Former Alabama Governor Don Seigelman sentenced to 88 months in prison!

Sentence to begin immediately. He was taken from the court house directly to prison, even while he is filing for appeal. I guess he doesn't have Scooter's pull. There is more to the sentence - thousands of dollars in fines and 500 hours of community service after prison. Man, is this retribution for Scooter?

Sorry, I don't have a link - I just saw it on tee vee...

He tried to fob it off on others, even Rove, but he brought himself down

In a nutshell he was accused of appointing Richard Scrushy to the state hospital board in exchange for a contribution to a lottery campaign. Scrushy had served on the same board under the three previous governors.

This prosecution persecution was in fact engineered by the Bush administration, to hurt the Democratic party.

And this "bubba" as you call him, has a law degree from Georgetown, studied international law at Oxford, served as Secretary Of State, Attorney General, Lieutenant Governor and Governor, and enjoys broad support among the Africa-American community. Bubba, indeed.

That means he's gotta be a slackjawed yokel, right?

;-)

which is quite telling. Nice to see you, QC, haven't seen you around lately. :hi:

Nice to see you around! :hi:

You are implying massive fraud and collusion within the justice system without substantive proof. Assuming the MSM got it right, the jury convicted on 7 charges, not clear if those were just his or both defendants. Even assuming that the Repukes are getting away with things, there is nothing to suggest that this judge or the jury were some how co-conspirators in a Rovian plot.

Some of us are realistic to face the fact that not all Democratic party members are angels, as in the case of of Dollar Bill Jefferson.

And in my opinion, he still qualifies as a bubba...and it does not matter with whom he is popular.

Now where's that huge list of pervs, molesters, Republican convicts and assorted other Conservative miscreants? Did you read where Rove was in on the gig and how Cheney was helping to get William Jefferson case going. Makes you go hmmmmm.

Another former Alabama Governor, Republican Guy Hunt, was convicted of fraud. He actually pocketed a couple hundred grand for personal use and was found guilty on all charges. He received no jail time, at all. Nada. Seigelman asks for a donation to the state lottery fund (something that has been documented as having been done several times in the past, by Governors of both parties), but this time the US attorney was over heard saying that Karl was looking into it and Seigelman was going down. So, was this "justice" as usual, I don't think so...


Here's the link to the Rove connection.

http://www.tpmmuckraker.com/archives/cats/don_siegelman/


A snippet -
"The reporter asked Rove about the allegations made by a Republican lawyer in a sworn affidavit (available here). The lawyer, Dana Jill Simpson, claims that on a conference call in 2002, a GOP strategist said he and Rove spoke about having the Department of Justice investigate Siegelman purely to get him out of the way.

Rove's response (with a smile) to such an explosive accusation:

"I know nothing about any phone call," Rove said.""

It has no reflection on his education, social standing, or economic status. It is also not the equivalent of cracker, or other derogatory term. Your mileage may very.

particular subject. "Bubba" is a derogatory term, at least down here, when used as you used it. I personally don't care whether you use it or not (it doesn't really bother me), but I asked because I had the feeling that you did not realize the pejorative context in which you used the word. In the context in which you used the word, its meaning is "redneck", "cracker", "inbred", "racist" and on and on.

:hi:

I lived in alabama when he was campaigning for governor, and it seemed all the two candidates could do is argue who was the greater bible thumper.

Duh.

If not those, which?

many, many times in the past without prosecution. Not saying that it might not really be illegal, but just that he may have had a reasonable expectation of not incurring any legal problems in doing so.

But I also believe that it must be done, fairly and on a level playing field. If you cannot trust the administration of justice then all actions of justice are suspect, and until we can be sure that justice is administered in an impartial manner we must stay vigilant and not be quick to accept rulings without question.

I don't even need the 'sarcasm' smilie here.
Read this and see what you think:
http://www.locustfork.net/blog/jill_simpsons_affidavit/jill_simpsons_famous_affidavit.html

There is no indication that the trial court or jury was corrupt. That the details were outed by Repukes really doesn't impact the trial court
- Judges dismissed many of the original indictments
- 7 Charges stuck
- There was payment for a motorcycle in their somewhere

I concur that the sentence is out of line with other similar convictions
I concur that the *go directly to jail* action was uncalled for under the circumstances
I agree that the appeal should be watched carefully

However, no one has shown corruption or tampering with the local judge or jury.


I am a real bug on political corruption. I hate it with a passion. I don't care which party it comes from. The laggard response from the Democratic Party about Dollar Bill Jefferson was shameful, it was so bad it is what the Repukes would have done. We all have our political fetishes, this is one of mine

"But what I didn't know was that there were two ringers on the jury who'd been e-mailing other jurors two weeks into the trial, trying to get them to come over to their side," Siegelman said.

"And I didn't know that there wouldn't be an investigation into such blatant jury tampering."

U.S. District Court Judge Mark Fuller denied motions for a new trial on that allegation.
<snip>
In an interview with Time magazine, attorney Jill Simpson, a Republican who worked on Riley's 2002 campaign, said the governor's son, Rob Riley, said in a November 2002 conference call that Siegelman was "just like a cockroach. He'll never die. What are we doing to do?"

In her affidavit, Simpson said Alabama GOP operative Bill Canary said he'd spoken with "Karl," who assured him the Department of Justice was already positioned to go after Siegelman.

Simpson said Canary said "his girls" would "take care" of the governor, and the "girls" he was referring to were his wife, Leura Canary, and Alice Martin, both U.S. attorneys.
<snip>
Coincidentally, Rove was in Alabama on Thursday with President Bush as he toured the Browns Ferry nuclear plant in Athens. When asked about Siegelman's allegations that he was pulling the puppet strings behind the ex-governor's prosecution, Rove smiled and denied it.

"I know nothing about any phone call," Rove said.

Then a White House press aide stepped up and said, "What he meant to say was that he has no comment."
http://blog.al.com/breaking/2007/06/siegelman_awaits_sentencing_tu.html

There's a lot more going on here than has been reported in major state newspapers.

a prisoner exchange.

I mean, all Siegelman did was get a rich guy to donate to a state lottery fund - to benefit education (for gods' sake); Scooter, on the other hand, out a CIA operative and may be responsible for many, many killings as a result. So how many Siegelman's could we get for one Scooter?

how does that work?

OK To go back and read (I just had to open it)

(maybe when they fixed stuff they got the view count tabulation wrong? I don't know; it doesn't make sense) in the way the Seigelman sentence doesn't make sense...

edit number replies wrong...but still more replies than views???

:hi: