HARTFORD, Conn. (AP) — Former Connecticut Gov. John Rowland reported to a federal prison in New York on Monday to begin serving a 2 ½-year sentence for conspiring to hide his work on political campaigns — a decade after he finished doing prison time for a corruption scandal that led him to resign from office in 2004.
The 59-year-old Republican reported to the Otisville federal prison, about 80 miles northwest of New York City, said U.S. Marshal Brian Taylor.
A federal jury in New Haven convicted the Waterbury native in 2014 of seven charges including conspiracy and falsifying records.
Prosecutors said Rowland was paid $35,000 for political consulting for Lisa Wilson-Foley, a Republican who in 2012 was running for the 5th Congressional District. They said while Rowland claimed to have volunteered for the campaign, the payment was disguised in a contract between Rowland and Wilson-Foley’s husband, who owned a nursing home chain.
Prosecutors said Rowland also tried to set up a similar arrangement in the 2010 election with another Republican congressional candidate, Mark Greenberg, who said he turned down the proposal.
A federal appeals court in New York upheld Rowland’s convictions in June. Last month, U.S. Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg approved Rowland’s request to extend the deadline for him to ask the high court to hear his case from Sept. 15 to Nov. 14.
A lawyer for Rowland, Andrew Fish, declined to comment Monday. He has argued the government withheld evidence that would have benefited the defense and misapplied a federal law.
Rowland served as governor from 1995 to 2004, when he resigned amid a corruption scandal involving illegal gifts that would send him to federal prison for 10 months. He went on to become a talk radio host after the prison time.
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