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Tuesday, July 14th, 2009 at 3:57 pm - by Alan Tu. Filed under: Courts, Crime.
(fyi: Defense began its presentation 2:41 p.m.)
According to The Philadelphia Inquirer’s live blog of today’s sentencing hearing for Vince Fumo, the judge says the Fumo case letters will be made public. This is great news. Now we can see who said what. The case letters were submitted by Fumo friends and allies who are asking Judge Ronald Buckwalter to be lenient in sentencing the former Pennsylvania state Senator.
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2:20
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Craig R. McCoy: The judge has pledged to release publicly all the Fumo case letters. |
Fumo was convicted in March 2009 of 137 counts ranging from obstruction of justice to fraud. Inky blogger Craig McCoy says that after a one hour lunch break, the hearing resumed around 1:30 p.m. and that the prosecution is making the case that a long prison sentence for Fumo is not only warranted but also would act as a deterrent to other politicians from stealing.
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2:08
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Craig R. McCoy: “The sentence is not just punishment.. Others need to know if they violate the law, what will happen |
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2:10
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Craig R. McCoy: “There are 11 million people in Pennsylvania who are paying attention to what is happening here.”
Says Buckwalter, “Don’t use hyperbole.” He says many people in his home county of Lancaster had never heard of Fumo. |
The hearing got started at 11:00 a.m. which was one hour later than scheduled. The Judge moved the proceedings to a larger courtroom (300 capacity) which WHYY reporter Susan Phillips says is packed.
When the prosecution is finished, the defense will then be allowed to bring up witnesses on behalf of Fumo. If there’s time, Judge Buckwalter will announce Fumo’s sentence late this afternoon. If not, the proceedings could continue tomorrow morning.
If a sentence is handed down today, be sure and tune in to WHYY 90.9 FM for our reports and be sure and tune in tomorrow morning at 10:00 a.m. for Radio Times. The staff has booked three guests that you won’t want to miss. Here’s the description of the show from Marty’s website.
A behind the scenes look at how the case against Former State Senator Vince Fumo was built and made in court. We talk to Assistant U.S District Attorneys ROBERT ZAUSMER and JOHN PEASE and FBI Special Agent VICKI HUMPHREYS.
July 30th, 2009 at 9:55 pm
Looks what happen to a gal that took only $200,000 and got 11-23 month sentence. The former secretary of Industry told a judge she spent some of the $200,000 she stole from the municipality on a psychic to contact someone in the afterlife.
Thirty-four-year-old Shelly Elkins, of Industry, apologized and promised to try to pay back the money when she was sentenced yesterday.
She’ll be on work release during her 11 1/2- to 23-month jail sentence, and makes minimum wage at a restaurant.
Authorities say she spent the money on vacations, jewelry, pet items and other personal expenses. But Elkins revealed spending thousands of dollars on the psychic, too.
Police say the thefts occurred from 2005 until they were discovered in 2007.
An Inspector General or Attorney General should investigate how much state money was made by Dilworth Paxson when Fumo was a Law Partner Rainmaker.
July 30th, 2009 at 9:59 pm
This one reason why theLegislatoures should limit Judges discretion because of such favoritism and disregard of the people’s property and sociry morals.