Political influences and connections within the OJJDP scandal.

Written by Biloxi
MONTAG, 25 AUGUST 2008

The political influences and connections in the OJJDP scandal of OJJDP Administrator Robert J. Flores deepens into certain key political influences positioned for a mutual political and financial benefits.

Department of Justice Inspector General had launched an investigation into OJJDP Administrator J. Robert Flores’ travel and Flores’ hiring Hector Rene Fonseca, a Honduran ex-Colonel. Mr. Flores’ hiring of Mr. Fonseca seems to have lot more political influence connected to the Bush Administration’s entire operation of the faith initiatives.

Flores hired Fonseca as a contractor to work on faith-based and gang issues according to Justice Department staff members. Fonseca was paid $450.00 per day in full time position. According to staffers, Fonseca rarely showed up. Why would Flores go through hoops to hire Fonseca? Fonseca did donate money to President Bush’s 2004 re-election. However, what you may not know is the powerful and political influence behind Fonseca’s wife, Deborah DeMoss-Fonseca.

Deborah DeMoss-Fonseca, daughter of Arthur DeMoss of The Arthur S. DeMoss Foundation, worked for ten years for late Senator Jesse Helms and was the senator's liaison to a number of Latin American dictators and death squad leaders. Arthur S. DeMoss Foundation is a foundation based in West Palm Beach, Florida and a contributor to the Religious Right and other evangelical Christian causes. The foundation “support [Christian] programs initiated and managed by the foundation that are evangelistic and disciplining in nature.”

In the 1980’s Mrs. Fonseca was a powerful U.S. Senate aide, helping Sen. Helms champion "Nicaragua's contra rebels and advising right-wing politicians in El Salvador.”

She was Helms' adviser in 1981 around the age of 21 years old. Helms became more of a surrogate father figure in Mrs. Fonseca’s life when she lost her father. Mrs. Fonseca served as in Latin American affairs on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and Narcotics and Terrorism Sub-Committee. She was a political strategist for her husband's presidential campaign in Honduras. Fonseca was a one-time Honduran presidential candidate for the right-wing National Party.

Fonseca, a veteran of the 1969 war with El Salvador holds a degree in management. Mrs. Fonseca now works as a consultant to evangelist Franklin Graham, Rev. Billy Graham's son, both as a lobbyist and as country director in Honduras. Moreover, Mr. Fonseca and his wife were powerful and political influences in politics. They were the primary backers of a controversial Honduran immigrant Miguel Estrada, President Bush's nominee as judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia in 2003. In an article in National Review, Mr. Fonseca wrote a letter to Senator Orrin Hatch in March 2003 supporting Estrada's nomination as judge. Estrada withdrew his name from nomination.

In July 2007, Mr. Fonseca said this in a farewell to his colleagues at the Justice Department according to an email obtained by ABC News, "It is my hope and prayer that the joy and peace of Jesus Christ will be real to each on of you." Deborah Lynne De Moss-Fonseca was a lot more than just a major Republican Party contributor as the media pointed out in the connection to the OJJDP scandal. Mrs. Fonseca was more of a driving force politically for her husband, Hector Rene Fonseca. It is more clear that Flores hired Fonseca to promote President Bush's faith-based initiative agenda but with the backing and political influence and experiences of Fonseca's wife. Flores is only many little fishes in the Office of Justice Programs area in which the Bush's operation of the faith initiatives poisoned the OJJDP division. The big question how many more Flores within the entire department of Office of Justice Programs engaged in cronyism and favoritism at the expense of professionalism and competence?