* In 2009, Sanford Bishop was accused of improperly steering $192,500 in federal funds to a Muscogee County, Georgia youth group where his stepdaughter (Aayesha Reese) and her husband (Stephen Reese) were employed. No formal charges were ever filed against the congressman, as a Georgia Bureau of Investigation review of the case found no evidence of criminal intent by the congressman.

* In March 2009, it was learned that over a period of months, Rep. Bishop’s stepdaughter (Aayesha Reese) and her husband (Stephen Reese) had been paid more than $7,000 apiece for jobs that listed them as part-time employees of Bishop’s wife, Columbus (Georgia) municipal court clerk Vivian Creighton Bishop. Throughout the period during which the Reeses received these funds, they lived more than 100 miles from Columbus and were both employed in full-time jobs near their home.