DETROIT, May 22 (UPI) -- Michigan attorney Geoffrey Fieger testified Thursday that federal agents conducted a Gestapo-style raid on his law office and intimidated his employees.
The Southfield, Mich., attorney and his law partner, Vernon Johnson, are accused of illegally reimbursing 64 employees and others with law firm funds after they contributed a total of $127,000 to John Edwards' 2004 presidential campaign, the Detroit Free Press reported.
"It's called shock and awe, and you were doing it to show you could get me," Fieger said in his third day of testimony at U.S. District Court in Detroit.
Fieger told jurors that federal agents even called a television station to film agents wearing trench coats and badges carrying boxes of documents out of his law firm in 2005.
"If you robbed a bank, you couldn't get three agents," Fieger said, referring to the 80 agents who raided his office and conducted nighttime interviews at the homes of his employees.
Fieger maintains that federal campaign finance laws don't prohibit reimbursing employees for contributing to political candidates.
