Local
LGBT supporters remain loyal to Gray
U.S. Attorney says mayor knew about 2010 ‘shadow’ campaign
Mayor Vincent Gray has not been charged in the case of the so-called ‘shadow campaign.’ (Washington Blade photo by Michael Key)
Similar to their straight counterparts, many LGBT supporters of D.C. Mayor Vincent Gray said their commitment to his re-election has not wavered over allegations by the U.S. Attorney on Monday that Gray knew about an illegal scheme to raise more than $660,000 for his 2010 election campaign.
New details about Gray’s alleged knowledge of a so-called “shadow” campaign surfaced at a hearing in U.S. District Court Monday morning in which businessman Jeffrey E. Thompson pleaded guilty to secretly channeling more than $2 million in illegal contributions to federal and local political campaigns.
In a news conference following the court hearing, Ronald Machen, the U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia, said someone identified in court documents as “Mayoral Candidate A” was among the recipients of the illegal contributions. Although Machen did not say so directly, it was clear to reporters and court observers that Mayor Vincent Gray was Mayoral Candidate A.
Machen declined to say whether Mayoral Candidate A or other candidates receiving illegal campaign contributions from Thompson were being targeted for prosecution, saying only that the government’s investigation was ongoing.
Gray has not been charged in the case and has repeatedly denied he had any knowledge of illegal actions by Thompson and others associated with the campaign.
“This doesn’t change my level of support for the mayor,” said gay Democratic activist Lane Hudson, who has served as a volunteer fundraiser and coordinator of the Gray campaign’s outreach to the LGBT community. “In fact, it probably increases it.”
Hudson was among the Gray supporters that questioned Machen’s motive behind the government’s decision to file felony campaign violation charges against Thompson and linking Gray to the fundraising scheme less than a month before the city’s April 1 mayoral primary.
Gray told the Washington Post and at least two local TV news stations that Thompson’s accusations that he knew about the illegal campaign scheme were “lies.”
Noting that Thompson made the accusations as part of a deal in which he pleaded guilty on Monday in exchange for a more lenient sentence and a promise to cooperate with prosecutors, Gray said Thompson’s credibility was in doubt.
Thompson, 58, is the former chairman and CEO of a company that had a multi-million dollar city contract to process Medicaid-related services and other health-related services for the D.C. government.
He pleaded guilty on Monday to a federal charge of conspiring to violate federal campaign finance laws and to submit false filings to the IRS. He also pleaded guilty to a D.C. offense of conspiring to violate D.C. campaign finance laws by “defrauding the District of Columbia’s Office of Campaign Finance,” according to a statement released by the U.S. Attorney’s office.
“Jeff Thompson is a man who’s trying to cling to his freedom and offered allegations that have not been substantiated or repeated by anyone else,” Hudson told the Blade. “And until the U.S. Attorney provides evidence to the contrary, Mayor Gray is entitled to the presumption of innocence, especially when his reputation is far more valuable than an admitted felon.”
Gay Democratic activist Peter Rosenstein, another Gray supporter, said he and others in the LGBT community were not condoning illegal campaign practices.
“I believe Thompson should be prosecuted to the full extent of the law as should anyone else found to have knowingly participated in his schemes,” Rosenstein said. “Knowing the mayor and Thompson I am still inclined to believe the mayor. If there is definitive proof the mayor knew what was going on the U.S. Attorney owes it to the citizens of the District to share it now,” he said.
“All I know is that Mayor Gray is a great friend of the LGBT community and denies the allegations,” said Rick Rosendall, president of the Gay and Lesbian Activists Alliance. “Machen’s news conference and charges against Thompson seem suspiciously timed given the upcoming primary election, which is galling given the paternalistic position the U.S. Attorney is in over the District,” he said.
Rosendall was referring to longstanding complaints by D.C. home rule advocates that the city’s prosecutors are federally appointed rather than elected, as is the case with most other cities and states.
Transgender activist Ruby Corado, founder and director of the LGBT community center Casa Ruby, is among many in the city’s transgender community who view Gray’s support for transgender rights as groundbreaking and among the strongest in the nation for an elected official.
“Whatever happens, the only thing I know is I’m supporting the mayor,” Corado said. “I hope everything goes well for him. Nobody is perfect,” she said. “But I know the LGBT community is doing the right thing by standing with him.”
Lateefah Williams, an attorney and former president of the Gertrude Stein Democratic Club, the city’s largest LGBT political organization, was less certain about the impact of the U.S. Attorney’s actions on the LGBT community as a whole.
“I think the news surrounding Jeffrey Thompson’s guilty plea will have an impact on LGBT voters, just as it will have an impact on all other District voters,” Williams said. “Diehard Gray supporters will probably remain loyal, but those who are on the fence or who respect Gray’s accomplishments but have always been uncomfortable with the shadow campaign allegation, will find it much harder to support him,” she said.
U.S. Attorney Ronald Machen speaks at news conference about allegations linking Mayor Gray to ‘shadow’ campaign funds in 2010. (Washington Blade photo by Lou Chibbaro, Jr.)
During the news conference, Machen said the federal investigation into campaign finance law violations in D.C. was continuing and that the information released so far amounted to “the tip of the iceberg.”
In charging documents filed in court, the U.S. Attorney’s office said Thompson’s scheme involved making hidden and illegal campaign contributions totaling $1.3 to seven candidates seeking public office in D.C. between 2006 and 2011.
The documents also say Thompson funneled $608,750 between February and May 2008 for a shadow campaign for a U.S. presidential candidate. Last month, news media outlets reported they learned through sources that the presidential candidate was Hillary Clinton. Clinton has so far not commented on the reports, but people familiar with her 2008 presidential campaign have said she had no knowledge of the alleged shadow campaign.
In addition to the 2010 mayoral campaign, in which Gray was the alleged beneficiary, the charging documents say Thompson funded shadow campaigns for a candidate running in the city’s 2006 mayoral election; the 2007 special election for a Ward 4 Council seat; the 2008 election for an at-large Council seat; the 2010 elections for Ward 1 and Ward 6 Council seats; and the 2011 special election for an at-large Council seat.
Machen declined to name the Council candidates that allegedly received Thompson’s illegal contributions or to say whether they were under investigation for having knowledge of the illegal contributions. However, he said in a number of the cases under investigation, the candidate was unaware that the contributions were illegal and would not be a target for prosecution.
According to the charging documents, Thompson “disbursed approximately $140,000 in excessive and unreported corporate contributions” for a City Council candidate running in 2010 in Ward 1, where gay D.C. Council member Jim Graham was running for re-election. The Washington Post identified the candidate as Jeff Smith, one of two candidates challenging Graham in the Democratic primary.
“I have been seriously victimized by the huge illegal donation to my opponent,” Graham said in a statement released on Monday in referring to Thompson’s donation to Smith. “I want to note also that Jeff Smith failed to file his final month campaign report and his final total campaign report, which was very disturbing to me,” Graham said.
Smith couldn’t immediately be reached for comment.
The Comings & Goings column is about sharing the professional successes of our community. We want to recognize those landing new jobs, new clients for their business, joining boards of organizations and other achievements. Please share your successes with us at [email protected].
Congratulations to Charles Roth on his appointment to the board of directors of the Pride Bands Alliance, the national and international organization for LGBTQ bands. On his appointment Roth said, “I am beyond humbled, and excited, to join the Board of Directors of Pride Bands Alliance at the national / international level for LGBTQ+ band organizations. The mission of promoting diversity, inclusivity, community, and pride through music is something I have always held very close to my heart. I very much look forward to working with this amazing organization and team, to keep that visibility alive and well, and to help foster and expand it even more across our country.”
Roth is the 2025 Guest Drum Major for The Queer Big Apple Corps, and former Marching Band Artistic Director for D.C.’s Different Drummers. Under his leadership, DCDD expanded its presence in and around our nation’s capital, featuring high-profile performances including at the National Cherry Blossom Festival Parade, Smithsonian Institute, World Pride 2019, and two special appearances at the Naval Observatory, home of Vice President Kamala Harris. He is the Team DC LGBTQ Student Athlete Scholarship Chair, and board member. He is a band director in Alexandria City Public Schools, and teaches middle school band at a Title I, International Baccalaureate School, where he built an award-winning program.
Congratulations also to Amira McKee and Chinanu Okoli, named by The Association of LGBTQ+ Journalists as recipients of the 2024 Phillips-Green Family Scholarship. These scholarships provide financial assistance to two CONNECT participants to support their participation in the CONNECT Student Journalism Training Project, and help launch their careers as young journalists.
“We are so excited to be partnering with the Phillips-Green Family Fund,” said NLGJA Executive Director Adam Pawlus. “Thanks to their generosity, we are thrilled to continue our support for young journalists whose work exemplifies our mission of creating a fairer and more diverse field of journalism.”
The CONNECT Student Journalism Training Project provides real-world, hands-on experience to students or recent graduates pursuing a career in journalism. The Phillips-Green Family Fund aims to provide organizations with financial assistance that work toward the education and well-being of women, children, and families. Their support helps make it possible for students in financial need to participate in our CONNECT program.
District of Columbia
A D.C. AIDS story: ‘I couldn’t have survived without you guys’
Old friends reunite as mystery of Kilbourne Place memorial stones is solved
‘Red Reminds Me’
Seven videos reflecting the spectrum of living with HIV
Sunday, Dec. 1, 4-9 p.m.
David Bethuel Jamieson Studio House at Walbridge
3229 Walbridge Place, N.W.
Washington, D.C.
Reserve free admission on Eventbrite
In the tradition of my family, funerals are not somber affairs cloaked in black garb. We call them “celebrations of life” where through our tears we laugh and reminisce about the dead. At the end, we all gather either in the basement of a church or a matriarch’s house where over a spread of rich, decadent food, we rejoice in the fact that our dead relative shed the chains of their flesh and transcended to the next phase. With bellies full, the kids run outside and play with each other and the adults would drink and trade stories. The repast is my fondest memories of childhood. It was a time when I could see family members separated by distance and eat collard greens simmered in smoked turkey and mac and cheese so cheesy that it solidified into a brick when cold.
Never would I have imagined that a repast would occur at Don Juan’s on the corner of Mt. Pleasant and Lamont. Instead of collard greens and mac and cheese, I dined on cheese pupusas with curtido. This occasion solidified the importance of a chosen family. While none of us were related by blood, we were related through one thread: AIDS. The story of the Kilbourne Memorial Stones is an AIDS story in which through unraveling the lives of Robert Rockershousen, Jakob Efsen, and Charles Winney, we received a glimpse into the impact of AIDS within D.C.’s gay community. A community that is often overshadowed by New York City and San Francisco when the early years of the epidemic are discussed.
When the Blade published my story “Unraveling mystery of the Kilbourne Place memorial stones” in August of 2023, Charles Winney’s story was still untold. What I did find out about him was through scouring public records but, no one stepped up to eulogize him. My friend, Peter Stebbins, knew of my struggles to locate a source for Charles and motivated me to continue fighting for him. In June of this year, I told Peter that I knew of Charles’s partner, Larry Martin, who lives in Provincetown, Mass. Between the years of 2022 and 2023, I reached out to Larry through multiple means, but I received no response. Peter being a Provincetown regular since the 1980s, was adamant that he knew someone who knew Larry and could get him in contact with me. I cautioned Peter that this might not have been a good idea. I interpreted Larry’s silence as not wanting to reopen an old wound.
Undeterred, Peter found a mutual friend on Facebook and reached out to Larry; 48 hours later, a relationship formed between Larry and me. Through phone conversations and in-person interviews, he brought me into the world of Larry & Chuck (Charles). From their beginnings as a young couple in Baltimore through their years on 1747 Kilbourne Place, they built an intricate and intimate web of community that reminded me of the communal affection I received from my family. There was this sense of “through thick and thin” that allowed them to stand in the gap for others within their community that were affected by AIDS. Larry told of how he and Chuck used to host dinners and care for those who were dying. They did it because they cared, and it was important to their identity as gay Christians to be of service of others.
In our many conversations, Larry alluded to the identity of who placed the stones. He hinted at the fact that it was a communal effort, and it wasn’t some lone solitary figure. Excitedly, I wanted to immediately put the story out, but he suggested for me to wait until he brought in his two friends, Mark Lambert and John Koran. Mark was Chuck and Larry’s roommate on Kilbourne Place. He was one quarter of the “Golden Girls,” which consisted of Mark, his friend Robbie, Larry, and Chuck. Together, they hosted large parties on the property that included parties for Pride. John was Robert’s best friend and roommate. Like Larry, I reached out to John through multiple avenues, but we did not connect.
Within a week, we were sitting at Don Juan’s drinking and breaking bread. While it was my intention to keep the group interview as formal as possible, I became enraptured in the camaraderie and nostalgia that permeated the air. Among these men with their graying hair and wrinkles, I again felt like that kid at the repast listening in on the adults. Larry officiated in a manner that was reminiscent of a patriarch. He corralled us all together in a group chat and laid the foundation for us to gather. Although the initial goal was to find out more information about Chuck, that moment laid bare the reality that these men belonged to a fraternity where they were hazed by the devastation of the AIDS epidemic. They are AIDS survivors.
Allowing these men to convene and break bread in fellowship was a way to finally eulogize Chuck and also a way for them to have a repast for Jake and Robert. Their banter and inside jokes brought forth a youthfulness and exuberance that almost moved me to tears on a few occasions. They became the adults in my family who drank their liquor and slapped their knees in laughter as they reminisced about the good ol’ days. While the men gave their eulogies, it was revealed that Larry, John, and a few others decided to lay down the Kilbourne Memorial Stones. It was decided that now that these men were together, we should walk down to the stones and take photos.
The men stood in front of the stones and on the porch of 1747 Kilbourne Place and they continued to laugh and tell stories while I snapped photos. We eventually parted ways and as I waited on the corner for a car to pass, I turned around and looked at the men for what may be the very last time. They were walking with their arms wrapped around each other like brothers. The scene reminded me of a discussion that was had at the dinner table less than an hour before. I asked the men if they believed their lives as gay men would be different during the epidemic if they didn’t have the support of each other. They all agreed in unison that their friendship was instrumental in their survival and Larry said among the nodding of heads, “I couldn’t have survived without you guys.”
District of Columbia
D.C. Health Link insurance program makes care for people with HIV free
Deductible, co-payments eliminated under new policy
The executive board of the D.C. Health Benefit Exchange Authority, which arranges for D.C. residents and nonresidents employed in D.C. to obtain health insurance coverage, voted unanimously on Nov. 19 to make the treatment and long-term care of people with HIV free of charge if they are enrolled in one of the authority’s health insurance plans.
D.C. Health Link, an independent D.C. agency created by the Health Benefit Exchange Authority to carry out its health insurance program, announced the new HIV care policy in a Nov. 20 statement.
“Making HIV care free – meaning no deductibles, no co-insurance, no copays – will save lives,” said Diane C. Lewis, chair of the Health Benefit Exchange Authority’s board in the statement.
“Starting in Plan Year 2026, residents enrolled in a D.C. Health Link Essential Plan can get free primary care visits, free laboratory tests, and free generic HIV medication,” the statement says. “Visits that would otherwise cost up to $45 per visit and $55 per lab test will be free,” it says.
“Making primary care for HIV free will improve health outcomes,” the statement continues, noting that HIV disproportionately impacts communities of color. It points out that in D.C., 71 percent of people living with HIV are Black and 8 percent are Latino.
The statement also points out that nationwide at the end of 2022, “only 64 percent of the Black population with HIV was linked to care and 53 percent were virally suppressed, meaning their HIV was suppressed through treatment.”
In contrast, according to the statement, “70 percent of the white population with HIV was linked to care and 63 percent were virally suppressed.”
The statement also notes that Whitman-Walker Health, the D.C.-based LGBTQ supportive health care provider and research facility, played an important role in helping the D.C. Health Benefit Exchange Authority develop the free HIV care program.
Mila Kofman, executive director of the D.C. Health Benefit Exchange Authority, explained that the authority created D.C. Health Link as part of D.C.’s participation in the federal healthcare program established by the U.S. Affordable Care Act, which was approved by Congress during the administration of President Barack Obama.
Kofman noted that like programs established by states under the Affordable Care Act, D.C. Health Link arranges for D.C. residents or non-residents who work in D.C. to obtain health insurance plans from private health insurance companies. Among those participating in the D.C. program are United Healthcare, Blue Cross-Blue Shield, and Kaiser Permanente, Kofman said.
Like all private health insurance plans, Kofman said people participating in the plans arranged by D.C. Health Link must pay a monthly premium for their plan. She said the premiums vary based on the amount of coverage participants select in choosing a specific plan and reduced premiums are available for people depending on their income.
She said that due to the highly complex process for making policy changes for health insurance, which includes a review and approval by the D.C. Insurance Commissioner, the process takes a little over a year to complete. Thus, the new “free” HIV care coverage will begin Jan. 1, 2026.
According to Kofman, existing D.C. Health Link insurance plans already cover the HIV prevention medication known as PrEP.
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Comings & Goings
