Federal Prosecutors Want Longer Sentence for Siegelman

Federal prosecutors will seek a 20-year prison sentence for former Alabama Governor Don Siegelman when he receives a new sentencing hearing in federal court in Montgomery, according to a report just out from Associated Press.

Siegelman originally received a sentence of roughly seven years following his conviction on federal corruption charges. The new recommendation comes after a panel of three appellate judges dismissed two of the seven charges the former governor was convicted of and ordered a new sentencing hearing.

AP reports:

Prosecutors made the recommendation in a letter to federal probation officers. The probation officers will prepare a report recommending a new sentence to U.S. District Judge Mark Fuller.

Today's report is alarming for a couple of reasons:

(1) It lends credence to the U.S. 11th Circuit Court of Appeals' ruling that upheld most of the convictions against Siegelman and codefendant Richard Scrushy. Our research of the ruling, and the relevant law and facts, indicates the 11th Circuit's ruling was flawed, unlawful, and a continuation of the politics that have permeated the case from the outset.

(2) It indicates that federal prosecutors are acting as brazenly under the Barack Obama administration as they did under George W. Bush. We now have Eric Holder as attorney general, but today's news indicates that makes zero difference to the prosecutors who ramrodded the Siegelman case.

Is the 11th Circuit's ruling flawed? The answer is yes. You certainly won't hear about that from federal prosecutors, and no one in the mainstream press is likely to examine the ruling closely enough to determine whether it is legit or not.

But we have studied the ruling and found it be full of holes. Our findings are coming soon.