Documents from federal investigation of former DC Mayor Vincent Gray released

WASHINGTON - Former D.C. Mayor Vincent Gray's 2010 campaign is back in the news. Last year, the U.S. Attorney's Office closed the investigation late last year.

Gray was never charged with any wrongdoing and has always maintained he knew nothing about illegal activity.

New documents into the investigation were released Friday and come at a time when the former mayor has gotten back into politics and is running for his old D.C. Council seat.

The federal investigation lasted nearly five years and resulted in exposing a $660,000 shadow campaign. There were 12 convictions - all charged with campaign violations to get Gray elected mayor.

We are seeing for the first time search warrants of homes, businesses, storage rooms, computers, phones and email records. The court released them five months after the case was closed by the U.S. Attorney's Office.

Mayor Gray first spoke publicly to FOX 5 after the probe officially ended.

"What I say to people is that I've said from the very beginning that I did nothing," Gray said to FOX 5 back on Dec. 15. "I was not involved in any of this."

The documents show the federal prosecutors built their case against Jeffrey Thompson, who financed the shadow campaign and others working with him. Authorities were also looking at Gray's actions - his emails, his meetings, a campaign disturbance, even an allegation that Gray wanted Leo Alexander, a former mayoral candidate to drop out of the race.

FOX 5 spoke to Alexander on the phone Friday and he said through a campaign associate that Gray offered him money and employment to drop out.

"The more the reports are coming out, I'm really disturbed by it," said D.C. Councilmember Yvette Alexander (D-Ward 7).

The council member was Gray's ally when the shadow campaign was uncovered. But she is now running against him to keep her council seat. She never called for the mayor to resign then, but said Friday, "I'm really concerned and it's bad if you didn't know about it, and it's pretty bad, maybe even worse, if you did know about it."

Thompson, who has admitted wrongdoing, has said Gray knew about the illegal activity. But the Washington Post reported on Thursday that the reason the U.S. Attorney didn't use him as a star witness in the case against the former mayor is because of credibility issues regarding Thompson.

In the end, Thompson wasn't called because there were no charges against Gray.

Gray's campaign spokesperson Chuck Thies told FOX 5 in a statement, "The investigation ended last year without any suggestion of wrongdoing by Vince Gray. If unanswered questions remain, they are not about Vince. Rather, why did the former U.S. Attorney give a sweetheart deal to [Thompson]?"