Judge sentences Jesse Jackson Jr. to 30 months in prison, wife gets 12 months (998 hits)
UPDATE: Judge sentences Jackson wife to 12 months in federal prison.
WASHINGTON – Former Rep. Jesse Jackson Jr. was sentenced today to 30 months in prison plus three years of supervised release for misspending about $750,000 in campaign funds.
His wife, Sandi, a former Chicago alderman, is expected to be sentenced within minutes on a related charge.
Both Jacksons wept in court as they addressed the judge before sentencing.
Jackson Jr. apologized for his crimes and expressed special regrets to his mother and father.
“Your honor, throughout this process I’ve asked the government and the court to hold me and only me accountable for my actions,” he said.
When Jackson Jr. spoke, he voice was firm except for the few times he wept openly and paused to dry his eyes with tissue, blow his nose and collect himself.
“I am the example for the whole Congress,” he said. “I understand that. I didn’t separate my personal life from my political activities, and I couldn’t have been more wrong.”
Talking about his desire to be sent to a federal prison camp in Alabama, he said: “I want to make it a little inconvenient for everybody to get to me.”
He said he hoped that his wife could earn enough money in his absence to keep the family together. “When I get back, I’ll take on that burden,” Jackson Jr. said. “By then I hope my children will be old enough that the pain I caused will be easier to bear.”
After a break in the hearing, Sandi Jackson got her opportunity to address the court. She started by telling the judge: “I am a little nervous, so I have a written statement that I would like to read to you.”
She continued: “I want to begin by apologizing first to my family, to my friends, my community and my constiuents for the actions that brought me here today."
She said she had caused “disappointment in my community” and had “put my family unit in peril.”
“My heart breaks every day with the pain this has caused my babies,” she continued, weeping. “I ask to be parent, provider and support system that my babies will require in the difficult months ahead.”
Their children are ages 13 and 9.
Earlier, Jackson Jr.’s lawyer Reid Weingarten said his client felt “horror, shame and distress” over his crimes.
But Weingarten also attempted to downplay the impact of Jackson Jr.’s actions, since he took money from his own campaign fund. It’s not as if there are widows and orphans outside the courthouse who are victims and asking for his head, Weingarten said.
“This is not a Ponzi scheme,” he said.
Weingarten asked for an 18-month sentence for Jackson Jr. and noted, “He suffers from a very, very serious mental health disease.”
He identified the ex-congressman’s illness as bipolar disorder, and conceded that it was relevant even though “we didn’t plead guilty by reason of insanity.”
