Conviction and resignation Melvin Reynolds
In August 1994, Reynolds was indicted for sexual assault and criminal sexual abuse for engaging in a sexual relationship with a 16-year-old campaign volunteer that began during the 1992 campaign.[2] He also faced charges of child pornography for asking the underage campaign worker to obtain "lewd photographs of another girl who was age 15" and obstruction of justice for convincing one of the girls involved to lie to authorities.[9] Despite the charges, he continued his campaign and was reelected that November; he had no opposition.[2] Reynolds initially denied the charges, which he claimed were racially motivated. On August 22, 1995, he was convicted on 12 counts of criminal sexual assault, sexual abuse, obstruction of justice and solicitation of child pornography.[1] He resigned his seat on October 1 of that year.[3]
Reynolds was sentenced to five years in prison, thus he expected to be released in 1998. However, in April 1997, he was convicted on 16 unrelated counts of bank fraud, misusing campaign funds for personal use and lying to FEC investigators. Specifically, one count of bank fraud, two counts of wire fraud, eight counts of making false statements on loan applications, one count of conspiracy to defraud the Federal Election Commission, and four counts of making false statements to the FEC. These charges resulted in an additional sentence of 78 months in federal prison. Reynolds served all of his first sentence, and served 42 months in prison for the later charges. At that point, President Bill Clinton commuted the sentence for bank fraud. As a result, Reynolds was released from prison and served the remaining time in a halfway house.[10]
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