It makes the Chris Christie bridge scandal look like a simple spat among politicians. We are talking about the 14-count federal indictment filed Tuesday (Jan. 21, 2014) against former Virginia Gov. Bob McDonnell and his wife, Maureen McDonnell, charging them with wire fraud, “conspiracy to obtain property under color of official right,” “false statements,” (lying), all of this basically what the government says was a ploy to get lots of perks, jewelry, trips and clothing, among other things, from the then-chief executive of a dietary supplement firm.

So why is a car column telling you all this? Because one of the key perks involved a weekend’s use of a Ferrari. Not a Corvette, or a Maserati or even an Aston Martin, but a Ferrari, a real honest-to-God Ferrari, and that gives us license to parade before the readers of Topdown a tale of official greed, ethics gone awry – my kingdom for a Rolex, or, for that matter, a Ferrari.

The basics of the story are that while McDonnell was the Republican governor of Virginia (January 2010 to January 2014) he and wife Maureen bent over backwards to help promote the fortunes of Star Scientific and its chief executive, named in the indictment only as “JW” (since identified in numerous press accounts as Jonnie R. Williams Sr.) Williams has not been charged, and is cooperating with the government. The indictment says Williams provided the financially strapped McDonnells with loans, expensive outings to exclusive golf courses, catering costs for their daughter’s wedding, a Rolex watch for the Governor and other benefits. (The McDonnells were arraigned in U.S. District Court in Richmond, Va., today — Jan. 24, 2014. They pleaded not guilty and were released on their own recognizance. Trial is scheduled to start in late July. More details on the case in this Daily Beast post.)

In December 2009, the indictment says, Maureen McDonnell told one of her husband’s staffers that she needed a designer dress for the upcoming inauguration and that Williams said he would buy it for her. The staff member – clearly somebody who had an inkling of the sordid future of this mess – advised her not to do this. She emailed him thusly: “I need to talk to you about Inaugural clothing budget. I need answers and Bob is screaming about the thousands I’m charging up in credit card debt. We are broke, have an unconscionable amount of credit card debt already, and this Inaugural is killing us!! I need answers and I need help, and I need to get this done.” That kind of gives you the tone. Given the staffer’s warning, however, Maureen decided to hold off on the dress. For the moment.

More than a year later, in April 2011, Maureen McDonnell contacted Williams and said, hey, I need to go dress shopping in New York; Bob’s got a political dinner coming up. (That’s our paraphrase of sections 23 and 24 of the indictment.) So she and Williams shopped, and Williams “paid for the entire luxury shopping trip for Maureen McDonnell and spent approximately $10,999 at Oscar de la Renta, approximately $5,685 at Louis Vuitton and approximately $2,604 at Bergdorf Goodman,” according to the indictment. The quid pro was that Williams got to sit next to the Governor at a political dinner that night.

The Ferrari. In July of 2011, the indictment reads, the McDonnells and their family “enjoyed a private vacation at JW’s multimillion-dollar vacation home on Smith Mountain Lake in Virginia. Maureen McDonnell had previously called JW to ask whether JW’s Ferrari would be at the house for Robert McDonnell’s use. JW arranged to have a Star Scientific employee transport the Ferrari from Richmond (Va.) to his Smith Mountain Lake house so the defendants could use the Ferrari during their vacation.” (Williams also rented a boat for the McDonnells while they were up at the lake.) Maureen later sent an e-mail to Williams with a photo showing her husband driving the Ferrari. Other than saying it was a Ferrari, the indictment had no further description of the car.

We asked the U.S. Department of Justice for a few more details on the captive Ferrari – this is a car blog, after all – but a Department of Justice spokesman said the government is “limited to the information contained in public court documents” and cannot “provide more detail than that at this time.”

However, we did find an auto industry source who knew about the car. The source, who declined to be publicly identified, said it was a white 2011 Ferrari California. That’s Ferrari’s first retractable hardtop convertible. It retailed for $192,000 when new and sports a 4.3-liter V8 engine with 453 horsepower. It has a top speed of about 193 miles per hour and we wonder if the Governor got anywhere near that.

We mention all this because the McDonnell case really is interesting, kind of a foray into the netherworld of desperation and greed. Whereas Gov. Christie is embroiled in a classic New Jersey political scandal – “time for some traffic problems in Fort Lee” – so far there hasn’t been any evidence of quid pro quo money for influence. It’s more of a tit-for-tat vendetta — you, the mayor of Fort Lee, didn’t endorse the Governor for re-election; you’re in for some payback.

In the McDonnell matter, by contrast, we have what the government says is pretty naked avarice, particularly on the part of Gov. McDonnell’s wife. If you start totting up all the favors Williams allegedly did for the McDonnells, however, you begin to wonder what the payoff was. What with the plane trips and the loans and dresses and the Rolex and the catering fees and everything else, you wonder: what did Star Scientific get out of all this? Any material gain for the company?

But we do like the image of the Governor’s wife baldly asking her benefactor to get that Ferrari up to the lake so Bob had something worthy to drive. Chutzpah has its own rewards.