With former Detroit City Council president Monica Conyers appealing the three-year sentence she received last week after pleading guilty to bribery charges, a federal judge today appointed a public defender to represent Conyers, whom he declared indigent.
A statement from a court spokesman suggests that Monica Conyers’ husband, House Judiciary Chairman John Conyers (D-MI), is not willing to pitch in for legal fees.
“The information available to the judge established an inability to pay for an attorney by Mrs. Conyers. This information included a detailed description of her financial resources in the presentence investigation report. And that Mrs. Conyers was on her own, so to speak, as to such resources,” the spokesman said, according to the Detroit News.
As we’ve previously noted, John and Monica Conyers reportedly lead largely separate lives.
The local Detroit media reported last week that John Conyers did not attend his wife’s sentencing, even though he was in his office in the same building as the court.
It was at that sentencing hearing that Monica Conyers unexpectedly demanded that the plea deal she agreed to be withdrawn. “I just don’t feel that I should go to jail for something that I didn’t do,” she said, according to the Detroit Free Press.
