ALEXANDRIA, Va. — Former Rep. William Jefferson, the first African-American to win a Congressional seat in Louisiana since Reconstruction, took on the added distinction Friday of receiving the harshest sentence ever given to a member of Congress for a public corruption conviction.
U.S. District Judge T.S. Elllis III, hoping to send a message to deter others in Congress, handed down a sentence of 13 years in prison, far surpassing the previous record sentence of 8 years and 4 months given to former Representative Randy “Duke” Cunningham of California, who pleaded guilty in 2005 to taking $2.4 million in bribes from defense contractors. Next week, the Judge will announce when the prison term begins.
“You’re obviously a person of gifts and those gifts have been squandered,” Judge Ellis told Jefferson, who stood silently in the courtroom next to his attorney Robert Trout.
“Public corruption is a cancer that must be removed,” he said, adding at one point, “There must be some sort of greed virus that attacks people in power.”
