If you are a normal working Joe and you find yourself before a Judge after a Jury has convicted you of 11 counts of corruption don't even dream of getting off as easy as U.S. District Court Judge James Spencer let Bob McDonnell off with. Two years minus 54 days per year off for good behavior will not settle your score.
Judge James Spencer made a joke of the work done by the jury in convicting former Governor Bob McDonnell on 11 counts of corruption by ignoring completely the guideline sentencing range recommended by the federal probation office of 10 years and one month to 12 years and seven months. Somehow Judge Spencer reduced those amounts to two years. McDonnell left court crowing about his trust in God and his good friends who stood by his side during this unfair and unjust ordeal. He then announced that a immediate appeal would be entered in his behalf to do away with the unjust two year sentence. This sentence was a joke. It is not immediately clear if McDonnell will remain free while the appeal is being decided even though McDonnell was given a Feb.9th report date to prison.
James Spencer is a federal judge on senior status for the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia. He joined the court in 1986 after being nominated by President Ronald Reagan.
The money spent on this circus trial and the time of the jury members was a complete waste. Judge Spencer and Bob McDonald have made a mark on the history of the Commonwealth of Virginia.
Former Virginia governor Robert F. McDonnell was sentenced Tuesday to two years in federal prison. McDonnell and his wife, Maureen, were convicted in September of lending the prestige of the governor’s office to Richmond businessman Jonnie R. Williams Sr. in exchange for $177,000 in loans, vacations and luxury items. Maureen McDonnell’s sentencing is scheduled for Feb. 20.
Defense: 'We will never give up this case'
Defense attorneys Henry Asbill and John Brownlee told reporters outside court that Robert F. McDonnell’s legal team will continue to fight for the former governor.
“Sometimes in a case like this, justice is a marathon,” Asbill said. “We will never give up this case.”
Brownlee said he appreciated that Judge Spencer saw McDonnell as a “human being” in giving him a far lighter sentence than federal guidelines suggested. But, he said, “We will continue to fight for his innocence. … I believe Bob McDonnell is an innocent man.”
'Any prison time' is punishment, investigator says
U.S. Attorney Dana J. Boente and FBI Special Agent Adam Lee would not comment outside court on Judge Spencer’s sentence, which fell far below what prosecutors had requested.
Boente said that judges “sometimes see things differently,” but that Spencer “gave a good explanation” for his thinking.
“Any prison time for an elected official is punishment,” Lee said. Investigators and prosecutors did “an outstanding job administrating this incredibly complex case.”
There’s “no celebration,” he said, “just an abiding sense that we did the right thing.”
McDonnell: I 'never, ever betrayed my sacred oath'
Standing outside the courthouse after his sentencing, former governor Robert F. McDonnell said that while he was “deeply, deeply sorry” for some of his actions, he has “never, ever betrayed my sacred oath of office.”
McDonnell walked out of the building clasping the hands of his daughters Cailin and Jeanine, both of whom cried after the two-year sentence was read. McDonnell, who did not cry, then hugged all of his children and kissed his wife on the cheek. Maureen McDonnell remained in the courtroom, sobbing, while her husband and his legal team left to fill out paperwork related to the judge’s decision.
While he thanked the judge “for the mercy he displayed to me today,” McDonnell told reporters that he “disagree[s] with the verdict and is filing an appeal today or tomorrow."
“I have immense faith in the justice system,” he said, but his “ultimate vindication” will come from Jesus Christ.
McDonnell thanked his children, his wife and other family members for being “unbelievably resolute,” and his friends for their “undying kindnesses” throughout his ordeal.
The price of corruption
Robert McDonnell was sentenced to two years in prison as the first Virginia governor ever to be convicted of a crime. But he is hardly the first politician to face prison time in a public corruption case, even in the state that he once presided over. Here is a look at a few of the sentences others have faced in similar cases in recent years.
Rod Blagojevich (D), former Illinois governor
14 YEARS, SENTENCED IN 2011
Blagojevich tried to offer up the Senate seat vacated by President Barack Obama in exchange for campaign cash or personal favors.
Prosecutors had asked for a sentence between 15 and 20 years; Blagojevich's defense attorney asked for the "lowest sentence possible." The guideline range was somewhat murky: a judge agreed that it was properly calculated as 30 years to life but reduced it after determining that Blagojevich had accepted responsibility and such a penalty would be too harsh.
William Jefferson (D-La.), former U.S. congressman
13 YEARS, SENTENCED IN 2009
Jefferson received hundreds of thousands of dollars in bribes related to business ventures he helped arrange in Africa.
Prosecutors had wanted Jefferson to spend 27 to 33 years in prison, which is what the probation office said federal sentencing guidelines called for until a judge reduced them. Defense attorneys wanted a term of less than 10 years. Jefferson was sentenced by U.S. District Judge T.S. Ellis III, who sits in the same federal jurisdiction as the judge who will sentence McDonnell, though not the same courthouse.
Ray Nagin (D), former New Orleans mayor
10 YEARS, SENTENCED IN 2014
Nagin took bribes in exchange for awarding city contracts.
The probation office's federal sentencing guideline calculation called for at least 20 years in prison. Prosecutors endorsed that recommendation; defense attorneys asked for a sentence less than that.
Phil Hamilton (R), former Virginia state delegate
9.5 YEARS, SENTENCED IN 2011
Hamilton steered half-million-dollar earmark to Old Dominion University and secured a $40,000-a-year position at the school in return.
Prosecutors had wanted Hamilton to spend between 12 years and seven months and 15 years and eight months in prison, which is what the probation office had calculated as the federal sentencing guideline range. Defense attorneys had argued a range of 6 1/2 to eight years was more appropriate and advocated for a penalty less than that.
Hamilton, notably, was sentenced by U.S. District Judge Henry E. Hudson, who sits in the same federal courthouse as the judge who will sentence McDonnell.
Randy "Duke" Cunningham (R-Calif.), former U.S. congressman
8.33 YEARS, SENTENCED IN 2006
Cunningham took millions in bribes from contractors to steer defense work their way
According to the New York Times, prosecutors had asked for ten years; defense attorneys had asked for six. Cunningham pleaded guilty in the case.
Jack B. Johnson (D), former county executive of Prince George's, Maryland
7.25 YEARS, SENTENCED IN 2011
Johnson pleaded guilty to extortion and witness and evidence tampering after a sting operation in which he accepted a bribe from a developer and then was heard on a wire telling his wife to flush a check down the toilet.
Federal sentencing guidelines called for a maximum term of 14 years in prison.
Don Siegelman (D), former Alabama governor
6.5 YEARS, SENTENCED IN 2012
Siegelman named a health executive to a state hospital board in exchange for $500,000 in contributions to a favored political cause
The proceeding was his second sentencing because an appeals court threw out some of his convictions.
Richard "Rick" Renzi (R-Az.), former U.S. congressman
3 YEARS, SENTENCED IN 2013
Renzi used his office to profit from a federal land exchange.
According to the Arizona Republic, prosecutors sought a sentence of nine to twelve years, defense attorneys sought a penalty of less than two years and nine months and federal sentencing guidelines called for a term between eight years and a month and 10 years and a month.
Bob Ney (R-Ohio), former U.S. congressman
2.5 YEARS, SENTENCED IN 2007
Ney was convicted for corrupt dealings with lobbyist Jack Abramoff.
The sentence was slightly more than the two years and three months that prosecutors had requested. Ney's case was different in that he pleaded guilty, and in exchange, prosecutors agreed to recommend a sentence of only two years and three months.
Robert McDonnell (R), former Virginia governor
2 YEARS, SENTENCED IN 2015
McDonnell was found guilty of 11 counts of conspiracy, honest services fraud and obtaining property under color of official right, related to trading favors with a wealthy businessman, Jonnie R. Williams Sr., in exchange for more than $175,000 in loans and gifts. His wife Maureen was convicted of 8 counts.
Judge: lengthy sentence 'would be ridiculous'
In a winding, roughly 15-minute speech before he imposed McDonnell’s two-year sentence, U.S. District Judge James Spencer mused on the fairness of the trial, the history of federal sentencing guidelines, the sadness of the case and even what personal knowledge he had of the former governor.
Spencer tipped that he would probably impose a lenient term when he talked of how the sentencing guidelines — once mandatory — would now allow him to show some discretion.
Referring to a sentence of seven or eight years, he said: “That would be unfair, it would be ridiculous, under these facts.”
But Spencer was somewhat critical of McDonnell’s conduct and those of his supporters. He twice noted efforts to blame Maureen McDonnell, the former first lady of Virginia, who was also charged in the case. At one point, he called those who asserted that she had roped the governor into the case “dangerously delusional.” Later, he said: “While Mrs. McDonnell may have allowed the serpent into the mansion, the governor knowingly let him into his personal and business affairs.”
Spencer said he was saddened by the entire affair.
“No one wants to see a former governor of this great commonwealth in this kind of trouble,” he said, but added: “The jury by its verdict found an intent to defraud. That is a serious offense that all the grace and mercy that I can muster, it can’t cover it all.”
Don't worry too much Judge, by your sentence you nullified the jury verdict and gave McDonnell a walk.
ACVDN
Jeb Cleans Up Act to Run for President
Former Florida governor Jeb Bush, moving closer to a possible presidential run, has resigned all of his corporate and nonprofit board memberships, including with his own education foundation, his office said late Wednesday night.
He also resigned as a paid adviser to a for-profit education company that sells online courses to public university students in exchange for a share of their tuition payments.
Bush’s New Year’s Eve disclosure, coming in an e-mail from an aide to The Washington Post, culminated a string of moves he has made in recent days to shed business interests that have enriched him since leaving office in 2007. The aide said the resignations had been made “effective today.”
The aide said Bush was reviewing other businesses in which he is principal partner or owner, such as Jeb Bush & Associates, a consulting firm, and Britton Hill Partnership, a business advisory group that in 2013 set up private-equity funds investing in energy and aviation.
Aides said Bush wants to devote his time to exploring a return to politics rather than pursuing his business commitments. But separating himself from those interests now could also be a strategic attempt to prepare for the added scrutiny of a hotly contested campaign for the Republican nomination.
Bush’s financial stake in Academic Partnerships, the online education firm, has been relatively small for a millionaire — a $60,000-a-year fee and ownership of a small amount of stock, said Randy Best, the company’s founder and chief executive. Even so, Bush’s affiliation with the firm — which has contracts with schools in a half-dozen states and several foreign countries and has annual sales of $100 million — could complicate his effort to promote his record as an education reformer.
The company receives up to 70 percent of the tuition some students pay to public universities, and some faculty members say it siphons money from the schools while asserting too much control over academic decisions.
Best, a Texas entrepreneur and major political donor, said his firm has increased professors’ access to online students and helped schools attract additional revenue, while Bush aides say the former governor does not have business interests related to K-12 education, which has been his policy focus.
Bush’s decision to extricate himself from his private-sector work is “part and parcel of a process he is going through as he transitions to focus on a potential run for president,” said his spokeswoman, Kristy Campbell. “This is a natural next step that will allow him to focus his time on gauging interest for a potential run.”
The effort underscores the lengths to which Bush — who has become the favorite prospective candidate of many major GOP donors and has been at or near the top of polls testing the possible Republican presidential field — appears willing to go to avoid pitfalls that hurt the party in 2012. That year, GOP nominee Mitt Romney, founder of a private-equity fund, struggled to explain his business background while under attack by GOP rivals and President Obama.
Bush, 61, lamented Romney’s handling of the criticism in an interview last month with Miami’s WPLG-TV. Bush said the 2012 nominee allowed himself to be pulled “off message” and should have told voters: “I’m a problem-solver. My life has been about building things up.”
Of his own business record, Bush said: “I’m not ashamed. Taking risk and creating jobs is something we ought to have more of.”
Bush’s business portfolio is far smaller than that of Romney, whose Bain Capital became one of the country’s most successful private-equity firms. Yet it is complicated and could present political problems because he has been affiliated with a broad range of industries and businesses.
Bush announced last month that he was ending his consulting relationship with Barclays, the British investment-banking conglomerate. The New York Times reported in May that the company paid Bush more than $1 million a year.
The bank, like other major Wall Street players, had been under scrutiny in recent years for alleged interest rate manipulations and for allegedly providing special benefits to big traders.
Recent Securities and Exchange Commission filings revealed that Bush was leaving the boards of two publicly traded firms: Rayonier, which invests in forest lands, and Tenet Healthcare, which backed Obama’s health-insurance initiative and profited from its passage.
From Tenet, Bush has received nearly $2.1 million in director’s fees and restricted company stock since joining the board in 2007. The filings show that he sold some of his Tenet stock through the years. A March 14, SEC report showed that Bush held 59,403 shares of Tenet stock valued at the time at just over $3 million.
Academic Partnerships stood out in Bush’s business portfolio because it allowed him to combine a public policy issue he cared about with a business investment.
Bush’s reputation as an school reformer stems from his work on K-12 education as governor and as the head of his Foundation for Excellence in Education. He has been an advocate for online learning as a tool to expand opportunities for students.
While Bush’s association with the company began several years after he left office, Best contacted him about a possible business partnership before his departure from Tallahassee. The Texas businessman had connections to the Bush family, having raised money for the successful presidential campaigns of Bush’s older brother, George W. Bush.
After the two men met, Best sent Bush an e-mail in April 2005 touting a “huge global business opportunity” that could come from a “post-secondary initiative” he said they had previously discussed. He said he hoped Bush found the idea “intriguing.”
“If you are interested, let’s continue our discussions as you begin to think about returning to the private sector after you leave office,” Best wrote in the e-mail, which was obtained by The Post as part of a public-records request.
Bush responded that he had “pledged to myself to focus on my job until it is complete. I think I have a duty to do so.”
“Having said that,” Bush continued, “I think your vision is outstanding.”
Best said in an interview that he approached Bush at the time because he had heard that the governor might be looking for opportunities in the private sector. “I tried to get him in the water early,” Best said.
Years later, Best said, Bush was drawn to the firm because he has long been “intrigued by innovation in education,” particularly the goal of “bringing down the cost of higher education while maintaining quality.”
In his capacity as an adviser, Bush was “available to run ideas by and discuss concepts” as the firm expanded, Best said.
He said Bush helped preside over two conferences on the future of education hosted by the firm. Bush and former North Carolina governor Jim Hunt (D) helped draw a high-powered lineup of speakers, including Hillary Rodham Clinton, the likely Democratic presidential front-runner, who addressed a March meeting on global education.
A 2012 report by the Texas Tribune said the company received $105 million in revenue from 24 public colleges and universities, including eight in Texas. Forbes magazine reported in 2013 that the company had contracts with 40 U.S. schools.
Bush and Best wrote a 2013 article for Inside Higher Ed predicting that online classes would make higher education more accessible. “Companies like ours — Academic Partnerships — are helping universities respond to this transformative movement,” they wrote.
On some campuses, however, faculty members have viewed the arrival of Academic Partnerships with suspicion.
When the company arrived at Arkansas State University in 2011, for instance, faculty members were concerned “about a loss of quality and control,” said Jack Zibluk, a professor of media studies who headed the faculty senate at the time. Additional controversy erupted, he said, when some school officials involved in negotiations with the company later landed jobs with an affiliated firm.
Experts said that whether to do business with a contractor such as Academic Parternships remains a subject of great debate for university administrators.
“I don’t question whether firms like Academic Partnerships do quality work,” said Barbara Bichelmeyer, who directs online education for the seven campuses of Indiana
University, which has chosen not to outsource its online learning programs. “The question we are engaging is about the ownership of the online educational experience — and whether a public institution is comfortable outsourcing this work in whole or in part.”
Best said that academicians’ concerns about his company — and online education generally — have largely diminished.
“It just increased their access to online students,” he said. The additional tuition received by schools “is revenue they would never have otherwise.”
Best said Bush called his cellphone Dec. 16, after announcing plans to explore a presidential bid, to let him know that he planned to resign from the company. Best said he plans to support Bush’s candidacy.
“He is the closest thing we have to a bipartisan candidate” who takes principled stands on tough issues such as immigration and education, Best said. “He is not going to be a person who responds to the polls or every change in the political winds.”
Amherst County Virginia Democratic News
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Amherst Democratic News
Former Florida governor Jeb Bush, moving closer to a possible presidential run, has resigned all of his corporate and nonprofit board memberships, including with his own education foundation, his office said late Wednesday night.
He also resigned as a paid adviser to a for-profit education company that sells online courses to public university students in exchange for a share of their tuition payments.
Bush’s New Year’s Eve disclosure, coming in an e-mail from an aide to The Washington Post, culminated a string of moves he has made in recent days to shed business interests that have enriched him since leaving office in 2007. The aide said the resignations had been made “effective today.”
The aide said Bush was reviewing other businesses in which he is principal partner or owner, such as Jeb Bush & Associates, a consulting firm, and Britton Hill Partnership, a business advisory group that in 2013 set up private-equity funds investing in energy and aviation.
Aides said Bush wants to devote his time to exploring a return to politics rather than pursuing his business commitments. But separating himself from those interests now could also be a strategic attempt to prepare for the added scrutiny of a hotly contested campaign for the Republican nomination.
Bush’s financial stake in Academic Partnerships, the online education firm, has been relatively small for a millionaire — a $60,000-a-year fee and ownership of a small amount of stock, said Randy Best, the company’s founder and chief executive. Even so, Bush’s affiliation with the firm — which has contracts with schools in a half-dozen states and several foreign countries and has annual sales of $100 million — could complicate his effort to promote his record as an education reformer.
The company receives up to 70 percent of the tuition some students pay to public universities, and some faculty members say it siphons money from the schools while asserting too much control over academic decisions.
Best, a Texas entrepreneur and major political donor, said his firm has increased professors’ access to online students and helped schools attract additional revenue, while Bush aides say the former governor does not have business interests related to K-12 education, which has been his policy focus.
Bush’s decision to extricate himself from his private-sector work is “part and parcel of a process he is going through as he transitions to focus on a potential run for president,” said his spokeswoman, Kristy Campbell. “This is a natural next step that will allow him to focus his time on gauging interest for a potential run.”
The effort underscores the lengths to which Bush — who has become the favorite prospective candidate of many major GOP donors and has been at or near the top of polls testing the possible Republican presidential field — appears willing to go to avoid pitfalls that hurt the party in 2012. That year, GOP nominee Mitt Romney, founder of a private-equity fund, struggled to explain his business background while under attack by GOP rivals and President Obama.
Bush, 61, lamented Romney’s handling of the criticism in an interview last month with Miami’s WPLG-TV. Bush said the 2012 nominee allowed himself to be pulled “off message” and should have told voters: “I’m a problem-solver. My life has been about building things up.”
Of his own business record, Bush said: “I’m not ashamed. Taking risk and creating jobs is something we ought to have more of.”
Bush’s business portfolio is far smaller than that of Romney, whose Bain Capital became one of the country’s most successful private-equity firms. Yet it is complicated and could present political problems because he has been affiliated with a broad range of industries and businesses.
Bush announced last month that he was ending his consulting relationship with Barclays, the British investment-banking conglomerate. The New York Times reported in May that the company paid Bush more than $1 million a year.
The bank, like other major Wall Street players, had been under scrutiny in recent years for alleged interest rate manipulations and for allegedly providing special benefits to big traders.
Recent Securities and Exchange Commission filings revealed that Bush was leaving the boards of two publicly traded firms: Rayonier, which invests in forest lands, and Tenet Healthcare, which backed Obama’s health-insurance initiative and profited from its passage.
From Tenet, Bush has received nearly $2.1 million in director’s fees and restricted company stock since joining the board in 2007. The filings show that he sold some of his Tenet stock through the years. A March 14, SEC report showed that Bush held 59,403 shares of Tenet stock valued at the time at just over $3 million.
Academic Partnerships stood out in Bush’s business portfolio because it allowed him to combine a public policy issue he cared about with a business investment.
Bush’s reputation as an school reformer stems from his work on K-12 education as governor and as the head of his Foundation for Excellence in Education. He has been an advocate for online learning as a tool to expand opportunities for students.
While Bush’s association with the company began several years after he left office, Best contacted him about a possible business partnership before his departure from Tallahassee. The Texas businessman had connections to the Bush family, having raised money for the successful presidential campaigns of Bush’s older brother, George W. Bush.
After the two men met, Best sent Bush an e-mail in April 2005 touting a “huge global business opportunity” that could come from a “post-secondary initiative” he said they had previously discussed. He said he hoped Bush found the idea “intriguing.”
“If you are interested, let’s continue our discussions as you begin to think about returning to the private sector after you leave office,” Best wrote in the e-mail, which was obtained by The Post as part of a public-records request.
Bush responded that he had “pledged to myself to focus on my job until it is complete. I think I have a duty to do so.”
“Having said that,” Bush continued, “I think your vision is outstanding.”
Best said in an interview that he approached Bush at the time because he had heard that the governor might be looking for opportunities in the private sector. “I tried to get him in the water early,” Best said.
Years later, Best said, Bush was drawn to the firm because he has long been “intrigued by innovation in education,” particularly the goal of “bringing down the cost of higher education while maintaining quality.”
In his capacity as an adviser, Bush was “available to run ideas by and discuss concepts” as the firm expanded, Best said.
He said Bush helped preside over two conferences on the future of education hosted by the firm. Bush and former North Carolina governor Jim Hunt (D) helped draw a high-powered lineup of speakers, including Hillary Rodham Clinton, the likely Democratic presidential front-runner, who addressed a March meeting on global education.
A 2012 report by the Texas Tribune said the company received $105 million in revenue from 24 public colleges and universities, including eight in Texas. Forbes magazine reported in 2013 that the company had contracts with 40 U.S. schools.
Bush and Best wrote a 2013 article for Inside Higher Ed predicting that online classes would make higher education more accessible. “Companies like ours — Academic Partnerships — are helping universities respond to this transformative movement,” they wrote.
On some campuses, however, faculty members have viewed the arrival of Academic Partnerships with suspicion.
When the company arrived at Arkansas State University in 2011, for instance, faculty members were concerned “about a loss of quality and control,” said Jack Zibluk, a professor of media studies who headed the faculty senate at the time. Additional controversy erupted, he said, when some school officials involved in negotiations with the company later landed jobs with an affiliated firm.
Experts said that whether to do business with a contractor such as Academic Parternships remains a subject of great debate for university administrators.
“I don’t question whether firms like Academic Partnerships do quality work,” said Barbara Bichelmeyer, who directs online education for the seven campuses of Indiana
University, which has chosen not to outsource its online learning programs. “The question we are engaging is about the ownership of the online educational experience — and whether a public institution is comfortable outsourcing this work in whole or in part.”
Best said that academicians’ concerns about his company — and online education generally — have largely diminished.
“It just increased their access to online students,” he said. The additional tuition received by schools “is revenue they would never have otherwise.”
Best said Bush called his cellphone Dec. 16, after announcing plans to explore a presidential bid, to let him know that he planned to resign from the company. Best said he plans to support Bush’s candidacy.
“He is the closest thing we have to a bipartisan candidate” who takes principled stands on tough issues such as immigration and education, Best said. “He is not going to be a person who responds to the polls or every change in the political winds.”
Amherst County Virginia Democratic News
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Amherst Democratic News
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