Chaka Fattah Jr Responds To Charges Against Father, Remains Defiant

PHILADELPHIA (CBS) - Chaka Fattah Jr. denied any wrongdoing connected to federal charges against him and charges filed yesterday against his father, Philadelphia Congressman Chaka Fattah. Fattah Sr. is now charged with fraud, conspiracy, bribery, and other charges stemming from his campaign for mayor in 1995 and including a number of local charities he established to allegedly launder money through.

Talking with Chris Stigall on Talk Radio 1210 WPHT, Fattah Jr. rebuffed the contents of the indictment and maintained everyone in his family is innocent.

"Nothing improper was done. Nothing illegal was done...The Federal Government, at this moment, alleges that an improper shell was set up to do something. What's important for your audience to know is there's no reason to do anything like that...He could've just paid me or my company to do work for him. There's no need to set up an improper shell. That's one of the fundamental flaws in their argument."

He contends that a cabal of prosecutors inside the Eastern District Office of the Department of Justice are conspiring to remove his father from office.

"These couple of people want to decide, in exchange for votes of hundreds of thousands of people, who they want to be in Congress. So they don't like my dad, for whatever reason, I don't know all the details of why they don't like my dad."

Fattah believes he was only targeted by federal investigators to give them leverage in negotiations with his father.

"If they charge me and convict me at a trial then they can try to use that against my dad. Either A, look what happened to your son, this is what's going to happen to you,' or B, we could go easy on your son at the next phase, which would be sentencing. In exchange for that, we don't really want to go to war with [Congressman Fattah], which is going to be a vigorous fight."

Fattah remained defiant in the face of charges against both himself and his father, but repeatedly refused to answer any questions about a car related to his step-mother, Philadelphia News Anchor Renee Chenault-Fattah.

"I don't know anything about that. I know she has another car, which is a pickup truck. What I'm saying is, I don't know anything about that transaction."

Authorities contend a lobbyist arranged the purchase of a 1989 Porsche Carrera from Chenault-Fattah for $18,000, only to have the Fattah's keep the car and use the money for a down payment on a vacation home in the Poconos.