DeLay Get 3year Prison Term

[FSTargetDrone]

Story:

Judge: Tom DeLay to serve 3 years in prison
By the CNN Wire Staff
January 10, 2011 4:34 p.m. EST

Austin, Texas (CNN) -- Former House Majority Leader Tom DeLay will serve three years in prison on his November conviction on money laundering and conspiracy charges, a Texas judge ruled Monday.

Judge Pat Priest sentenced DeLay to three years on the conspiracy charge and five years on the money-laundering charge. But the judge will allow DeLay to serve 10 years probation with community service on the laundering charge in lieu of the prison sentence, and the two sentences will be served concurrently.

Priest remanded DeLay into custody and set a $10,000 bond pending appeal.

Defense attorney Dick DeGeurin left the courthouse quickly after the sentence was announced, but he spoke briefly, saying, "If I told you what I thought, I would get sued. This will not stand."

Addressing the court prior to the sentencing, DeLay argued that he still doesn't believe he did anything wrong and never did anything for personal gain.

"I always intended to follow the law," he said. "I'm not stupid. Everything I did I had accountants and lawyers telling me what to do and how to follow the letter of the law, even the spirit of the law."

DeLay was found guilty in November of illegally funneling corporate money to help elect Republican candidates to the Texas legislature.

"Judge, I can't be remorseful for something I don't think I did," he said.

Earlier, prosecutor Steve Brandt urged the judge to send DeLay to prison, saying the once-powerful Republican shows too much disregard for the law to warrant community service and probation.

"He has shown no remorse, no remorse whatsoever," said prosecutor Steve Brandt in his closing arguments. "The man, according to him, does nothing wrong."

"He needs to go to prison, Your Honor, and he needs to go today."

"If he gets probation," Brandt said, "and those people who read the newspaper tomorrow ... will say, 'I told you. He wears a tie, he gets probation.'"

"I'm going to use a quote from Alexander Hamilton," he said. "'No one is above the law.'"

DeGeurin countered that "no purpose would be served today by sending Tom DeLay to prison. ... He lost it all already."

DeGeurin stressed DeLay's lifetime of public service, detailing "his good works for his party, his state and his country," and claimed that the prosecution was "political."

"We accept the jury entered its verdict, but we do not accept it," he said. "We will challenge it ... and we have the right."

DeGeurin said the prosecution was based on the redistricting that took place by the new Texas legislature after the 2002 election -- an effort that changed district lines and cost several Democrats their congressional seats.

"I say that the redistricting that came about ... is what motivated the prosecution to go after him," the attorney said, "because for the first time in decades, the representation represented more of the voters' makeup of Texas."

At the outset of the trial, DeLay predicted he would be proclaimed innocent and called his conviction "an abuse of power" and "a miscarriage of justice."

DeLay was found guilty of money laundering and conspiracy to commit money laundering, after being accused of funneling $190,000 to help elect Republicans to the state House and Senate in 2002.

He faced a possible maximum prison term of 99 years on the money-laundering charge and 20 years on the conspiracy charge, but the prosecution was only seeking 10 years in prison. The defense sought only probation. Two other men facing charges in the case are awaiting trial.

DeLay, a conservative Republican, helped Newt Gingrich spearhead the GOP revival in 1994 that won control of the House and Senate in the first midterm election under Democratic President Bill Clinton.

While serving as the GOP's congressional whip, DeLay earned the nickname "The Hammer" for his strict enforcement of party discipline. In 2004, he was admonished three times by the House ethics committee, which warned him to "temper" his future actions to comply with House rules.

DeLay stepped aside as majority leader after his 2005 indictment on the money-laundering and conspiracy charges and resigned from Congress the following year. He fought the charges on procedural grounds for several years, seeking unsuccessfully to have the trial held in his home county in suburban Houston instead of in the state capital, Austin, and blaming the indictment on a partisan prosecutor.

This past summer, DeLay said a separate, long-running federal criminal investigation of his ties to lobbyist Jack Abramoff had been closed with no charges.

Abramoff pleaded guilty in 2006 to charges of fraud, tax evasion and conspiracy to bribe public officials. Two former DeLay aides who joined Abramoff's lobbying team after leaving Capitol Hill also pleaded guilty during the wide-ranging influence-peddling investigation.

The Justice Department has declined to comment on the status of the Abramoff investigation, which also resulted in prison time for Ohio Republican Rep. Bob Ney and for Steven Griles, the No. 2 official in the Interior Department for much of the administration of President George W. Bush.

In August, DeLay told CNN that his legal bills have topped $8 million.

Despite his legal troubles, DeLay found time last year to appear as a short-lived contestant on the television show "Dancing with the Stars." He dropped out of the demanding dance competition due to stress fractures in both feet.

CNN's Tracy Sabo contributed to this report.

[Chardok]

Well, that certainly took long enough. Bet the jerk judge didn't even apologize for the delay.

[Crossroads Inc.]

From Yahoo News

y JUAN A. LOZANO, Associated Press – 2 hrs 34 mins ago
AUSTIN, Texas – Former U.S. House Majority Leader Tom DeLay remained defiant as he faced a judge's sentence to three years in prison for a scheme to illegally influence Texas elections, insisting he committed no crime and was the victim of selective prosecution by authorities targeting his politics.

"Everything I did was covered by accountants and lawyers telling me what I had to do to stay within the law," the Houston-area Republican said. "I can't be remorseful for something I don't think I did."

But Senior Judge Pat Priest disagreed with DeLay, saying those who write laws should be bound by them, and sentenced the man once considered one of the nation's most powerful and feared lawmakers to three years in prison.

The sentence came after a jury convicted DeLay in November on charges of money laundering and conspiracy to commit money launder for using a political action committee to illegally send corporate donations to Texas House candidates in 2002.

Prosecutors said DeLay will likely be free for months or even years while his appeal makes its way through the Texas court system.

DeLay declined to talk to reporters after he posted a $10,000 bond following three hours in the Travis County jail, where he was taken after being sentenced.

During a 10-minute speech to the judge before his sentencing, DeLay said the politically motivated case against him had affected his wife's health, forced him to raise and spend $10 million in legal fees and cost him everything he had worked for — including the second-highest post in the U.S. House.

"Just because somebody disagrees with you they got to put you in jail, bankrupt you, destroy your family," he said.

DeLay was convicted in Travis County, one of the most Democratic counties in Texas, which is one of the most Republican states in the country.
Lead prosecutor Gary Cobb said there was nothing political about DeLay's prosecution and called the former congressman "arrogant" for not taking responsibility for his crime.

"He's been accusing us of (politics) ever since Day One. But every time someone opposes him, tries to hold him to account for something he's done, he accuses those people of politics," Cobb said.

After the sentencing, DeLay's attorney Dick DeGuerin said only that the case would not stand on appeal.
"Tom DeLay did not steal. He did not rob. He did not line his own pockets. He did what he did because he believed he was doing right," DeGuerin, who had asked for probation for the ex-lawmaker, said before the sentencing.

Prosecutors, who wanted a 10-year sentence, said DeLay should not be given probation because he had shown no remorse.
Priest sentenced DeLay to the three-year term on the conspiracy charge. He also sentenced him to five years in prison on the money laundering charge but allowed DeLay to serve 10 years of probation instead of more prison time. DeLay had faced up to life in prison.

The ruling came after a brief sentencing hearing in which former U.S. House Speaker Dennis Hastert testified on DeLay's behalf.

Hastert, an Illinois Republican who was House speaker from 1999 to 2006, said DeLay was not motivated by power but by a need to help others. Hastert talked about DeLay's conservative and religious values, his efforts to provide tax relief for his constituents in Texas, his work helping foster children and the help he provided to the family of one of the police officers who was killed in a 1998 shooting at the U.S. Capitol in Washington.
"That's the real Tom DeLay that a lot of people never got to see," said Hastert, who was DeLay's only witness.

After a month-long trial in November, a jury determined DeLay conspired with two associates to use his Texas-based political action committee to send $190,000 in corporate money to an arm of the Washington-based Republican National Committee. The RNC then sent the same amount to seven Texas House candidates. Under Texas law, corporate money can't go directly to political campaigns.

Prosecutors claim the money helped Republicans take control of the Texas House. That enabled the GOP majority to push through a Delay-engineered congressional redistricting plan that sent more Texas Republicans to Congress in 2004, strengthening DeLay's political power.

You have to admire the sheer Balls on the man, in the face of overwhelming damning evidence, that he can still with a straight face go around with """Everything I did was covered by accountants and lawyers telling me what I had to do to stay within the law,""

The real crime here is the man will still more then likely never spend a day in Jail, the appeals will go on forever and at some point some idiot will have it overturned.

[TimothyC]

Already posted here.

[Crossroads Inc.]

Already posted here.

Thats what I get, ok, lock away.

EDIT: Both of you, next time just PM a mod rather than clutter a thread. Merged both topics. --Lagmonster