If convicted on all 16 counts, the congressman, whose congressional district includes New Orleans, flooded by hurricane Katrina in 2005, and who was re-elected last year despite an ongoing FBI investigation, faces a possible maximum sentence of 235 years in federal prison.
An FBI raid of his home nearly two years ago uncovered $90,000 in cash stored in a freezer, part of a $100,000 bribe Jefferson accepted from an informant working for the FBI, which videotaped the transaction.
A subsequent raid of his Capitol Hill office in May 2006 set off a bitter polemic in Washington over congressional immunity and the extent of the FBI's powers to investigate elected officials.
According to the Justice Department, which issued the indictment Monday, the congressman was paid hundreds of thousands of dollars in cash and stocks by companies eager to do business in Africa, writing official letters on their behalf and meeting with African officials to secure the deals.
Jefferson, who will be arraigned in U.S. District Court in Alexandria Friday under the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, has repeatedly denied his guilt. He is the first U.S. official to be prosecuted under the act, which bars corporate bribery overseas.
In announcing the indictment, federal prosecutors said the schemes were elaborate and involved several co-conspirators, two of whom have already pleaded guilty and been sentenced.
Brett Pfeffer, a former congressional aide, admitted soliciting bribes for Jefferson and was sentenced to eight years in prison, while a Kentucky telecommunications executive, Vernon Jackson, admitted paying the congressman more than $400,000 to secure deals in Nigeria and other African nations and was sentenced to seven years.
The indictment also alleges that high-ranking Nigerian officials were involved in the schemes to gain access to that country's telecommunications market. Court records show that Jefferson told associates he needed money to pay off Nigeria's vice president, Atiku Abubakar.
Although not directly named in the indictment, a 2005 meeting with a Nigerian official referred to in the document as "Nigerian Official A" took place at the Maryland home of one of Abubakar's wives.
During the meeting, an alleged bribe was paid to the unnamed official, presumed to be Abubakar, to pressure the Nigerian state-controlled telecommunications provider NITEL into providing important concessions to the congressman and his family.
Although Abubakar denied the allegations, the charges nevertheless figured prominently in Nigeria's presidential election in April, in which the vice president came in third.
The indictment also contends that in addition to his Nigerian interests, Jefferson was reportedly involved in oil concessions in Equatorial Guinea, and contracts for satellite links in Botswana and the Republic of the Congo.
Several fellow congressmen have already called for Jefferson's expulsion from Congress if he is found guilty and refuses to resign, and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi is expected to call for his removal from the Small Business Committee later this week.
