State Rep. John Rogers pleads guilty

On Monday, the U.S. Attorney’s office in Birmingham announced that State Representative John Rogers (D-Birmingham) has agreed to plead guilty to conspiracy to commit mail and wire fraud and conspiracy to obstruct justice in connection with the scheme to defraud the Jefferson County Community Service Fund.

U.S. Attorney Prim F. Escalona, Federal Bureau of Investigation Special Agent in Charge Carlton L. Peeples, and Internal Revenue Service, Criminal Investigation Acting Special Agent in Charge Demetrius Hardeman announced the plea deal in a joint statement.

Rogers, 83, of Birmingham, agreed to plead guilty to one count of conspiracy to commit wire and mail fraud and one count of conspiracy to obstruct justice. Rogers has also agreed to resign from the Alabama House of Representatives after five decades in office.

Last month, Rogers’s former assistant and companion, Varrie Johnson Kindall, pleaded guilty to conspiring with Rogers and former Representative Fred L. Plump, Jr. (D-Fairfield) to defraud the Fund. Plump also pleaded guilty to conspiracy and obstruction of justice charges in June 2023 and resigned from the Alabama House of Representatives.

In 2015 the Alabama Legislature passed Alabama Act No. 2015-226 (the “Act”) and authorized the Jefferson County Commission to levy and distribute a one percent sales tax and a one percent use tax to benefit the public welfare and enhance the education of the children of Jefferson County.

Jefferson County began levying the new taxes in or about August 2017. The Act required the County to distribute the tax revenue according to certain specified priorities, including paying debt incurred during school construction, increasing the County’s general fund, giving funds to each board of education serving students in the County, and for certain other purposes set forth in the Act.

The Act created the Jefferson County Community Service Fund (the “Fund”), which was subsidized by approximately $3.6 million annually from the new taxes. One of the approved purposes of the fund was to support youth sports. Rogers used $100,000 of the money he oversaw to support the Piper Davis Recreational League that Plump oversaw, before he was in the Legislature.

The League was for disadvantaged youth who play baseball in the Fairfield area. Instead of using the money to help the kids, Plump paid half of the funds to Rogers and Kindall (who lives with Rogers in Chelsea). The threesome repeated this fraud for a total of four years. Out of a total of $400,000 that Rogers allocated to Piper Davis Rec. League, $200,000 went to Rogers and Kindall.

In 2022, House Democrats targeted State Rep. Rod Scott (D-Fairfield), who was seen as not loyal enough to Rogers and the rest of the House Democrats. They ran Plump against Scott. Plump narrowly unseated Scott in a low turnout Democratic primary runoff. In 2023 the FBI approached Plump. After alerting Kindall to the investigation, Plump was indicted for the illegal kickback scheme and an obstruction of Justice charge was added. He later pled guilty and resigned from the Legislature.

The second superseding indictment also alleges that, in 2019, Rogers directed Fund money to Organization #1 and Kindall then required Individual #1 to pay kickbacks. After learning about the federal investigation into the fraud scheme, Rogers and Kindall attempted to obstruct justice by offering a witness grant money as a bribe and otherwise trying to corruptly persuade the witness to give false information to federal agents.

It is also alleged that Rogers and Kindall agreed that she would accept full responsibility for the crimes and falsely tell federal investigators that Rogers did not participate in the scheme in exchange for Rogers’s promise to take care of personal issues for Kindall if she went to prison.

As part of that agreement, Rogers had Kindall give false statements to investigators and prosecutors during a meeting at the United States Attorney’s Office on May 25, 2023.

The maximum penalty for conspiracy to commit mail and wire fraud is 20 years in prison and a $250,000 fine. The maximum penalty for conspiracy to obstruct justice is 5 years in prison and a $250,000 fine.

The Federal Bureau of Investigation and Internal Revenue Service Criminal Investigation investigated the case, with assistance from the Alabama Attorney General’s Office. Assistant United States Attorneys George Martin, Catherine Crosby, and Ryan Rummage are prosecuting the case.

Rogers was the longtime Director of Minority Affairs for the University of Alabama at Birmingham. He and his wife, the late Gennie Rogers, are the parents of three children.

Rogers’ seat in the Alabama House of Representatives will be filled in a special election, the date of which will be set by the Governor.

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