Copyright 2001 News World Communications, Inc.
The Washington Times

February 26, 2001, Monday, Final Edition

SECTION: PART A; Pg. A10

LENGTH: 791 words

HEADLINE: Mistress was a Jackson disciple since her college days

BYLINE: Jerry Seper and Steve Miller; THE WASHINGTON TIMES

DATELINE: CHICAGO

BODY:

CHICAGO - The Rev.  Jesse Jackson spent two hours in January on local radio jock Chuck Kelley's show, explaining to his confused followers the saga of his fall from grace in which he fathered an illegitimate child with his mistress.

"And now it's a dead issue," said Mr.  Kelley, a wildly popular media figure in Chicago's black community.

But what Mr.  Jackson didn't fully explain was the life of his girlfriend, with whom he bore a daughter in May 1999.

The mistress, Karin Stanford, was considered by her college peers as an intelligent and talented civil rights activist with a bright future, someone who could follow Mr.  Jackson's footsteps.

Her inspiration was quickly apparent: As a graduate student at Howard University, she earned her doctorate in political science by writing her dissertation on Mr.  Jackson's impact on foreign policy.

Miss Stanford soon became a tenure-track assistant professor at the University of Georgia in the mid-1990s, where she continued her study of Mr. Jackson.

She later turned her dissertation into a book, "Beyond the Boundaries: Reverend Jesse Jackson and International Affairs," which was published in 1997.

After a stint with the Congressional Black Caucus and a 1996 bout with breast cancer, she joined Mr.  Jackson at the Rainbow/PUSH Coalition in Washington at a salary of $120,000 a year.

The two soon began a romantic relationship.

Miss Stanford, 39, served as director of the Washington bureau and headed the coalition's public policy division for two years.  She moved in late 1999 to California, where she now lives with her daughter in a five-bedroom house with a pool in upscale Baldwin Hills, south of Los Angeles.

She bought the house for $365,000 after securing a $291,950 loan.

A woman answering the phone at her home, who represented herself as the nanny, said Miss Stanford would not speak to reporters.

Miss Stanford still works for the coalition as a research consultant. She reportedly also serves as a $10,000-a-month consultant to Yucaipa Companies in Los Angeles.  Yucaipa's managing partner, California supermarket magnate Ron Burkle, has been a longtime financial supporter of Rainbow/PUSH and other Jackson projects.

Officials at Yucaipa say it was Mr.  Jackson who had proposed Miss Stanford's employment as a consultant.

Records show that officials affiliated with Rainbow/PUSH assisted Miss Stanford financially with her purchase of the California home.  Mr. Jackson has said he is providing her with $3,000 a month from his own pocket to support his young daughter.

The records, obtained by The Washington Times, show Miss Stanford was paid $36,181 in employee reimbursements and consulting fees over an eight-month period beginning in May 1999, the same month her and Mr. Jackson's daughter was born.

The money came from the tax-exempt Citizenship Education Fund (CEF), a $9 million offshoot of the Rainbow/PUSH Coalition that researches voter registration issues.

Miss Stanford's pay, described as a "draw" against future consulting fees, was proposed in a Sept.  10, 1999, letter to Miss Stanford from Janice L. Mathis, a member of the education fund's board of directors who also serves as the Rainbow/PUSH general counsel.

The letter said a proposed $40,000 draw was "for the purpose of acquiring residential real estate financing."

While the letter was never formally approved, payments totaling $36,181 are listed in the education fund's ledger.

They include $15,181 in employee reimbursements in three checks issued in May and October 1999. Another $21,000 for consulting services on a research project was issued in three payments in December 1999 and April 2000.

In a three-page contract she signed with CEF, Miss Stanford was identified as an "independent contractor."

The CEF board that approved the payments is headed by Mr.  Jackson's son, Jonathan.  Another son, Yusef, also serves on the board, as does Mr. Jackson's wife, Jacqueline.

Rainbow/PUSH's financial officer, Billy Owens, said extensive financial reviews have been conducted since he was hired eight months ago, and he has found no evidence of fraud or financial mismanagement involving the Stanford contract.

"If it was there, I would have found it," said Mr.  Owens.  He added that the only wrongdoing he discovered was that someone had stolen a copy of the Mathis letter outlining the initial proposal of $40,000 for Miss Stanford.

"I assume that's how it found its way into the media," he said.

Prior to the letter's surfacing in the media, first in the National Enquirer, aides to Mr.  Jackson had offered a variety of explanations for the Stanford payments, including severance pay and moving expenses.

LOAD-DATE: February 26, 2001