
State Representative Ronald Waters (D) was convicted of bribery. (2015)
Treasurer of Pennsylvania Rob McCord (D) pleaded guilty to two counts of extortion. (2015)
State Senator LeAnna Washington (D) was convicted of conflict of interest. (2014)
Turnpike Commission CEO Joe Brimmeier (D) pleaded guilty to felony conflict of interest charges. (2014)
Turnpike Commission Chief Operating Officer George Hatalowich (D) pleaded guilty to felony conflict of interest charges. (2014)
Turnpike Commission Chairman Mitchell Rubin (D) was sentenced to 24 months of probation for his plea to commercial bribery. (2014)
State Representative Jose Miranda (D) was convicted of fraud. (2013)
Pennsylvania Supreme Court Justice Joan Orie Melvin (R) was convicted in February 2013, on six of seven corruption charges including theft of services, criminal conspiracy, and misappropriation of state property. (2013)
State Senator and Republican Majority Whip Jane Orie (R) was convicted in March 2012, of 14 counts of forgery, conflict of interest and theft of services, which included five felonies. (2012)
State Senator and Democratic Minority Floor Leader of the Pennsylvania Senate Bob Mellow (D) pleaded guilty to using Senate staffers for campaigns. (2012)
State Representative Joseph F. Brennan (D) announced that he was withdrawing his reelection bid after allegations that he assaulted his wife and then drove drunk from the scene of the incident. He was later convicted on both the DUI and assault charges. (2012)
Secretary of Revenue of Pennsylvania Stephen Stetler (D) convicted of using state resources. (2012)
State Representative John M. Perzel (R), pleaded guilty to eight criminal charges, including two counts of conflict of interest, two counts of theft, and four counts of conspiracy, concerning a scheme to spend millions of taxpayer dollars on computer technology from Aristotle, Inc. for the benefit of Republican political campaigns. (2011)
State Representative Brett Feese (R) sentenced to 4 to 12 years in state prison, an additional 2 years of probation, a $25,000 fine, and $1 million in restitution for his role in the Computergate state government corruption scandal. (2011)

Local 
Sheriff of Philadelphia John Green (D) convicted of bribery. (2019)
Mayor of Allentown Ed Pawlowski (D) convicted of corruption. (2018)
Mayor of Reading Vaughn Spencer (D) convicted of corruption, bribery, wire fraud and conspiracy. (2018)
Upland Borough City Councilman Edward M. Mitchell (R) convicted of bribery, conspiracy, theft by deception, and restricted activities. (2018)
Assistant City Solicitor, Allentown Dale Wiles convicted of conspiracy to commit mail and wire fraud. (2018)
District Attorney of Philadelphia R. Seth Williams (D) convicted of bribery. (2017)
Mayor of Harrisburg Steven R. Reed (D) pleaded guilty to theft of public funds. (2017)
Tax Collector, York County Melissa Ann Arnold convicted of theft of public funds. (2015)
Tax Collector, Delaware County, Robert Henry Park (R) pleaded guilty to theft. (2014)
Tax Collector, Berks County, Jodie Mae Keller pleaded guilty to two counts of theft. (2013)
Mayor of Chester, John H. Nacrelli convicted on federal bribery and racketeering charges. (1979)

Rhode Island 
State Senator James Doyle II (D) from the 8th district, was being investigated for a check kiting scheme to defraud three local banks of more than $74 million. He was charged and pled guilty to 31 counts of bank fraud and tax evasion. (2018)
State Representative John Carnevale (D) convicted of perjury. (2018)
State Representative Raymond Gallison (D) was convicted of fraud. (2017)
State Representative Gordon Fox (D) and Speaker of the House, pleaded guilty to wire fraud, bribery and filing a false tax return. Fox used $108,000 from his campaign account for personal expenses, accepted a $52,000 bribe to push for the issuance of a liquor license for a Providence restaurant in his role as a member of the Board of Licenses, and failed to declare these illegal sources income on his tax returns. (2015)
State Representative Joseph Almeida (D) was given a $1,000 fine and a year on probation for mis-using funds. (2015)
State Senator Patrick McDonald (D) convicted of embezzlement. (2014)
State Representative John McCauley Jr (D) convicted of tax evasion. (2013)
State Representative Leo Medina (D) convicted of stealing life insurance. (2013)
State Senator Christopher Maselli (D) convicted of bank fraud. (2010)

South Carolina 
State Senator John E. Courson (R) was convicted of misconduct and illegal use of campaign funds. Courson had paid Richard Quinn & Associates $247,829 of campaign money over six years and got back $132,802 for personal use. (2017)
State Representative James "Jim" Harrison (R) convicted of corruption. (2018)
State Representative Rick Quinn (R) convicted of corruption. (2018)
State Representative Jim Merrill (R) convicted of corruption. (2017)
State Representative Chris Corley (R) pled guilty to first-degree domestic violence for beating his wife and threatening to kill her with a gun. (2017)
Speaker of the South Carolina House of Representatives Bobby Harrell (R) pleaded guilty to illegally using campaign funds for his own use. He was sentenced to a one-year prison term. (2014)
State Representative Nelson Hardwick (R) pled guilty to assault and battery in the third degree for sexual harassment of a female employee. He was ordered to resign and fined. (2015)
State Representative Thad Viers (R) convicted of money laundering, sentenced to three years in federal prison. (2015) Previously arrested in 2012 on charges of harassing a 28-year-old woman described as an ex-girlfriend. He subsequently withdrew his bid for GOP nomination to the US Congress from South Carolina's 7th congressional district, citing "personal reasons". He was sentenced in 2014 to 60 days in jail for second-degree harassment.
State Secretary of the Department of Transportation, Robert St. Onge (R) arrested and convicted of having twice the legal limit of alcohol in his system. He was forced to resign due to the state's no tolerance laws. (2014)
Lieutenant Governor of South Carolina Ken Ard (R) resigned his position and pleaded guilty to seven counts of misuse of campaign funds. He was sentenced to five years' probation, fined $5,000 and required to work 300 hours of community service. (2011)
State Representative Kris Crawford (R) from Florence County, was charged with seven counts of willfully failing to pay taxes and found guilty. (2010)

Tennessee 
State Representative Joe E. Armstrong (D) convicted of falsifying tax returns. (2016)
State Representative Curry Todd (R) from Collierville, pled guilty to possessing a loaded gun while DUI. He was sentenced to 48 hours in jail, one year of probation, fined, given community service, alcohol training, alcohol car locking device and ordered to participate in MADD. (2011)

Local 
 Mayor of Nashville Megan Barry (D) pleaded guilty to felony theft related to an affair she had with the police officer who ran her security detail. (2018)
Sheriff of Rutherford County Robert F. Arnold (R) pleaded guilty to wire fraud, honest services fraud, and extortion in a scheme to distribute cigarettes to jailed prisoners. (2016)

Texas 
State Representative Carlos Uresti (D) convicted of fraud and money laundering. (2017)
State Representative Ron Reynolds (D) was convicted of battery and was sentenced to one year in jail. (2015)
State Representative Joe Driver (R) pleaded guilty to using tens of thousands of taxpayer dollars to reimburse himself for travel expenses that his campaign had already funded. (2011)

Local 
Mayor of Dallas Dwaine Caraway (D) convicted of corruption (2019)
City Councillor of Dallas Carolyn Davis (D) was convicted of bribery. (2019)
State District Judge Angus Kelly McGinty (R) was arrested because he solicited and accepted bribes in exchange for favorable rulings. He pleaded guilty to a charge of honest services fraud and was given a two-year prison sentence (2014)

Vermont 
State Senator Norman McAllister (R) pleaded guilty to a violation of a prohibited act of prostitution. He was sentenced to a work crew for 25 days and served nine to twelve months on probation. (2015)

Virginia 
State Delegate Ron Villanueva (R) was convicted of fraud and sentenced to two and a half years in federal prison. (2019)
State Delegate Phil Hamilton (R) sentenced to 9½ years in prison for federal bribery and extortion. (2010)

Washington, D.C. 
District of Columbia Councillor Michael Brown (D) was convicted of bribery and sentenced to 39 months. (2013)
Chairman of the Council of the District of Columbia Kwame R. Brown (D) was convicted of bank fraud. (2012)
District of Columbia Councillor Harry Thomas, Jr. (D) was convicted of felony counts of theft of government funds and falsifying tax returns. (2012)

Washington 
Auditor of Washington Troy Kelley (D) was convicted of fraud. (2018)

Wisconsin 
State Representative Bill Kramer (R) was sentenced to five months in jail, after pleading no contest to two charges of sexual assault with three years' probation. (2014)
State Representative Jeff Wood, (R), has pleaded no contest to fifth-offense OWI charge which is a felony. He has been sentenced to spend nine months in jail, with three years' probation. (2011)

West Virginia 
Justice of the Supreme Court of Appeals of West Virginia Allen Loughry (R) pleaded guilty to fraud. (2019)
Justice of the Supreme Court of Appeals of West Virginia Menis Ketchum (D) pleaded guilty to wire fraud. (2018)

2000–2009

Alabama 
State Representative Suzanne L. Schmitz (D) was found guilty on 7 out of 8 counts of federal fraud charges. (2009)
State Senator Edward McClain (D) was convicted on 48 counts of money laundering, mail fraud, bribery and conspiracy. (2009)
Governor of Alabama Don Siegelman (D) was found guilty of bribery, mail fraud and obstruction of justice on June 29, 2006, and sentenced to 88 months. (2006)

Local 
Mayor of Birmingham Larry Langford (D) was sentenced on March 5, 2010, to 15 years in prison for conspiracy, bribery, fraud, money laundering, and filing false tax returns in connection with a long-running bribery scheme. (2010) He was also fined more than $119,000.

Alaska 
Alaska political corruption probe in which VECO Corporation an oilfield service corporation, was investigated by the IRS, FBI and Department of Justice. Veco executives Bill Allen and VP Rick Smith pleaded guilty to federal charges of extortion, bribery, and conspiracy to impede the Internal Revenue Service. The charges involved bribing Alaska lawmakers who came to be known as the "Corrupt Bastards Club" to vote in favor of an oil tax law favored by VECO that was the subject of vigorous debate in 2006, and were part of a larger probe of political corruption in Alaska by federal authorities.
State Representative Thomas Anderson (R), Found guilty of seven felony counts of extortion, bribery, conspiracy, and money laundering. Sentenced on October 15, 2007, to a term of 60 months in prison.
State Representative Pete Kott (R), found guilty on three charges of bribery and sentenced to six years in prison and fined $10,000. (2007)
State Representative Vic Kohring (R), convicted on November 1, 2007, of three counts of bribery by the Veco Corporation. In May 2008, he was sentenced to three-and-a-half years in prison.
State Representative Bruce Weyhrauch (R), main charges dismissed by Supreme Court, given probation on state charges
State Senator John Cowdery (R), pleaded guilty to lesser charges. (2009) Sentenced to six months' house arrest and a $25,000 fine.
State Representative Beverly Masek (R), was sentenced to six months on September 23, 2009.

Arizona 
Corporation Commissioner Jim Irvin (R) was found guilty of trying to influence a corporate bidding war and fined $60K. (2003)

California 
State Senator Tom Berryhill (R) was found guilty of money laundering by Judge Jonathan Lew and the California Fair Practices Commission of deliberately trying to conceal, deceive or mislead the transfer of $40,000 to the Republican Central Committee of Stanislaus County and the Republican Central Committee of San Joaquin County, which then passed it to the campaign of Bill Berryhill, his brother, thus circumventing California's contribution limits of $3,600 per donation. (2008)

Local 
Sheriff of Orange County Mike Carona (R) convicted of witness tampering. (2008)
Member of the San Francisco Board of Supervisors Ed Jew (D), was sentenced to 64 months in federal prison for extortion, and a year in county jail for perjury. (2008)
Member of San Diego City Council Ralph Inzunza (D) was convicted of corruption. (2005)

Connecticut 
Governor of Connecticut John G. Rowland (R) was convicted of one-count of deprevation of honest services. (2004) He served ten months in a federal prison followed by four months' house arrest, ending in June 2006.
State Treasurer of Connecticut Paul J. Silvester (R) was convicted of fraud. (2004)

Local 
Mayor of Bridgeport Joseph Ganim (D), was convicted of leveraging his position to receive kickbacks from city contractors for more than $500,000 in cash, meals, clothing, wine and home renovations. (2003)
Mayor of Waterbury Philip Giordano (R) While investigating municipal corruption, the FBI discovered phone records and pictures of Giordano with a prostitute, as well as with her 10-year-old niece and her eight-year-old daughter. He was arrested on July 26, 2001, and, in March 2003, was convicted of 14 counts of using an interstate device, his cellphone, to arrange sexual contact with children. He was also convicted of violating the girls' civil rights. He was sentenced to 37 years in prison.

Florida 
State Representative Bob Allen (R) was convicted of soliciting a sex act from an undercover police officer. (2007)
State Senator Alberto Gutman (R), was convicted of corruption in a Medicare fraud scheme. Gutman, his wife and 23 others were sentenced to five years in federal prison, three years' probation and fined $50,000. (2000)

Local 
Sheriff of Broward County Ken Jenne (D) convicted of fraud. (2007)
Mayor of Orlando Ernest Page (D) was convicted of bribery and official misconduct during a temporary stint as mayor. He was subsequently sentenced to 42 months in prison. (2006)

Georgia 
State Senator Walter Ronnie Sailor Jr. (D) pled guilty to laundering money (2007)
State Senator Charles Walker (D) convicted of charges including tax evasion, mail fraud and conspiracy (127 counts, in all). He was sentenced to 10 years. (2005)
Schools Superintendent Linda Schrenko (R) sentenced to eight years in prison for embezzlement of federal education funds. (2004)
State Representative Robin L. Williams (R) was convicted of campaign fraud. (2004)

Local
Mayor of Atlanta Bill Campbell (D) convicted of tax evasion. (2006)

Hawaii 
State Representative Galen Fox (R) was convicted of sexual misconduct when he improperly touched a woman flying next to him. (2006)
State Representative Nathan Suzuki (D) was found guilty of tax fraud. (2004)
State Senator Marshall Ige (D) convicted of corruption. (2002)

Illinois 
Governor of Illinois Rod Blagojevich (D) was charged with conspiracy to commit mail, wire fraud and solicitation of bribery. He was impeached and removed from office by 59–0 votes of the Illinois Senate. On August 17, 2010, he was convicted on just one of 24 federal charges. In a retrial in 2011, he was found guilty on 17 other counts and sentenced to 14 years in prison. (2011)
Governor of Illinois George H. Ryan (R) was convicted of 18 counts of corruption and sentenced to six years and six months. (2006)
State Representative Patricia Bailey (D) was convicted of perjury and fraud. (2005)

Local 
Alderman of Chicago Arenda Troutman (D) was convicted of bribery. (2005)
Alderman of Chicago Edward Vrdolyak (D) was convicted of fraud. (2008)
City Clerk of Chicago James Laski (D) was convicted of fraud. (2006)
Mayor of Cicero, Betty Loren-Maltese (R) was convicted of an insurance fraud. She was sentenced to eight years in prison (2002)

Indiana 
State Representative Dennie Oxley (D) convicted of impersonating a public servant. (2009)

Local 
City Clerk of Gary Katie Hall (D) pleaded guilty to mail fraud. (2003)

Kansas 
State Representative Phil Hermanson (R) while being investigated, Hermanson pled guilty to a charge of driving under the influence of prescription drugs. (2009)

Louisiana 
State Senator Derrick Shepherd (D), sentenced to 37 months for corruption. (2008)
Governor of Louisiana Edwin Edwards (D) convicted of extortion, mail fraud and money laundering. (2000)
Insurance Commissioner James H. "Jim" Brown (D) convicted of lying to FBI investigators. (2000)

Massachusetts 
State Senator J. James Marzilli, Jr. (D) pleaded guilty to all charges against him, including resisting arrest and disorderly conduct and was sentenced to three months in prison. (2008)
State Senator Dianne Wilkerson (D) was video taped by the FBI stuffing bribe money into her bra. Wilkerson pleaded guilty to eight counts of attempted extortion. (2008)
Speaker of the House Thomas Finneran (D) pleaded guilty to one count of obstruction of justice and received 18 months' probation. (2004)

Maryland 
State Senator Thomas L. Bromwell (D) was sentenced to seven years in prison for racketeering, corruption and fraud to benefit construction company Poole and Kent. (2007)
State Delegate Robert A. McKee (R) pleaded guilty to possession of child pornography and was sentenced to a 37-month term. (2006)

Michigan 
 State Representative Kevin Green (R) pleaded guilty to driving while impaired by alcohol. (2008)

Missouri 
State Senator Jeff Smith (D) convicted of two counts of obstruction of justice. He was sentenced to one year and a day of prison and was fined $50,000. (2009)
State Representative Nathan Cooper (R) convicted on two felony counts of immigration fraud. (2007)

Nebraska 
State Treasurer Lorelee Byrd (R) pleaded guilty to one misdemeanor charge of misconduct. (2003)
State Senator Ray Mossey (R) was found guilty and pled no contest to prescription drug charges and was sentenced to two years' probation. He was also sentenced to one year's probation for drunken driving when Mossey's blood-alcohol level tested at twice the legal limit. In addition, he was fined $14,000 for using campaign finance funds to pay an online dating service and a tattoo parlor. (2005)
Regent David Hergert (R) of the University of Nebraska was arrested soon after his election for violating campaign finance laws. He pled guilty to false reporting and obstruction and was sentenced to five years' probation and fined $654,000 (2005)

Nevada 
State Controller Kathy Augustine (R) was impeached and convicted of using state personnel and property for her re-election campaign, but not removed from office. She was fined $15,000. (2004)
State Representative Brent Parker (R) pleaded guilty to soliciting sex from a male undercover police officer. He was ordered to attend a 10-week therapy class or face up to 180 days in jail. (2003)

Local 
Operation G-Sting or Strippergate was an FBI probe into bribes taken by County Commissioners in Clark County, Nevada and City Council members in San Diego, California. It was the result of strip club owners Rick Rizzolo and Mike Galardi trying to remove a "no touch" law affecting the girls in their clubs. The investigation resulted in the convictions of 17 defendants including:
Clark county Commissioner Lynette Boggs McDonald (R) pled no contest to filing a false statement and campaign funding irregularities (2009)
Clark County Commissioner Mary Kincaid-Chauncey (D) was sentenced to 30 months in federal prison, fined $7,600 and ordered to forfeit $19,000 in assets (2006)
Clark County Commissioner Dario Herrera (D) was sentenced to 50 months in federal prison, fined $15,000 and ordered to forfeit $60,000 in assets (2006)
Clark County Commissioner Erin Kenny (D) was sentenced to 2½ years in prison (2006)
Clark County Commissioner Lance Matthew Malone (R) pleaded guilty to violating federal racketeering laws for bribing commissioners(2006)

New Jersey 
New Jersey Operation Bid Rig: An FBI sting operation indicted 44 New Jersey officials and several Rabbis, mainly for bribery, counterfeiting of intellectual property, money laundering, organ harvesting, and political corruption. Arrested were:
Assemblyman Daniel M. Van Pelt (R) Resigned after indictment for bribery.
State Senator Wayne R. Bryant (D) was convicted of bribery. (2007)
State Senator Joseph Coniglio (D) indicted for abusing state grants, mail fraud and extortion. (2008)
State Senator Sharpe James (D) On April 16, 2008, James was convicted of five counts of fraud by a federal jury. On July 29, 2008, he was sentenced by Judge William J. Martini to 27 months in prison.
State Senator John A. Lynch, Jr. (D) convicted of mail fraud and tax evasion. (2006)
Assemblyman Anthony Impreveduto (D) convicted of corruption. (2004)

Local 
New Jersey Operation Bid Rig:
Mayor of Hoboken Peter Cammarano (D) was convicted of corruption. (2009)
Mayor of Secaucus Dennis Elwell (D) was convicted of corruption. (2009)
Commissioner and Chairwoman of the Jersey City Housing Authority Lori Serrano (D) was convicted of corruption. (2009)
Mayor of Passaic Samuel Rivera (D) convicted of bribery. (2008) Rivera was sentenced to 21 months in prison.
County Executive of Hudson County Robert C. Janiszewski (D) was convicted of bribery. (2005)
Chief Executive of Essex County James W. Treffinger (R) was convicted of corruption and fraud and ordered to pay $30,000 in restitution and serve 13 months in jail. (2003)
Mayor of Camden Milton Milan (D) was convicted of corruption. (2000)
Mayor of Marlboro Matthew Scannapieco (R) pled guilty to tax evasion and corruption involving $245K in bribes paid by a real estate developer (2005)

New Mexico 
State Treasurer Robert Virgil (D) was found guilty of corruption and sentenced to 37 months in prison and fined $97,000. (2007)
State Treasurer Michael Montoya (D) was found guilty of corruption and sentenced to 40 months in prison and a $40,000 fine. (2007)

New York 
 State Health Commissioner Antonia Novello (R) pled guilty to misuse of staff by spending $48,000 of public money making them carry out her personal chores, such as taking her shopping and picking up her dry cleaning. She was convicted and ordered to perform 250 hours of community service, pay $22,500 in restitution plus a $5,000 fine. (2009)
State Senator Kevin Parker (D) was charged with felony assaulting and menacing and two misdemeanor counts of criminal mischief for attacking a New York Post photographer. He was found guilty and served three years' probation for the misdemeanors but was acquitted of the felony charge. (2009)
State Assemblyman Anthony Seminerio (D) pleaded guilty to taking large sums of money from hospitals through a consulting firm while still a member of the New York State Assembly. His appeal was never heard but his conviction was abated due to death. (2009)
Supreme Court Justice Thomas J. Spargo (R), was convicted by a federal jury of attempted extortion and attempted soliciting of a bribe for pressuring a lawyer to give $10,000 to his defense fund. (2009)
State Senator Efrain Gonzalez (D) was sentenced to 84 months (7 years) in prison, followed by two years' supervised release, following pleading guilty to two conspiracy counts and two wire fraud counts. (2009)
State Assemblyman Brian McLaughlin (D) was arrested in 2008 and sentenced to ten years in prison for racketeering. (2009)
State Senator Hiram Monserrate (D), convicted of one count of misdemeanor assault, and acquitted of two counts of felony assault and one other count of misdemeanor assault. (2009)
State Senator Diane Gordon (D) was convicted of receiving bribes. (2008)
State Assemblyman Chris Ortloff (R) while serving on the State Parole Board, pleaded guilty to a felony charge of online enticement of minors. He was sentenced to 150 months in federal prison (2008)
Supreme Court Justice Gerald Garson (D) was sentenced to 3.5 to 10 years in prison for accepting expensive gifts in exchange for fixing divorce cases. (2005)
State Assemblyman Clarence Norman Jr. (D) was sentenced to nine years in jail for falsifying records. (2005)
State Assemblywoman Gloria Davis (D) was sentenced to 90 days in jail and five years' probation for bribery. (2003)
State Senator Guy Velella (R) was indicted for bribery and conspiracy for accepting at least $137,000 in exchange for steering public-works contracts to the paying parties. He ultimately pleaded guilty to one count and received a year in jail. He served 182 days. (2002)

Local 
New York City Councillor Miguel Martinez (D) pleaded guilty to three counts of conspiracy two days later. He admitted to stealing $106,000 that was for children's art programs and low-income housing. He was convicted on three felonies, and was sentenced to five years in prison. (2009)
NY City Councilman Dennis P. Gallagher (R) resigned from office and pleaded guilty to sexually abusing a woman in his district office while he was intoxicated. (2007)

North Carolina 
State Representative James B. Black (D) pleaded guilty to a federal charge of public corruption and was sentenced to five years in prison. (2007)
State Representative Paul Miller (D), was sentenced to a year's probation and fined $1,000 for fraud. (2006)
Commissioner of Agriculture Meg Scott Phipps (D) pleaded guilty to campaign finance charges and served three years in prison. (2003)
State Representative Michael P. Decker (R) pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy to commit extortion, honest services mail fraud, and money laundering. Decker, a Republican, solicited Democrats and agreed to accept $50,000 and other gifts in return for switching parties. (2002)
State Representative Thomas Wright (R), was found guilty of three counts of felony fraud. He was sentenced to 6 to 8 years(2007)

Local 
Cabarrus County Commissioner Coy C. Privette, (R) pled guilty to aiding and abetting prostitution. (2007)

Northern Marianas Islands 
Lieutenant Governor of the Northern Mariana Islands Timothy Villagomez (CP) was sentenced to 87 months in federal prison for misuse of government funds. (2009)
Northern Marianas Islands Commerce Secretary James A. Santos (R) was sentenced to 87 months in prison for misuse of government funds. (2009)

Oklahoma 
State Auditor and Inspector Jeff McMahan (D) convicted of accepting bribes. (2008)
Insurance Commissioner Carroll Fisher (D) convicted for corruption and sentenced to 14 months. (2006)
State Senator Gene Stipe (D) pleaded guilty to federal charges of perjury, conspiracy to obstruct a Federal Election Commission investigation, and conspiracy to violate the Federal Election Campaign Act. (2003)

Ohio 
Governor of Ohio Bob Taft (R) pleads no contest and is convicted on four misdemeanor ethics violations. He was fined $4,000 and ordered to apologize to the people of Ohio. (2005)

Oregon 
State Representative Dan Doyle (R) resigned from office and was sentenced to 15 months in jail for finance violations. (2005)
State Senator John Mabrey (R) was convicted of insurance fraud. (2002)

Pennsylvania 
State Senator Vince Fumo (D) was found guilty of 139 counts of mail fraud, wire fraud, conspiracy, obstruction of justice and filing a false tax return. Two staffers were also arrested and indicted on charges of destroying electronic evidence, including e-mail related to the investigation. (2009)
Secretary of Revenue of Pennsylvania Stephen Stetler (D) sentenced to 1½–5 years in prison, fined $35,000, order to pay $466,621 restitution for multiple corruption convictions. (2009)
State Representative Milton Street (D) convicted of tax evasion and was sentenced to serve 30 months in prison. (2008) Street appealed, but his conviction was affirmed by the Third Circuit Court of Appeals.
State Representative Linda Bebko-Jones (D) and her chief-of-staff were charged with forging some of the signatures on their nominating petitions. They were both sentenced to 12 months' probation and fined $1,500 with community service. (2007)
State Representative & Democratic Whip of the Pennsylvania House of Representatives Mike Veon (D), convicted of misusing state funds and sentenced to 6–14 years in jail. (2007)
State Representative and Democratic Leader of the Pennsylvania House of Representatives Bill DeWeese (D) found guilty of five of the six felony counts with which he was charged and sentenced to 30–60 months. (2007)
State Representative Jeffrey Habay (R) was convicted of 21 counts of harassment, solicitation for perjury and intimidation. (2007)
State Representative Frank LaGrotta (D) pleaded guilty to two counts of corruption for giving away $26,000 of state funds in the 2006 Pennsylvania General Assembly bonus controversy. Sentenced to six months' house arrest, probation, and fines. (2007)
State Representative Thomas W. Druce (R) was convicted in 2000 of a 1999 hit and run that killed a man. (2000)
State Representative R. Tracy Seyfert (R) pleaded guilty to Theft of Federal Property by acquiring a $160,000 dollar, 10 ton generator for her own use if the power grid had failed on the Millennium. She was sentenced to five years in federal prison and assessed a $5,000 fine. (2001)
State Senator Bill Slocum (R) pleaded guilty to six criminal misdemeanor charges for filing false reports to the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection and discharging 3.5 million gallons of raw sewage into Brokenstraw Creek while he was a sewage plant manager in Youngsville, Pennsylvania. (2000)
State Representative Frank Gigliotti (D) was convicted and sentenced in 2000 to 46 months' incarceration for extortion, mail fraud, and filing a false income tax return. (2000)
State Representative Jeffrey Habay (R) was found guilty on December 12, 2005, of conflict of interest. he resigned and was sentenced to 6 to 12 months of prison followed by four years of probation.
State Senator F. Joseph Loeper (R) pleaded guilty in federal court of falsifying tax-related documents to conceal more than $330,000 in income he received from a private consulting firm while serving in the Senate. He resigned his senate seat on December 31, 2000, and was later released from federal prison at Fort Dix, New Jersey, after serving six months. (2000)

Local 
President Judge of the Luzerne County Court of Common Pleas Mark Ciavarella (D) sentenced to 28 years in federal prison for his involvement in the kids for cash scandal. (2009)
Senior Judge Michael Conahan (D) sentenced to 17½ years in federal prison for his involvement in the Kids for cash scandal. (2009)

Puerto Rico 
Speaker of the House Edison Misla Aldarondo (R) was convicted of extortion, money laundering and witness tampering and sentenced to 71 months in prison. See sex scandals. (2007)
Jose Omar Cruz-Mercado was the Associate Secretary of the Puerto Rico Department of Education when he aided an extortion and kickback scheme that involved fraudulent payments of more than $4.3 million in cash and property from PRDE contractors.
Deputy Secretary of State Angel Ocasio Ramos received 18 months in prison for making illegal payments to Rangel in exchange for government contracts.
Puerto Rico Senator Freddy Valentin, Puerto Rican was sentenced to 33 months in prison for money laundering and extortion in a corruption case involving public-housing contracts in the U.S. territory, a former pro-statehood senator, pleaded guilty in March to the two charges. (2002)

Rhode Island 
State Representative and House Majority Leader Gerard M. Martineau (D) was given 37 months in prison for influence peddling in Operation Dollar Bill. (2008)
State Senator John A. Celona (D) was found guilty of accepting $320,000 in bribes from the Roger Williams Medical Center and Blue Cross & Blue Shield of Rhode Island. He was sentenced to 30 months in prison. (2007)
State Representative Thomas W. Pearlman (R) was charged with fee-gouging and providing incompetent counsel. He was found guilty of misconduct, suspended and ordered to pay restitution. (2004)

Local 
Mayor of Providence Buddy Cianci (R). His first administration ended in 1984 when he pleaded guilty to assault. His second stint as mayor ended when he was forced to resign following his conviction for racketeering conspiracy named Operation Plunder Dome served four years in federal prison.

South Carolina 
State Treasurer Thomas Ravenel (R) convicted on cocaine charges. (2007)
State Senator Charles Tyrone "Ty" Courtney (R) was convicted of bank fraud, mail fraud and making false statements on a loan application. (2000)
Agriculture Commissioner Charles Sharpe (R) was found guilty of charges of extortion, money laundering and lying to federal investigators, stemming from an illegal cockfighting ring. He served two years in prison. (2004)

South Dakota 
State Representative Ted Klaudt (R) was found guilty on all four counts of second-degree rape as well as witness tampering. He was sentenced to 54 years in prison. (2008)

Tennessee 
Operation Tennessee Waltz: an FBI sting operation between 2003 and 2007 in which a number of state and local representatives were arrested including;
State Senator John Ford (D) Sentenced to 66 months for bribery.
State Senator Kathryn Bowers (D) pleaded guilty to one count of bribery.
State Senator Ward Crutchfield (D) pleaded guilty to one count of bribery.
State Senator Roscoe Dixon (D) pleaded guilty to bribery
State Representative J. Chris Newton (R) pleaded guilty to bribery.
State Representative Ronald 'Ronnie' Davis (R) pled guilty to four felony charges of conspiring to sell fake passports and to supplying drugs to his girlfriend (2002)

Local 
Tax Assessor of Putnam County Byron Looper (R), was convicted of the murder of State Senator Tommy Burks (D). (2000)
 Juvenile Court Judge, Darrell Catron (R) was found guilty of corruption and sentenced to 18 months' probation. (2007)

Utah 
State Representative Brent Parker (R) pleaded guilty to soliciting sex from a male undercover police officer. (2003)
 Judge of the 3rd State District Ray M. Harding Jr. (R) was found guilty of possession of cocaine and heroin and sentenced to 120 days in jail, 2 years' probation, community service and fined. (2002)

Virginia 
State Secretary of Finance John Forbes (R) was sentenced to 10 years in prison after he admitted embezzling $4 million in tobacco-region economic development money. He was sentenced to 120 months in prison (2009)
State Delegate Fenton Bland (D) pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy to commit bank fraud; sentenced to 57 months in prison and ordered to pay $1.2 million in restitution (2005)
State Republican Party Director Edmund Matricardi III (R) pled guilty to one count of interception of a wire communication by illegally eavesdropping on a protected Democratic phone call. During sentencing Matricardi was forced to resign, spend three years on probation and fined $10,000. (2003)

West Virginia 
State Representative Lisa D. Smith (R) pleaded guilty to one count of mail fraud and one count of mail fraud. She was sentenced to two years in prison, three years of probation and fined $1,000,000.

Wisconsin 
State Assemblyman Scott Jensen (R) convicted of misuse of public workers. (2006)
State Assemblyman Steven Foti (R) convicted of ethics violations. (2006)
State Senator Gary George (D) was convicted of fraud. (2004)
State Assemblywoman Bonnie Ladwig (R) convicted of ethics violations. (2004)
State Senator Brian Burke (D) was sentenced to six months in county jail for misconduct in office and obstructing an officer for using state workers for his campaign. (2003)
State Senator Charles Chvala (D) sentenced to serve nine months in prison for campaign violations including coordination violations. (2002)

Local 
Member of the Milwaukee Common Council Michael McGee, Jr. (D) was convicted of corruption. (2008)

1990–1999

Alabama 
Governor of Alabama H. Guy Hunt (R) was convicted of improperly using campaign money and was sentenced to five years' probation and fined $211,000. (1993)

Alaska 
State Senator George Jacko (D) was found guilty of sexual harassment of a 17-year-old page (1993)

Arizona 
State Representative Sue Laybe (D) was found guilty of bribery and given six months during the AZSCAM investigation (1990)
State Representative Donald Kenney (R), was convicted in the AZSCAM investigation for taking a bribe of $55,000 in a gym bag and was sentenced to five years in prison. (1990)
State Representative James Hartdegen (R), pleaded guilty to violating three campaign laws and was forced to resign as part of the AZSCAM investigation. (1990)
State Representative James Meredith (R), was found guilty of making false campaign contributions during the AZSCAM investigation (1990)
State Representative Bobby Raymond (D), investigated in the AZSCAM investigation, stated his favorite line was, "What's in it for me?" Found guilty of conspiracy and bribery and sentenced to two years in prison, with seven years of probation (1990)
 State Senator Jesus Chuy Higuera (D), guilty of taking a $4,000 bribe and demanding a shrimp and fax concession in all future casinos. Sentenced to two months in prison and four years' probation (1990)

Arkansas 
Governor of Arkansas Jim Guy Tucker. (D) As part of the Whitewater investigation run by Kenneth Starr, Tucker was convicted of fraud and conspiracy and sentenced to four years' probation. (1996)
Secretary of State Bill McCuen (D) pleaded guilty to bribery, kickbacks, tax evasion and trading in public office. He was sentenced to 17 years in prison and fined (1996)
 State Senator Carolyn Walker (D) was convicted of accepting payoffs for pledging to support gambling legislation as part of the AZSCAM Investigation. Sentenced to four years in prison (1991)

California 
State Representative Brian Setencich (R) was convicted of tax evasion connected to his 1996 re-election campaign. (2000)
 The FBI's Bribery and Special Interest sting operation (BRISPEC, or "Shrimpscam") targeted corruption in the California legislature. Five convictions were obtained.
State Senator Alan Robbins (D) resigned on November 21, 1991, in advance of pleading guilty to federal racketeering charges in connection with insurance-industry bribes.
State Senator Joseph Montoya (D) was convicted in April 1990 of rackeetering, extortion and money laundering and was sentenced to 6½ years in prison.
State Senator Frank Hill (R) and his aid were found guilty of corruption and money laundering and sentenced to 46 months in prison. (1994)
California Board of Equalization member Paul B. Carpenter (D) was found guilty of 11 counts of obstruction of justice and money laundering. (1993)
State Assemblyman Pat Nolan (R) served 29 months for bribery in the FBI's BRISPEC sting operation.

Local 
Treasurer-Tax Collector of Orange County, California Robert Citron (D) convicted of fraud. (1995)

Connecticut 
State Treasurer Paul J. Silvester (R) was sentenced to 21 months in prison for racketeering and money laundering. (1999)

Local 
Mayor of Waterbury Joseph J. Santopietro (R) was found guilty of taking a $25,000 payoff in return for $1 million in city pension funds. (1991)

Florida
Speaker of the Florida House of Representatives Bolley Johnson (D) was convicted of tax evasion. (1999)
State Representative Marvin Couch (R) was arrested in Orlando for soliciting sex and pled guilty to unnatural or lascivious acts and exposure of his sexual organs. (1996)

Local 
Mayor of Miami Beach Alex Daoud (D) convicted of bribery. (1991)

Georgia 
State Senator Ralph David Abernathy III (D) convicted of fraud. (1997)

Guam 
Governor of Guam Ricardo Bordallo (D) was convicted on ten counts of corruption and was sentenced to nine years in prison and fined more than $100,000, but committed suicide the day before he was scheduled to begin serving his prison sentence (1990)

Illinois 
State Senator Bruce A. Farley (D) sentenced to 18 months in prison for mail fraud (1999)
State Senator John A. D'Arco, Jr. (D) served about three years in prison for bribery and extortion (1995)
State Representative James DeLeo (D) caught in the "Operation Greylord" investigation of corruption in Cook County. He was indicted by a federal grand jury for taking bribes and negotiated guilty plea on a misdemeanor tax offense, and was placed on probation (1992)
State Representative Joe Kotlarz (D) convicted and sentenced to jail for theft and conspiracy for pocketing in about $200,000 for a sale of state land to a company he once served as legal counsel (1997)
State Treasurer Jerome Cosentino (D) was convicted of bank fraud and sentenced to nine months' home confinement. (1991)

Local
Mayor of Markham, Illinois, Roger Agpawa (D) was convicted of mail fraud (1999)
Alderman of Chicago Percy Giles (D) convicted of bribery. (1999)
Alderman of Chicago Virgil Jones (D) convicted of bribery. (1998)
Alderman of Chicago Lawrence Bloom (D) convicted of fraud. (1998)
Alderman of Chicago John Madryzk (D) convicted of fraud. (1998)
Alderman of Chicago Jesse Evans (D) convicted of racketeering. (1997)
Alderman of Chicago Joseph Martinez (D) convicted of fraud. (1997)
Alderman of Chicago Alan Streeter (D) convicted of bribery. (1996)
Alderman of Chicago Ambrosio Medrano (D) convicted of bribery. (1996)
Alderman of Chicago Fred Roti (D) convicted of bribery. (1996)
Mayor of Chicago Heights Charles Panici (R) guilty of racketeering, bribery and extortion. Sentenced to 10 years. (1992)

Hawaii 
State Representative Daniel J. Kihano (D) was sentenced to one year for one count of mail fraud. (1992)

Kentucky 
FBI Operation Boptrot was an investigation into bribery and the horse racing industry. Approximately 10% of Kentucky's legislature, both the house and senate, was implicated in this scandal, some taking bribes for as little as $100. (1992) Legislators convicted as a result of Operation Boptrot included:
House Speaker Don Blandford (D) pleaded guilty after 1992 indictment on charges of extortion, racketeering and lying. He was sentenced to 64 months in prison and was fined $10,000.
State Representative Jerry Bronger (D) was indicted in 1992 and later pleaded guilty to charges that he accepted $2,000 in exchange for blocking legislation that would hurt harness race tracks. He was sentenced to 10 months in prison.
State Representative Clay Crupper (D) pleaded guilty after 1992 indictment and was fined $10,000 on charges of interstate travel in aide of racketeering.
State Senator Helen Garrett (D) was charged in 1992 with taking a $2,000 bribe from a track in exchange for helping pass legislation. She pleaded guilty and received four years' probation.
State Senator John Hall (D) pleaded guilty to conspiracy and other charges stemming from 1992 indictment in Operation BopTrot.
State Representative Ronny Layman (R) was indicted in 1992 on charges of conspiracy to commit extortion and making false statements to the FBI. He pleaded guilty and was sentenced to three months of home detention and community service.
State Senator David LeMaster (D) was indicted in 1993, and acquitted of extortion and racketeering, but convicted of lying. He was sentenced to a year in prison and fined $30,000, but served just one day after resigning from the legislature.
State Representative Bill McBee (D) was sentenced to a 15-month prison term for his role in Operation BopTrot.
State Senator Virgil Pearman (D) pleaded guilty after 1993 indictment charging that he took an illegal $3,000 campaign contribution. He was sentenced to three months in a halfway house, probation and was fined $5,000.
State Senator John Rogers (R), then the Minority Leader in the Kentucky Senate, was sentenced in 1994 to 42 months in prison after conviction on charges of extortion, conspiracy, attempted extortion, mail fraud and lying to the FBI.
State Senator Art Schmidt (R) pleaded guilty to a 1993 indictment for withholding the fact that he took a $20 cash payment from another senator tied to Operation BopTrot. He was sentenced to probation and fined $2,500.
State Senator Landon Sexton (R) pleaded guilty after 1994 indictment charging that he took an illegal $5,000 cash campaign contribution. He was sentenced to 15 consecutive weekends in jail, home detention for two months and probation for two years. In addition he was fined $5,000.
State Representative Bill Strong (D) pleaded guilty after 1993 indictment charges that he took an illegal $3,000 campaign contribution and did not deposit the money into his campaign fund. He was sentenced to three months in a halfway house, probation and was fined $3,000.
State Representative Richard Turner (R) pleaded guilty to a 1993 charge that he filed a false campaign finance report. Charges that he took an illegal $3,000 cash campaign contribution were dropped.
State Senator Patti Weaver (D) pleaded guilty after 1993 indictment charging that she was promised help finding a job in exchange for support of legislation. She was sentenced to weekend incarceration, probation and community service and was fined $10,000.

Louisiana 
State Senator Melvin Irvin (D) convicted of bribery. (1991)
Insurance Commissioner Doug Green (D) convicted of fraud and money laundering. (1991)

Massachusetts 
State Representative Charles Flaherty (D) pleaded guilty to felony tax evasion for submitting false receipts regarding his business expenses and to violations of the state conflict of interests law. (1996)

Local 
Middlesex County Sheriff John P. McGonigle (D) was convicted of tax evasion and pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit racketeering for demanding kickbacks from two of his deputies. (1994)
Essex County Sheriff Charles Reardon (D) pleaded guilty to taking kickbacks from process servers. (1996)

Minnesota 
State Representative Robert Johnson (R) was convicted of three drunk driving arrests in a seven-week period. He was sentenced to a year in prison. (1995)
State Representative Randy Staten (DFL) pled guilty to writing bad checks and was given a suspended sentence of 90 days, then probation. (1986)
State Senator Harold Finn (DFL) was found guilty of stealing $1KK from the Leech Lake Band of Chippewa. Sentenced to five years. (1995)

Missouri 
Secretary of State Judith Moriarty (D) was impeached for misconduct involving back-dating of her son's election paperwork to hide a missed filing deadline, and convicted by the state supreme court.
Speaker of the Missouri House of Representatives Bob F. Griffin (D), Griffin pleaded guilty on the second day of the second trial, to two counts of bribery and mail fraud in conjunction with the original highway scheme. He was sentenced to 48 months in prison, a $7,500 fine, and a $100 special penalty assessment. (1995)
Missouri Attorney General William L. Webster (R) pleaded guilty to embezzlement charges and was sentenced to two years in prison. (1993)

Nebraska 
State Treasurer Frank Marsh (R) was convicted of misdemeanor charges for making personal, long-distance telephone calls. (1991)

New York 
Chief Judge of the New York Court of Appeals Sol Wachtler (R), was investigated for extortion and harassment. He pleaded guilty to one charge of threatening to kidnap a teenage girl and served 15 months. (1993)
State Senator Andrew Jenkins (D) was convicted of illegal banking, sentenced to one year and one day. (1990)

North Carolina 
Lieutenant Governor of North Carolina James C. Green (D), was convicted of income tax fraud and was sentenced to 33 months of house arrest. (1997)

Ohio 
State Senator Jeff Johnson (D), was convicted of three counts of extortion. (1990)

Oklahoma 
Governor of Oklahoma David Lee Walters (D) pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor election law violation. (1993)

Pennsylvania 
State Representative Frank Serafini (R), was convicted of perjury (1999)
Supreme Court Justice Rolf Larsen (D) convicted of conspiracy. (1992)
Attorney General Ernie Preate (R) pleaded guilty to mail fraud. (1995)
State Senator William G. Stinson (D) was found guilty of voter fraud and his election was reversed. (1994)
State Senator William Lee Slocum, Jr. (R) pleaded guilty to federal charges of violating the Clean Water Act between 1983 and 1995, when he operated the Youngsville Sewage Treatment Plant and allowed repeated pollution discharges of raw sewage. Sentenced to one month in jail, five months of home detention, and fined $15,000.
State Senator Dan S. Delp (R), pleaded guilty to buying a 19-year-old prostitute liquor and food using state money (1998)

Rhode Island 
Governor of Rhode Island Edward Daniel DiPrete (R) pleaded guilty to bribery and racketeering charges and served one year in prison. (1998)

South Carolina 
State Representative Paul Wayne Derrick (R) was convicted of accepting $1,000 in cash for his support of a gambling proposal being investigated in the FBI Operation, Lost Trust. (1991)
State Representative Rick Lee (R) pleaded guilty to violating the Hobbs Act during the FBI Operation, Lost Trust. (1990)
 State Representative Daniel E. Winstead (R) from Charleston, pled guilty to accepting bribes. (1990)
State Senator Robert Albert Kohn (R) State Senator from Charleston, pleaded guilty to conspiracy and bribery, and served seven months in prison.

Texas 
Attorney General of Texas Dan Morales (D) pleaded guilty to mail fraud and tax evasion in relation to a $17 million tobacco industry settlement with the State of Texas in 1998. He was sentenced to four years in a federal prison for mail fraud and tax evasion in a case involving Texas' $17 billion settlement with the tobacco industry in 1998. He was released in 2007.
State Senator Drew Nixon (R) was arrested on a charge of soliciting sex from an undercover Austin police officer which led to another charge of carrying an unlicensed, loaded gun for which he did not have a proper permit. The jury recommended probation on the prostitution charge, but jail time on the weapons charge. He was sentenced to six months in prison and fined $6,000. (1997)

Vermont 
Lieutenant Governor of Vermont Brian D. Burns (D), was convicted of three counts of fraud for having claimed to be working full-time for a public policy association while he also claimed to be attending Harvard University full-time. He appealed but his conviction was affirmed. (1995)

Virginia 
State Senator Robert E. Russell Sr. (R) was convicted of embezzling $6,750 from a nonprofit cycling club. (1995)

West Virginia 
Governor of West Virginia Arch A. Moore Jr (R) guilty of mail fraud, tax fraud, extortion and obstruction of justice. (1990)

District of Columbia 
Mayor of the District of Columbia Marion Barry (D) caught on videotape using drugs in an FBI sting (1990)

1980–1989

Alaska 
State Senator Paul Fischer (R), pled guilty to misuse of state funds and taking illegal campaign contributions from an oil-field construction company. (1989)
State Senator George Hohman (D) State Senator, bribed to obtain a water-bomber aircraft for the state. Sentenced to 3 years and fined $30,000. (1982)

Arizona 
Governor of Arizona Evan Mecham (R) was found guilty of obstruction of justice and misuse of government funds. (1988)

Arkansas 
State Representative Preston Bynum (R) convicted of bribery. (1980)

California 
Chief Administrative Officer of San Francisco Roger Boas (D) convicted of rape. (1988)

Florida 
State Representative Don Gaffney (D) convicted of extortion. (1989)

Hawaii 
State Representative Clifford Uwaine (D) convicted of conspiracy. (1982)

Illinois 
Governor of Illinois Dan Walker (D) was convicted of improprieties stemming from loans from a Savings and Loan. He served 18 months in prison. (1987)
State Senator Edward Nedza (D) convicted of fraud. (1987)
Attorney General of Illinois William J. Scott (R) was convicted of tax fraud and sentenced to a year in prison. (1980)

Local 
Alderman of Chicago Marian Humes (D) convicted of bribery. (1989)
Alderman of Chicago Perry Hutchinson (D) convicted of bribery. (1988)
Alderman of Chicago Chester Kuta (D) convicted of bribery. (1987)
Alderman of Chicago Wallace David Jr (D) convicted of bribery. (1987)
Alderman of Chicago Clifford Kelley (D) convicted of corruption. (1987)
Alderman of Chicago Louis Farina (D) convicted of extortion. (1983)
Alderman of Chicago Tyrone Kenner (D) convicted of bribery. (1983)
Alderman of Chicago William Carothers (D) convicted of extortion. (1983)
Alderman of Chicago Stanley Zydlo (D) convicted of extortion. (1980)

Louisiana 
President of the Louisiana State Senate Michael Hanley O'Keefe, Sr. (D) jailed for mail fraud. (1983) In February 1983, he was convicted of mail fraud and two counts of obstruction of justice.
State Agriculture Commissioner Gil Dozier (D) was convicted of extortion and racketeering and jury tampering. (1982)
State Senator Gaston Gerald (D) convicted of bribery. (1981)

Maine 
State Representative Donald F. Sproul (R) was sentenced to 10 days in prison for ballot tampering.

Massachusetts 
Transportation Secretary Barry Locke (D) was convicted of conspiring to take payoffs as part of a kickback scheme at the MBTA. (1982)

Michigan 
State Senator Jerry C. Diggs (D) accepting bribes to kill taxes on race track revenue; He was tried, convicted, and sentenced (1983)

Nebraska 
Attorney General Paul L. Douglas (R) was convicted of perjury and resigned. (1984)
State Senator James Pappas (R) from North Platte was charged with circulating a petition in a county in which he was not qualified and lying about it. He was found guilty, fined and placed on probation for two years. (1986)

New Hampshire 
State Representative Vincent Palumbo (R) pled guilty to bank fraud and tax evasion. He was sentenced to more than a year (1989)

New Jersey

Local 
Mayor of Newark Kenneth A. Gibson (D) was convicted of bribery and for stealing funds from a school construction. (1986)

New York 
State Senator Richard E. Schermerhorn (R) was convicted of income-tax evasion, obstruction of justice and filing a false statement. Sentenced to 18 months in prison. (1989)
State Senator William C. Brennan (D) convicted of bribery. (1984)
State Senator Joseph R. Pisani (R) was convicted of multiple counts of fraud and tax evasion, most of which were overturned on appeal. The Appeals Court upheld one conviction for taking money from an escrow account from his client. (1983) In 1986, Pisani pleaded guilty to other charges of tax evasion, and was sentenced to one year in prison.

Oregon 
State Senator Bill Olson (R) pleaded guilty to second-degree sex abuse with a 13-year-old female. (1988)

Pennsylvania 
Pennsylvania Auditor General Al Benedict (D) convicted of racketeering. (1988)
State Treasurer R. Budd Dwyer (R) was convicted of bribery. (1987)

Local 
President of the Philadelphia City Council George X. Schwartz (D) was convicted of taking bribes. (1985)
Member of the Philadelphia City Council Harry Jannotti (D) was convicted of taking bribes. (1985)
Member of the Philadelphia City Council Louis Johanson (D) was convicted of taking bribes. (1985)

Tennessee 
FBI investigation Operation Rocky Top concerned the illegal sale of charity bingo licenses which resulted in over 50 convictions. Two targets of the investigation committed suicide: Tennessee Secretary of State Gentry Crowell (D) (in December 1989, just before he was scheduled to testify for a third time before a federal grand jury) and long-time State Representative Ted Ray Miller (D) (after being charged with bribery). (1986)
Governor Leonard Ray Blanton (D) was convicted of mail fraud, conspiracy and extortion for selling liquor licenses. (1982) He served 22 months in a federal penitentiary.
State Representative Emmitt Ford (D) was convicted of fraud. (1981)
State Representative Tommy Burnett (D) jailed for 10 months for tax evasion. (1983)
State Representative Robert J. Fisher (R), was convicted of soliciting a $1,000 bribe from Carter County Sheriff George Papantoniou to kill a state bill the sheriff opposed. Fisher was given a $500 fine and a 30-day suspended sentence and was expelled from the State Senate by a vote of 92–1 (1980)

Texas 
State Representative Mike Martin (R) from Longview, hired his cousin to shoot him as a publicity stunt. He pleaded guilty to perjury and paid a $2,000 fine on the condition that he also resign. (1982)

Vermont

Local
Assistant Judge Jane Wheel of Chittenden County was convicted of three counts of falsifying court records so she could claim pay for days she had not actually worked. She was sentenced to one to three years in prison on each count, with all but 45 days suspended, plus 1,500 hours of community service. (1987) Wheel's investigation was part of a larger investigation into possible corruption among members of the Vermont Supreme Court. (1988) (See also Vermont vs Hunt (1982).)

Washington 
State Senator Gordon Walgren (D) convicted of violating the Travel Act during the investigation called GAMSCAM. (1980)
State Representative John A. Bagnariol (D) was convicted of racketeering charges during the investigation called GAMSCAM. (1980

Wisconsin 
State Senator Richard Shoemaker (D) convicted of receiving illegal money. (1988)
State Assemblyman Walter L. Ward, Jr. (D) convicted of sexual assault. (1980)

West Virginia 
State Senator Dan R. Tonkovich (D) pleaded guilty to extorting $5,000 from gambling interests. He was sentenced to five years in prison. (1989)
State Senate Larry Tucker (D) extorted $10,000 from a lobbyist, resigned and pleaded guilty. (1989)

1970–1979

Alabama 
State Treasurer Melba Till Allen (D) was convicted of using her office to obtain bank loans to build a theme park and of failing to make full disclosure of her personal finances. She was sentenced to six years in jail and three-and-a-half years of probation. (1978)

Arkansas 
State Senator Guy H. Jones (D) convicted of tax evasion in 1973, he was expelled from the senate in 1974.

Illinois 
State Representative Walter C. McAvoy (R) convicted of taking a bribe. (1978)
The Illinois concrete industry was investigated for bribery and six politicians were found guilty. (1976)
State Rep. Pete Pappas (R), the chief conspirator who turned government informant and pleaded guilty; got probation.
State Rep. Louis F, Capuzi (R) – (Chicago) guilty
State Rep, Robert Craig (D), guilty, 3-year sentence, $5,000 fine.
State Sen. Kenneth W. Course (D), guilty, 3-year sentence, $5,000 fine.
State Rep. Frank P. (Pat) North (R), guilty, 3-year sentence, $5,000 fine.
State Sen. Jack E. Walker (R), guilty, 3-year sentence, $5,000 fine.
State Sen. Donald D. Carpentier (R), guilty, 3-year sentence, $5,000 fine.
State Representative John Wall (R) was convicted of conspiracy to extort money from employees of Crown Personnel, Inc., connected with the labor department's program to find jobs for Vietnam veterans through private employment agencies. (1971)
Governor Otto Kerner, Jr. (D) After serving two terms, Kerner was appointed to the Seventh District Court when he was convicted on 17 counts of bribery, conspiracy, perjury and related charges. He was sentenced to three years in federal prison. (1973)
Secretary of State Edward Barrett (D) was convicted of bribery, mail fraud, and income tax evasion. (1973)

Local 
Alderman of Chicago Edward Scholl (D) convicted of bribery. (1975)
Alderman of Chicago Donald Swinarski (D) convicted of bribery. (1975)
Alderman of Chicago Paul Wigoda (D) convicted of bribery. (1974)
Alderman of Chicago Thomas Keane (D) convicted of fraud. (1974)
Alderman of Chicago Frank Kuta (D) convicted of bribery. (1974)
Alderman of Chicago Joseph Potempa (D) convicted of bribery. (1973)
Alderman of Chicago Casimir Staszcuk (D) convicted of bribery. (1973)
Alderman of Chicago Joseph Jambrone (D) convicted of bribery. (1973)
Alderman of Chicago Fred Hubbard (D) convicted of embezzlement. (1972)

Louisiana 
Attorney General Jack P. F. Gremillion (D) was sentenced to three years in prison for perjury for covering up his dealings with a failed savings and loan. (1972)

Maryland 
State Representative George Santoni (D) was convicted of extortion and served 43 months in prison. (1977)
Governor Marvin Mandel (D) was convicted of mail fraud and racketeering. (1977) He served nineteen months of his sentence in a federal prison before being pardoned by President Ronald Reagan. On November 12, 1987, Judge Frederic N. Smalkin overturned Mandel's conviction.
Anne Arundel County Executive Joseph Alton Jr. (R) pleaded guilty to charges of conspiracy to commit extortion. He served seven months of an eighteen-month sentence in Allenwood Federal Correctional Complex. (1974)

Massachusetts 
State Senator George Rogers (D) was convicted of conspiracy to steal and bribe. He was sentenced to two years in prison and fined $5,000. (1978)
State Senators Joseph DiCarlo (D) and Ronald MacKenzie (R) were convicted of violating the Hobbs Act, which forbids extortion by public officials, and the Travel Act, which forbids crossing state lines for the purpose of extortion. They were sentenced to one year in prison and fined $5,000. (1977)
State Representative David J. O'Connor (D) was convicted of willful failure to file Federal income tax returns. He was sentenced five months in jail and fined $10,000. (1970)

Michigan
State Representative Monte Geralds (D) was expelled from the State House of Representatives, after he was convicted of embezzling $24,000 from a client. (1978)

New Jersey 
 State Assemblyman Arnold D'Ambrosa (D) sentenced to nine months in jail after admitting to charges of embezzlement, bribery, perjury and official misconduct. (1976)
State Senator Jerome M. Epstein (R) was convicted of stealing $4 million worth of oil between 1969 and 1975 while he was in office. He was sentenced to nine years in prison (1975)
Secretary of the Treasury Joseph H. McCrane Jr. (R) was convicted of four counts of preparing false and fraudulent tax returns to hide political donations (1974)
State Senator James Turner (R) was convicted on charges of planting drugs in the home of his Democratic opponent, Assemblyman Kenneth Gewertz in an attempt to frame and ruin him. Senator Turner got five years in prison. (1974)
Secretary of State Robert J. Burkhardt (D) convicted of accepting $30,000 in bribes to 'fix' a bridge construction contract in 1964. He was given a suspended sentence and three years' probation. (1972)
Secretary of State Paul J. Sherwin (D) was convicted of trying to fix a $600,000 state highway contract for a contractor who then kicked back $10,000 to Republican fund-raisers (1971)
State Assemblyman Peter Moraites (R) pleaded guilty to two misdemeanor counts of fraud and was given a 16-month sentence. (1970)

Local 
Mayor of Jersey City, Thomas J. Whelan (D) was indicted as a member of the "Hudson County Eight", and convicted of conspiracy and extortion concerning kickbacks for city and county contracts. (1971)
Mayor of Jersey City, John V. Kenny (D) In 1971, he was prosecuted by the U.S. Attorney's Office for the District of New Jersey and convicted, along with the then-mayor Whelan and former City Council president Thomas Flaherty, in federal court of conspiracy and extortion in a multimillion-dollar political kickback scheme on city and county contracts.

New York 
State Assemblyman Martin S. Auer (R) was convicted of a kickback scheme with insurance agencies (1979)
State Senator Lloyd H. Paterson (R) convicted of 20 counts of grand larceny and five counts of falsifying business records, having embezzled more than $68,000 from private estates. He was forced to give up his seat, sentenced to five years' probation and fined $18,500 (1978)

Local 
New York City Councilman Matthew Troy (D) pleaded guilty to a federal charge of filing a 1972 income tax return that failed to include $37,000 stolen from clients of his law practice (1976)

Oklahoma 
Governor David Hall (D), was convicted of extortion and conspiracy and served 19 months of a three-year sentence. (1975)

Pennsylvania 
State Senator William E. Duffield (D) was sentenced to six months in prison for 11 counts of mail fraud. (1975)
State Senator Henry Cianfrani (D) convicted on federal charges of racketeering and mail fraud, Cianfrani was sentenced to five years in federal prison. After serving for twenty-seven months, he was released in 1980.

Local 
Mayor of Chester, Pennsylvania John H. Nacrelli convicted of federal bribery and racketeering. (1979)

Tennessee 
 Governor of Tennessee Ray Blanton (D) convicted of wire fraud and sentenced to 22 months. (1979)

Wisconsin 
State Representative James Lewis (R) attempted to persuade scientist Myron Muckerheide to create a laser gun "designed to blind people", and to sell it to Guatemalan Colonel Federico Fuentes. Lewis pleaded guilty to perjury for lying to a federal grand jury investigating the scheme and was removed from office. (1979)
State Senator James Devitt (R) was found guilty of giving felony false testimony by attempting to conceal a campaign contribution. He was also removed from office. (1974)

West Virginia 
Governor of West Virginia Wally Barron (D) was convicted of jury tampering. (1971)

1960–1969

Alabama 
Attorney General of Alabama Richmond Flowers, Sr. (D) In 1969, Flowers was sentenced to eight years in prison for conspiring to extort payments from companies.

California

Local 
 Mayor of Oakland John C. Houlihan (R) was sent to prison for more than two years after pleading guilty to stealing nearly $100,000 from an estate he was handling as an attorney. (1966)

Maryland 
State Delegate A. Gordon Boone (D) served 13 months in federal prison after his conviction on charges of mail fraud in connection with the state's savings and loan scandal. (1967)

Massachusetts 
Governor's Councilors Joseph Ray Crimmins (D) and Raymond F. Sullivan (D) and former councilors Michael Favulli (D) and Ernest C. Stasiun (D) were found guilty of conspiracy for requesting bribes from Governor Foster Furcolo in exchange for their votes in favor of reappointing state public works commissioner Anthony N. DiNatale. (1965)

Michigan

Local
Mayor of Detroit Louis Miriani (R) convicted of tax evasion. (1969)

New Jersey 
State Senator Jerome Epstein (R) was found guilty and sentenced to nine years for stealing $4KK of fuel oil. (1968)

New York 
State Assemblyman Hyman E. Mintz (R) was convicted of bribery and perjury charges for trying to get insider information on a grand jury probe of the Finger Lakes Race Track. Mintz was sentenced to one year in prison. (1965)
State Assemblyman Stanley J. Bauer (R) pleaded guilty to one count of tax evasion and was fined $5,000. (1962)

Oklahoma
Associate Justice of the Oklahoma Supreme Court N. S. Corn (D) accepted bribes of $150K delivered in $100 bills in an armored car and was sentenced to 18 months in prison. (1964)

1950–1959

Illinois 
State Auditor Orville Hodge (R) embezzled more than $6 million and was indicted on 54 counts including conspiracy, forgery and embezzling. He was sentenced to 12 to 15 years in prison. (1956)

Maine 
State Senator Earle Albee (R), was found guilty of accepting money under false pretenses for working to have a drunk driving charge dismissed. He was sentenced to prison and an appeal was dismissed. (1957)

Texas 
Texas Land Commissioner Bascom Giles (D) convicted of fraud and bribery and served three years of a six-year prison term.

1940–1949

Massachusetts

Local 
Mayor of Lowell George T. Ashe (D) was convicted by a jury on charges of conspiracy involving city purchases. (1942) He was sentenced to a year in prison.
Sheriff of Suffolk County John F. Dowd (D) pleaded guilty to charges of conspiracy and soliciting and accepting gratuities. He was sentenced to two concurrent sentences of six to eight years in prison. (1941)
Marlborough, Massachusetts city solicitor John J. Ginnetti pled guilty to bribery for selling two jobs in the Marlborough Fire Department. Mayor Louis Ingalls, who was indicted alongside Ginnetti, committed suicide before the trial began. Ginnetti was sentenced to six months in jail and resigned from the bar. (1940)

Michigan 
State Representative Carl F. DeLano (R) was convicted of accepting bribes from naturopathic physicians, sentenced to three to five years in prison (1945)
State Senator William C. Birk (R) was convicted of accepting a bribe and sentenced to four years in prison. (1945)
State Senator Jerry T. Logie (R) was tried, convicted, and sentenced to 3–5 years in prison for bribery. (1944)
State Representative William Green (R) indicted on bribery charges, tried in 1945 and convicted; sentenced to three to five years in prison (1945)
State Representative Warren Green Hooper (R) pleaded guilty to taking bribes and was given immunity from prosecution in return for turning state's evidence. Four days later he was shot and killed. (1945)

New Jersey

Local
Atlantic County Treasurer Enoch L. Johnson "Nucky" (R) was involved in racketeering, gambling, prostitution and bootlegging. He was arrested for failure to file income taxes. He was found guilty and sentenced to 10 years. (1941)

New York 
Assemblyman Lawrence J. Murray, Jr. (D) was charged with embezzling over some time a total amount of $49,102 from the accounts of a mentally incompetent client which he subsequently lost betting on horses. On April 4, 1940, he was convicted of theft, and the next day sentenced to 5 to 10 years in prison.

1930–1939

Connecticut 
State Senator Nathan Spiro (R), pleaded guilty to accepting a bribe and was fined $1,500 (1938)

Louisiana 
Governor Richard W. Leche (D) sentenced to 10 years in prison for fraud. (1939)

Michigan 
State Representative Miles M. Callaghan (R) resigned his seat after pleading guilty to charges of legislative graft and conspiracy. (1939)

Pennsylvania 
State Senator John J. McClure (R) was convicted of vice and rum running but was overturned on appeal.

1920–1929

Indiana 
Governor of Indiana Warren McCray (R) convicted of mail fraud and served three years. (1924)

Local 
Mayor of Indianapolis John Duvall (R) was convicted of bribery and jailed. (1928)
Mayor of Indianapolis Claude E. Negley (R) pled guilty to accepting bribes, fined. (1927)

Massachusetts 
State Representative C. F. Nelson Pratt (R) was found guilty of simple assault after being charged with attempted felonious assault. He was fined $100. (1928)

Oklahoma

Wisconsin
State Assemblyman Clark M. Perry (R) pleaded guilty to a charge of liquor conspiracy and was sentenced to three years in prison. (1926)

1910–1919

Arkansas 
State Senator Samuel C. Sims (D) was paid a bribe of $900 about legislation to regulate trading stamps and coupons. He was arrested, charged with bribery and convicted, and then expelled from the Senate. (1917)
State Senator Ivison C. Burgess (R) introduced legislation to regulate trading stamps and coupons and then accepted a bribe of $2,000 from trading-stamp interests. Guilty of bribery, then expelled from the Senate. (1917)

California 
State Senator Marshall Black, (R) was convicted for embezzlement of funds (1918)

Illinois

Local
Mayor of Rock Island, Harry M. Schriver (R) was convicted of vice protection and conspiracy. (1923)

Massachusetts 
Lawrence, Massachusetts Mayor William P. White (R) was found guilty of bribery. (1910)
State Representative Harry C. Foster (R) was found guilty of conduct unbecoming a representative for collecting money for pending legislation (1916)

Local

New Hampshire 
State Representative Clifford L. Snow (R) found guilty of selling his votes to other legislators(1913)

Oklahoma 
State Insurance Commissioner Perry A. Ballard (D) was found guilty of moral turpitude and corruption. (1913)

Pennsylvania 
Auditor General of Pennsylvania William Preston Snyder (R) was convicted of conspiracy to defraud and was given a sentence of two years in jail. (1909)
State Superintendent of Public Grounds and Buildings James M. Shumaker (R) was convicted of conspiracy to defraud. Sentenced to two years in prison. (1908)

Vermont 
Horace F. Graham (R) State Auditor, had just been elected governor, when he was accused of having embezzled $25,000. At trial, he was found guilty and sentenced to prison.  A new governor was elected, Republican Percival W. Clement. Though Graham still denied the crime, he repaid the missing funds. He was then pardoned by Governor Clement. (1917)

Wisconsin 
State Assemblyman Edmund J. Labuwi (R) was convicted of obtaining money under false pretenses. (1916)

1900–1909

Kentucky 
State Auditor Henry Eckert Youtsey (R) State Auditor, was found guilty of conspiracy in the assassination of Governor William J. Goebel (D) and was sentenced to life in prison (1900)
Secretary of State Caleb Powers (R) was convicted as an accessory to the assassination of Democratic Governor William J. Goebel. Powers served eight years in jail. (1900) He was pardoned in 1908.

Massachusetts

Local 
Boston Alderman George H. Battis (R) was convicted of larceny for overcharging the city of Boston $334.25 for trophies he purchased for the East Boston's Fourth of July celebrations in 1906 and 1907. He received a three-year sentence, but was pardoned by Governor Eben Sumner Draper and the Massachusetts Governor's Council after a year-and-a-half. (1909)

Michigan 
State Representative D. Judson Hammond (R) from Oakland County, convicted of soliciting a bribe of $500 to defeat a bill opposed by wholesale grocers; sentenced to two years in prison. (1903)
State Treasurer Frank Porter Glazier (R) convicted of embezzlement; served two years in prison (1908)

Missouri 
 State Senator William P. Sullivan (R) convicted of accepting a bribe concerning his vote on the "pure food law" and fined $100. (1905)

New York 
 State Assemblyman Max Eckmann (R) found guilty of conspiracy to manufacture false voting petitions, fined $500 (1906)

Pennsylvania 
Treasurer of Pennsylvania, William L. Mathues (R) Mathues was convicted in connection to the Pennsylvania State Capitol graft scandal and sentenced to two years in prison. He died before incarceration. (1908)

1890–1899

Maryland 
State Treasurer Stevenson Archer (D) was found guilty of embezzling $132,000 and sentenced to five years. (1890)

Missouri 
State Treasurer Edward T. Noland (D), following reports of his drunkenness and gambling, an investigation found a shortage in state funds of about $32,000. He was suspended from office and resigned. He was then arrested, charged with embezzlement, tried, convicted and sentenced to two years in prison. (1890)

1880–1889

Kentucky 
State Treasurer James "Honest Dick" Tate (D) was convicted of fraud and theft. (1888)

Louisiana 
State Treasurer Edward A. Burke (D) was convicted of fraud and theft. (1888)

1870–1879

Mississippi 
Lieutenant Governor Alexander K. Davis (R) was found guilty of accepting a bribe for aid in obtaining a pardon. (1876)

Nebraska 
Governor David C. Butler (R) was found guilty of using $16,000 from the sale of public lands for his own private use. He was then impeached and removed from office. (1871)

North Carolina 
Governor William Woods Holden (R) was convicted of "unlawful" arrests and recruitment of troops to quell the activities of the Ku Klux Klan in what became known as the Kirk-Holden war. Impeached, found guilty and removed from office. (1870)

South Carolina 
 State Treasurer Francis Lewis Cardozo (R) was convicted of fraud, and spent seven months in prison. (1876)

1850–1859

Illinois 
Governor of Illinois Joel Aldrich Matteson (D), was found to have redeemed Michigan and Illinois Canal script, which had already been redeemed. He was found guilty and forced to repay $238K. (1859)

See also 
List of federal political scandals in the United States
List of federal political sex scandals in the United States
2017–18 United States political sexual scandals

Federal politicians:
List of American federal politicians convicted of crimes
List of United States representatives expelled, censured, or reprimanded
List of United States senators expelled or censured

References 

 
Convicted of crimes
Lists of criminals
Politicians convicted of crimes On 28 May 2021, Scottish pensioner Esther Brown was raped and murdered at her flat in Woodlands, Glasgow.

Jason Graham, a registered sex offender, who was unknown to her, was found guilty of her rape and murder on 12 November 2021, and sentenced to 19 years in jail.

Perpetrator 
Jason Graham did not know Brown, and was a registered sex offender. He was aged 30 at the time he murdered and raped Brown.

Murder 
Brown was kicked, punched and stamped on by Graham on 28 May 2021.

She was reported missing the same day and found dead on 1 June at her flat in Glasgow's Woodlands on West Princes Street. 

On 7 June an arrest was made, Graham was charged, suspected of brutally killing the elderly woman in her own home. After killing her, he allegedly used Brown's bankcard to purchase cigarettes.

Response 
A memorial is planned for Brown, in recognition of her community activism.

Trial 
On 15 October 2021, Jason Graham pleaded guilty to the murder at Glasgow High Court. Sentencing was due by 12 November 2021. On 17 November, he was found guilty to the murder and was sentenced to 19 years.

See also
List of solved missing person cases

References 

2020s missing person cases
2021 in Scotland
2021 murders in the United Kingdom
Female murder victims
Formerly missing people
May 2021 events in the United Kingdom
Missing person cases in Scotland
Murder in Glasgow
Rape in Scotland
Violence against women in Scotland