Congressman Bishop's Wife Accused by Co-Worker of Check Fraud Scheme

Congressman Sanford Bishop’s wife, Vivian Bishop, who is the Municipal County Clerk of Muscogee County in Georgia may be involved in a fraudulent check-writing scheme against both her office and the Black Congressional Caucus Foundation Scholarship Fund, Big Government has learned.

Last year, the Atlanta Journal Constitution reported that Congressman Bishop gave “privately-funded scholarships to his stepdaughter and his wife’s niece,” through the Black Congressional Caucus Scholarship Foundation fund, and according to sources, a co-worker–Joanne Flantroy–witnessed Vivian Bishop deposit at least one of those checks into her own bank account.

Some of that evidence along with copies of 19 municipal checks will be presented today at 10 a.m. EST during a hearing in Muscogee Superior Court by Flantroy, whom Vivian Bishop is now seeking a protective order against.

Flantroy will allegedly produce copies of the fraudulent checks as part of her defense against Bishop’s petition for a protective order.

“Basically, Joanne has copies of 19 checks that dating all the way back to 2004 that have been written out of the Municipal Clerk’s Office,” says Andrew O’Shea, an Atlanta based resident who ran a competing congressional campaign against Congressman Sanford Bishop in 2010.

“They’re using that bank account to write themselves checks like the check cashing business–if you need a quick loan, you just write yourself a check and pay it back–except in this case, it’s not getting paid back. At least two of those checks were written for $500 by Vivian Bishop for Vivian Bishop, and I believe those checks bounced. Those will be two of the nineteen and those will all be presented in court tomorrow.”

According to O’Shea, Bishop sought the protective order against Flantroy as part of a first step preemptive strike “to make Joanne look crazy.”

“These scholarships were all going to employees in Vivian’s office at the time,” O’Shea said. “All of these scholarships were being doled out to her daughter, Sanford Bishop’s niece, and even distant cousins.”

O’Shea says that the scholarship checks were issued to people who were not legitimately in school or going to school.

Update: Sources tell BigGovernment that the court date has been delayed until February 20th.