Tim Willis

Tim Willis had political ties to Ford family
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Tim Willis played many roles, but the latest was as the government informant who helped woo then state Sen.
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Willis, 34, had worked on the senator's last campaign and had been associated with the Ford family since at least 1999, when he first popped onto the Memphis political scene.
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In audiotapes played in federal court the day after Ford's arrest, Ford says to Willis, "Well, let me ask you a question.
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"Naw," replies Willis in the Feb. 3 conversation.
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Willis laughs and says, "Uh-uh."

Willis was identified in court - in a slip by Ford's defense attorney, Michael Scholl - as the government informant, according to people at the Memphis hearing.
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What is known of Willis is that he's had run-ins with the law before, serving four months in a federal prison in 2002 for a credit-card fraud case in Mississippi.Those charges stemmed from his college days, Clark said Willis told her.
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Willis also was involved in another federal probe, appearing before a grand jury because of his role as a paid political consultant to then Shelby County Juvenile Court Clerk Shep Wilbun, who was under investigation.
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It's unclear whether Willis became involved in the Operation Tennessee Waltz bribery sting through those investigations.The U.S. attorney's office in Memphis would not comment on his role.

In late 2001, Willis worked as a contractor for Gov.
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Records also show Willis with ties to several Ford campaigns:

• Willis worked on Joe Ford's unsuccessful mayoral campaign in 1999.Joe Ford, a county commissioner and brother of John Ford, says he does not have much recollection of Willis, one of more than 200 volunteers.

Willis' resume, obtained from the Shelby County assessor, describes a greater role in that campaign.

Willis said that from June to October that year he worked for a consulting firm, Harold Ford & Co., which is owned by another Ford brother, former U.S. Rep.
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Willis developed an education platform for Joe Ford's campaign, managed 35 employees, raised money and directed field activities, including personal appearances by the candidate, the resume said.

• In 2000, Willis was an organizer for a food basket giveaway called Operation Happy Christmas, a program run by U.S. Rep.
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• Willis was paid $6,175 out of John Ford's Senate campaign account for "campaign work" and "campaign consulting" in 2002, according to financial documents.
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• Isaac Ford, another son of Harold Sr., hired Willis as a campaign manager in 2003 in his unsuccessful run for Memphis City Council, paying Willis $200, campaign records showed.
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Willis was a member of the Shelby County Young Democrats, according to his resume.He was also a registered lobbyist in 2004, according to state records.

His resume says that he dropped out of law school at the University of Mississippi; got an English degree from Rust College in Holly Springs, Miss., in 1994; and earned a public finance degree from Jackson State University, also in Mississippi, in 1996.
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Messages left for Willis and family members were not returned.

A voice message Willis left on a Memphis phone number listed in his name says he's "on location shooting a movie."(A piece of the dialogue secretly recorded by the FBI includes John Ford's mention of "your production company" to Willis, according to transcripts filed in court.)

About seven weeks ago, Willis was telling people he was moving to California with his new wife, who had a medical residency there, according to Joe Hall of Nashville.Hall, a public relations executive, had worked with Willis on the successful campaign to lure an NBA team to Memphis.
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A fax Willis sent last week to the Tennessee Registry of Election Finance - which is threatening to fine him for not filing his lobbying reports on time - was stamped across the top with a fax number that had a Delaware area code.
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Willis was backing an opponent for the assessor post.

Even after a stint in prison, Tim Willis had a promising future ... until he worked for the feds
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A month ago, Tim Willis seemed agitated.He kept repeating himself, announcing vague plans to leave Memphis for Phoenix.Eager to leave town, Willis said he had a business deal brewing involving a screenplay he was working on for an independent film.He was mum on the details.To his friends, that was vintage Willis, always jumping from one job to the next, many of them ill-defined and revolving around the fronts and fringes of city politics.What they could not have known was that their buddy seemed to time his departure with arrests in Operation Tennessee Waltz, a federal sting of Tennesee politicos in which Willis played a key role.

Taurus Bailey, an old fraternity brother of Willis', had just paid him a social visit at Willis' home in Harbortown, a fashionable downtown suburb of Memphis.Bailey's family had a nagging sense that something didn't quite add up with Willis, who had two years earlier finished a four-month stint in federal prison for credit card fraud.He hardly lived the life of an ex-con.How exactly was he making a living?But when Bailey met with Willis, he left with more questions than answers, learning that Willis was making abrupt plans to leave Memphis.

"He kept on telling me he was about to get out of town, which I thought was strange," recalls Bailey, who works in the Shelby County Public Defender's Office."We know a lot of the same people, and nobody had ever mentioned this before."

Of course, as we now know, Willis had a reason to keep quiet.
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To Ford and his family, the sound of Willis playing the role of a sleazy corporate hatchet man had to provoke astonishment, if not outright contempt.
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Willis had been close to the Ford family for years.
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On the tapes, Ford seemed wary of Willis, but not enough to turn down the money.
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Of course, Ford had every reason to trust Willis, who made a living forging close relationships with powerful people in Memphis.
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A member of the Shelby County Young Democrats, Willis knew the backwaters and front lines of local politics like a fund manager knows the S& P Index.He worked a stint in the office of the Shelby County Assessor of Property, toiled in low-level district council races and helped out in Al Gore's and Phil Bredesen's campaigns.According to an old r,sum,, Willis raised $100,000 for needy families on behalf of Harold Ford Jr. Intelligent, engaging and charming, Willis chose his friends wisely, attended ritzy social gatherings and generally gave off the impression that he was a man on the move.

"The power structure in Memphis is very much black, particularly within the city," says Rebekah Gleaves Sanderlin, who covered politics for the Memphis Flyer and knew Willis socially.
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Tim was definitely a part of that group."
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Amazingly, Willis managed to keep this not only from Hall but also from Congressman Harold Ford Jr., who had paid him over $3,000 for the first four months of the year.
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Meanwhile, around this time, Wilbun had, astonishingly, been paying Willis over $63,000 to lobby the state legislature, according to a report from state auditors.
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Around December 2001, Willis called Hall and said they needed to talk.
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They met along the trolley line by the mall in downtown Memphis, and Willis told him he was facing jail time for past credit card problems.

On Jan. 22, 2002, Willis, who six years earlier earned a master's degree in public finance from Jackson State University, began a four-month federal prison stint after pleading guilty to credit card fraud in Mississippi.
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Willis wasn't charged with anything, but shortly thereafter, Operation Tennessee Waltz commenced inside the corridors of the General Assembly.The obvious question is whether Willis cooperated to avoid prison time.

"Tim is not a very tough guy," says his now former friend Taurus Bailey."If there was anything the feds held over his head, I think he would have been terrified of going back to jail.I think he was afraid to do the time."

To Bailey and many other friends, Tim Willis is a traitor.It's not so much that he went after John Ford, but that he seemed to target other, less devious politicians, who had helped him in the past.Nearly all of them, Bailey says, rejected Willis' federally induced bribes, but for Willis to even put them in that situation betrays a dismaying lack of gratitude.Now with Willis reportedly hiding out in California with his wife, a recent medical school student, he better plan on making it big as a screenwriter.His days as a political operative in Memphis are over.