Mel Reynolds

Mel Reynolds Full Name: Melvin Reynolds Alias: Mel Origin: Mound Bayou, Mississippi, United States Occupation: Member of the U.S. House of Representatives from Illinois's 2nd district (1993 - 1995) Crimes: Statutory rape Child pornography Obstruction of justice Bank fraud Embezzlement Perjury Type of Villain: Perverted Politician

Melvin "Mel" Reynolds" (born January 8, 1952) is a former American congressman for Illinois who was convicted of criminal sexual abuse and forced to resign his seat in 1995 after having sex with an underage campaign volunteer.

Electoral history

Reynolds ran against the Democratic incumbent for the Illinois 2nd District, Gus Savage, three times. The first time, he only gained fourteen percent of the vote, the second time he came much closer due to Savage's involvement in a sex scandal and the third time he won the seat after redistricting moved the district further into the suburbs, where the voters did not approve of Savage's anti-Semitic views.

In 2013, after his resignation, he tried to win back his old seat but was overwhelmingly defeated by Jesse Jackson, Jr., who won 88% of the vote. He ran in the 2013 special election to get the seat after Jackson retired, but only came seventh.

Criminal history

In August 1994, Reynolds was indicted for sexual assault and criminal sexual abuse for engaging in a sexual relationship with a 16-year-old campaign volunteer that began during the 1992 campaign. He also faced charges of child pornography (for asking the campaign worker to take sexual photos of a 15-year-old girl) and obstruction of justice (for convincing one of his victims to lie to the authorities). On August 22, 1995, despite his claims that he was being targeted for being black, he was convicted on twelve counts of sexual assault, sexual abuse, obstruction of justice and solicitation of child porn and sentenced to five years in prison.

In April 1997 Reynolds was convicted of bank fraud, making false statements on loan applications, conspiracy to defraud the Federal Election Commission, making false statements to FEC investigators and wire fraud, adding 72 months to his sentence to be served after his 1995 conviction.

In 2014 Reynolds was arrested in Zimbabwe for overstaying his visa and found to have made multiple porn videos at the hotel where he was staying, which is a crime in Zimbabwe. He also owed over $24,000 to the hotel where he was staying and had not yet payed. Later, the pornography charges were dropped and he was deported to South Africa.

On June 26, 2015, Reynolds was indicted by a grand jury for failure to file federal income tax returns on more than $400,000 income. He was convicted in 2017 and served six months in prison.