TENNESSEE'S REP. FORD ACQUITTED

                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: SATURDAY, April 10, 1993                   TAG: 9304100062
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL                    PAGE: A10   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: MEMPHIS, TENN.                                LENGTH: Short
TENNESSEE'S REP. FORD ACQUITTED
Rep. Harold Ford praised God and a federal jury Friday after he was acquitted of charges he took payoffs from two former bankers and political allies.
The Tennessee Democrat had been charged with 18 counts of conspiracy, bank and mail fraud. Ford, 47, was accused of taking bogus loans from convicted former Tennessee bankers Jake and C.H. Butcher Jr.
The congressman's two co-defendants, former Butcher lawyers Douglas Beaty and Karl Schledwitz, also were acquitted. They had been charged with conspiracy to commit bank fraud and mail fraud. The federal trial began March 1.
Ford, Tennessee's only black member of Congress, accused prosecutors of being racists and Republican Party lackeys. They denied those allegations.
"We had good citizens on this jury who didn't fall for what the government was giving out. I am so happy for everybody," Ford said during a victory party in his crowded, noisy office.
The jury of 11 whites and one black was bused in from largely rural, predominantly white counties north of Memphis.

by Bhavesh Jinadra by CNB