On this day, Aug. 22, in 1995, Rep. Mel Reynolds of Illinois was convicted in Chicago of having sex with a teenage campaign worker and then trying to thwart the investigation. During the trial, the teenager was jailed for 13 nights for refusing to testify. When she finally agreed to take the stand, she told the jury that she had a consensual sexual affair with Reynolds beginning when she was 16. But she asked the jury to find Reynolds not guilty.
Prosecutors also played graphic tape-recorded telephone calls in which Reynolds discussed sex acts with the girl.
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Reynolds, a Democrat, was sentenced to five years in prison. However, in April 1997 he was convicted on 15 unrelated counts of bank fraud and lying to a Securities and Exchange Commission investigator, resulting in a sentence of six years in prison.
-Scott McCabe
