Politics

John Jenrette Jr., Congressman Nabbed in Abscam Sting, Dies at 86


John Jenrette Jr., a charismatic Democratic Representative from South Carolina who became ensnared in the Abscam investigation of political corruption that also brought down six other members of Congress, died on Friday in Conway, S.C. He was 86.

His death was announced by the Goldfinch Funeral Home. It did not cite a cause.

Mr. Jenrette was in his third term in the House and had a progressive record and a strong reputation for serving his constituents, especially Black citizens, when his political career was ruined by his involvement in Abscam — a two-year sting operation that videotaped politicians and others taking bribes from federal agents pretending to be rich Arabs looking for favors.

A former social acquaintance, John Stowe, got in contact with Mr. Jenrette in 1979, saying that he had found a wealthy investor, sometimes referred to as a sheikh — an invention of the F.B.I. — who was willing to finance the revival of an empty munitions factory, bringing 400 jobs to Mr. Jenrette’s district. To sweeten the deal, Mr. Stowe said, he needed legislation that would let the sheikh emigrate to the United States.

Mr. Jenrette was captured on videotape, during one of his visits to a townhouse in the Georgetown section of Washington in December 1979, discussing a payment he would accept with people said to be lieutenants of the phony sheikh.

She said she had forced him to go to five rehab centers during their brief marriage.

“He’d be OK for while,” she said in an earlier phone interview, “but it’s hard to overcome it.”

John Wilson Jenrette Jr. was born on May 19, 1936, in Conway, S.C. His father was a farmer and a carpenter who repaired local train stations. His mother, Mary (Herring) Jenrette, sold baked goods and eggs from chickens she raised. The family was poor. John often did not have shoes to wear.

“His family didn’t have a vehicle,” John Clark, a former aide to Mr. Jenrette and the author, with Cookie Miller VanSice, of “Capitol Steps and Missteps: The Wild, Improbable Ride of Congressman John Jenrette” (2017), said in a phone interview. “They had a wagon hitched to a mule. He joked that his house had two bedrooms and a path to an outhouse.”

After graduating from Wofford College in Spartanburg, S.C., in 1958 with a bachelor’s degree in political science, Mr. Jenrette earned his law degree at the University of South Carolina School of Law in Columbia in 1962. He served in the South Carolina House of Representatives from 1965 until 1972, when he made an unsuccessful run for a seat in the United States House.

But he won the seat in 1974 and was re-elected twice, the third time without any Republican opposition. He was the majority whip of his freshman class and moved further in the House leadership when he was named the deputy majority whip, under Representative John Brademas of Indiana, in 1977.

Any further ascension into House leadership, however, ended with Abscam.

In the decades after his release from federal prison, Mr. Jenrette worked in various businesses, including real estate development. But he got into further legal trouble in 1989, when he was convicted of stealing a pair of shoes and a tie and altering the price tags on a shirt and a pair of pants at a department store in Fairfax, Va.

He served 20 days in jail and was sentenced to 200 hours of community service.

“I’ve done volunteer work all my life, but this is the first time it’s got so much publicity,” he told reporters during his first day of community service at the Horry County, S.C., public defender’s office.

His survivors include his wife, Rosemary (Long) Jenrette.



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