Kelly was brought in by middleman Eugene Ciuzio, who first raised his name on 19 December 1979. At his first meeting Kelly turned down the money. Then the operatives came back. On 8 January 1980 he took $25,000, stuffed it into his pockets and asked whether it showed. [1][2]
His explanation was that he had become suspicious of the people around the sheikh and was taking the money to investigate them himself. He said he was going to report it. The jury rejected that. [2]
Judge William Bryant did not. He found that the government had kept pushing after Kelly said no, with nothing beyond a middleman’s word to suggest he was corrupt, and that its conduct violated due process. He dismissed the case in 1982. The D.C. Circuit reversed him in 1983, and after sentencing in January 1984, to six to 18 months, the lightest of the seven, it affirmed the conviction. [3][4]
Kelly served 13 months and died in 2005. The strongest version of his case is not that he was innocent but that the government should not have kept going after a congressman who had already said no. A respected federal judge agreed. [5]
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