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08/09/2006: "Week one of US vs Zimmermann."

For those of you who have following the trial in the broadcast, blogosphere, and dead tree media, and for those of you who have not, I thought I would try to further muddy the waters with my perspective. Know that I love Dean, believe he did not betray the trust of his constituents, and that I do not trust the FBI or the current U.S. Attorney’s office.

Dean Zimmermann, for those not from Minneapolis, was one of two Green Party members of the Minneapolis City council. A long time (over 40 year) activist in Civil Rights, Peace, Environmental Sanity, Neighborhood control, Parks, and community control. Dean has not always been easy to get along with, he has been a risk taker, someone who has stuck his neck out with out worrying who might be throwing a noose around it. He is an extremely talented intelligent person who has had many opportunities to trade his skills and talents for money and comfort. He has never even taken a step in that direction.

He is now starting the second week of a trial where he is accused of accepting bribes, essentially being a corrupt politician. We have seen the Prosecution’s case. This is a summary, and my take on it.

The Prosecutions main evidence were the testimony of the developer who was sent in by the FBI to bribe Dean, and the various video and audio tapes that were made of these meetings and phone conversations. There were over 15 different video and audio tapes showing Dean in conversations with Gary Carlson. It was clear that Mr. Carlson was coached by the FBI in these situations to say just the right thing to give the impression that he was bribing Dean, so given this, we need to ignore his statements, and look at what Dean actually says.

Dean did accept first $5,000, then $1,200, and later $1,000 from Carlson. Dean has never denied this. Dean was accepting donations both for his campaign, and to pay off bills for a suit the Green Party had filed against the City of Minneapolis in regard to its redistricting.

The most damaging thing in all of the recordins is Dean being quoted as saying “Money Money Money” in response to the question “what can I do to help”. What the paper didn’t say was that this was at a fundraiser at the Black Forest and that ‘Money Money Money” was being shouted from the stage and was a theme of the fundraiser.

The FBI also tried to back up a charge that Dean put pressure on a non-profit developer The Powderhorn Residents Group (PRG) to give his wife a free retraining wall. Again, what has not been made clear in the paper was that the PRG approached her, asking her to trade some land. Dean was asked by his ex wife to help negotiate the "land swap" that was desired by PRG. Dean expressed his opinion that for it to be fair, his ex-wife should not have to put money into the land to make it usable. He said that he thought it would be fair for them to build a retaining wall. When they said no, he suggested they give him the materials for the retaining wall (they were already building many feet of retaining walls) and he would build it. When they said no to that, he suggested that they just give him any retaining wall blocks that were left and he would purchase the rest and build it. There was some desire to have the walls match with the ones that PRG was building. PRG said no to that, and they dropped it. He did not at anytime use his office to try to pressure PRG. The sign-off was a pure formality, and Dean had already told them that "will do" when they asked him to sign them.

This charge was the only thing that the FBI found in their search of Deans computers and records obtained in the search, They had to fine something to justify that effort, so they added in this red herring.

In summary, it is difficult to know what the All white, All non-city jury is thinking about all of this. It is clear that the theme of “corrupt politician” is powerful with most citizens, but we can only hope that this jury will see beyond the hours of tapes, to the truth, and the man at the heart of this.