Harry Thomas, Jr. not only disgraced himself and the District Council on which he and his late father both served when he pleaded guilty to federal embezzlement and tax evasion charges last week. He also exposed the long-entrenched, look-the-other-way culture that pervades District of Columbia government and enabled this scion of a prominent local political family to steal $325,000 meant for disadvantaged children and spend it on personal luxuries, including a golf trip to Pebble Beach and a $50,000 SUV. Given his background, Thomas’ cynical use of poor children to rip off taxpayers is doubly despicable. This sordid tale has few heroes. One is Tim Day, an accountant and former Ward 5 Republican council candidate, who was the first to call for an investigation of Team Thomas/Swing Away LLC, because the non-profit youth baseball program was not registered with either the D.C. government or the Internal Revenue Service. We now know that Day was right when he charged that Team Thomas was nothing but a slush fund.
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