"South Carolina Congressman" John Jenrette Signed FDC Dated 1930 For Sale

Up for sale "South Carolina Congressman" John Jenrette Signed FDC Dated 1930.

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John

Wilson Jenrette Jr. (born

May 19, 1936) is an American former politician from South Carolina, best known for his involvement in the ABSCAM corruption scandal, and being the husband of Playboy model Rita Jenrette. He served in the U.S. House of

Representatives as a Democrat from

January 1975 until December 1980. He was convicted of accepting Jenrette was born in Conway, South Carolina in 1936 and grew up in Loris, South Carolina. He

graduated from Loris High School, in 1954. He then earned a B.A. at Wofford College in 1958. After graduating from law school at the University of South Carolina,

worked as a city attorney, then a judge, as he attempted to reach higher

office. Jenrette was elected to the South Carolina House of Representatives as

a Democrat in

1964, where he represented his native town of Myrtle Beach. He

retired from the state house to run for a seat in the U.S. House in 1972. Jenrette

defeated seventeen-term Congressman John L. McMillan in the primary, but lost the general

election to Republican Edward Lunn Young. Undaunted, Jenrette again ran for the same

seat in 1974. In part because of the extreme unpopularity of Republican Richard Nixon and the Watergate scandal, Jenrette won. Jenrette, a liberal, seemed out of place representing his rather conservative waterfront congressional district. However,

he was locally well-known, and the South Carolina Republican Party was

not especially well-organized at the time in that part of the state. Jenrette

easily defeated Young again in 1976 and was unopposed in 1978. Jenrette is most

famous for two things during his days as a Congressman. First, he allegedly had sex with his then-wife, Rita Jenrette, behind a pillar on the steps of the Capitol Building during

a break in a late night session of Congress. (The comedy group "Capitol Steps" take their name from this escapade. Second,

he was charged with and convicted of accepting a $50,000 bribe in

the FBI sting operation known as Abscam which was conducted in 1980. He was recorded

saying he had been given a cash bribe by an associate. Jenrette was

sentenced to two years in prison, of which he served 13 months. His

wife, Rita, separated from him in January 1981 and the two divorced later the

same year. Jenrette was defeated for reelection in 1980 and resigned from

Congress on December 10, just days before the end of his term. He subsequently

ran a public-relations firm called Lehuguenot, Ltd.,[6] in his native Myrtle Beach, and developed property in nearby Cherry Grove.