Former Connecticut Gov. John Rowland was sentenced Wednesday to 30 months in jail in connection with a campaign payment scheme.
If he ends up serving a prison term, it’ll be Rowland’s second go-round in jail. Ten years ago, after resigning his office in 2004, Rowland went to jail after pleading guilty to a corruption charge.
This time, prosecutors said Rowland got $35,000 for work on the 2012 campaign of a Republican congressional candidate, and then conspired to hide the money via a consulting contract with the candidate’s husband’s firm. Rowland maintains he is innocent and is expected to appeal.
According to reporter Edmund Mahony of the Hartford Courant, “U.S. District Judge Janet Bond Arterton said Rowland showed a striking disregard for the clean election laws a jury said he broke while trying to conceal his role as a paid consultant to a 2012 Congressional campaign of Lisa Wilson-Foley.”
Mahoney quoted Arterton as saying, “What is striking and disturbing is Mr. Rowland's total contempt for those laws which was made abundantly clear at the trial, including his shameless use of his radio talk show to advantage one candidate, Ms. Wilson-Foley and to disadvantage her lead opponent.”
Mahony reported:
“Rowland was sentenced for seven crimes, five of them felonies, associated with a conspiracy to break federal campaign laws that promote open elections by requiring the public reporting of all campaign expenditures. Rowland was charged for his involvement or attempted involvement in the Greenberg and Wilson-Foley campaigns.
“Arterton imposed 30 month sentences for five of the crimes and 12 month sentences on the remaining two. She ordered all to be served concurrently. She also fined Rowland $35,000 and ordered to serve three years of supervision by the federal probation office upon his release.”
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