Now convicted, Corrine Brown finds donors are no longer there

Former Congresswoman Corrine Brown was back in court this week, trying to appeal the corruption charges for which she was convicted earlier this year. Her prospects don’t look good.

As I’ve written before — “Corrine Brown Delivered to herself, feds say;” “Corrine Brown conviction about corruption, not race” — the case against the Jacksonville Democrat was both thorough and damning.

But Brown is now facing another challenge — trying to raise money when she’s not in office. And she’s having a tough time.

Last week, Brown postponed a fundraising concert — one supposed to feature the legendary Shirley Caesar — citing both weather concerns and slow ticket sales.

And it appears fundraising is going poorly for her in general. She said she’s had to sell a house and is struggling to raise money for a legal defense fund, saying she needs as much as $900,000.

As of this week, her fundraising site showed she’d collected only $2,135.

The pathetic irony to all this is that Brown had no trouble attracting donations when she was in office. It was those freely flowing donations, in fact, that got her in trouble.

And I’ll submit that it’s not even the conviction itself that slowed the stream of cash her way.

It’s that she’s not in office.

If she was still in office — and presiding over transportation issues — she would still be flush with money from airlines, rail companies and more … just like most members of Congress are.

These deep-pocketed interests don’t care about party, optics or personal ethics.

They just want to buy influence — which is the one thing Brown is no longer in any position to provide.

smaxwell@orlandosentinel.com