An Iowa state senator who had been accused of extortion by a federal prosecutor was found not guilty by a unanimous jury, the Des Moines Register reported Friday. Matt McCoy of Des Moines was tried for using his political position to obtain $2,000 from two former business partners.
The nine-day trial was the result of an investigation that began in December 2005, when Thomas Vasquez, a former friend of the senator, told Des Moines police that McCoy had requested receipt of $100 for the sale of every unit of a system used to monitor the elderly. Vasquez ended up working as an informant for the FBI, recording 11 hours of conversations between him and the senator.
McCoy, Iowa's first openly gay state senator, told Advocate.com in July that he was the target of a campaign to unseat liberal lawmakers, but he later retracted his statement. He did admit that the investigation had been a hardship, adding that he had already spent $65,000 in attorney's fees and hiring a private investigator.
"I've served two terms in the house, and this is my third term in the senate," McCoy told Advocate.com. "In all my years of elected office, I've never seen anything like this." (The Advocate)
