2nd Gray Campaign Aide Faces Charges

A second ex-campaign aide to D.C. Mayor Vincent Gray is facing federal charges relating to money given to another candidate.

That candidate said he was paid to criticize then-Mayor Adrian Fenty who was running against Gray.

Howard Brooks was charged Wednesday with a single count of making a false statement to the FBI. He was charged in a criminal information. The document indicates the defendant is likely to plead guilty.

It says Brooks told FBI agents in April 2011 that he never gave any payments to the campaign of Sulaimon Brown. The document says Brooks did in fact make such payments.

Brooks's attorney could not immediately be reached for comment.

Gray turned aside all questions about the corruption case, including those about U.S. Attorney Ronald Machen's remark that the Gray campaign deceived voters.

"I think you know there is an ongoing, pending investigation, so there's nothing really I can comment  on, this stage, because it is obviously continuing to unfold," Gray said.

Machen told News4's Tom Sherwood he will root out public corruption.

"The conduct here was pretty egregious," Machen said. "We had secret payments, fraudulent filings. It's important that we have an electoral process with integrity, and that was violated in 2010."

On Tuesday, Gray's acting campaign treasurer pleaded guilty to funneling money to Brown and destroying evidence.

Stay with News4 and NBCWashington.com for more information.

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