William Jefferson Blythe Jr. lost touch with each other when he was an infant, after his father briefly married and divorced his mother's sister, and he never knew his biological father or paternal siblings. Later in life, Henry Leon Blythe took the name Henry Leon Ritzenthaler in honor of a step-father. He ran several small businesses in Paradise, California, including a janitorial business, and died in 2009. He was unaware of his connection to the future president until the presidential campaign of 1992, when an investigation by "The Washington Post", based on birth registry records, revealed details of Bill Clinton's family. Ritzenthaler met his
William J. Jefferson William J. Jefferson William Jennings "Bill" Jefferson (born March 14, 1947) is a former Louisiana politician. He served as a member of the U.S. House of Representatives for nine terms from 1991 to 2009. A member of the Democratic Party, he represented , which includes much of the greater New Orleans area. He was elected as Louisiana's first black congressman since the end of Reconstruction. On November 13, 2009, Jefferson was sentenced to thirteen years in federal prison for bribery after a corruption investigation, the longest sentence ever given to a congressman. He began serving that sentence in May 2012