Disgraced former Jacksonville Port Authority chairman Tony Nelson has been sentenced to 40 months in prison for accepting bribes to use his influence at the port.
Nelson also has to serve one year of supervised release, during which he’ll perform 200 hours of community service and have to let the government review his finances.
Nelson stood silent, swaying slightly, as the sentence was imposed. He bowed his head when the judge acquiesced to his request to serve his time in Jesup, Ga.
Nelson has said he plans to appeal the judgment and has asked to be allowed to remain free until that appeal can take place.
Lance Young, the man who confessed to bribing him, received a 20-month prison sentence. He has also been ordered to pay a $100,000 fine and serve one-year supervised release. Young also has to perform 500 hours of community service.
Sentencing guidelines suggest Young receive about five years in prison, one to three years of supervised release and fines of $10,000 to $100,000. The guidelines recommend Nelson be sentenced to eight to 10 years in prison, serve one to three years of supervised release and pay a fine of $15,000 to $16 million.
The government objected to the downward deviation in Nelson’s case.
This case is not the typical bribery case, U.S. District Judge Timothy Corrigan said, citing the lack of a quid pro quo and the other business and personal relationships between Nelson and Young.
“I have done nothing but think about this for days,” Corrigan said, explaining how he came to the sentence.
Review the case: U.S. vs. Tony Nelson
The sentences were imposed after Corrigan rejected Nelson’s last-minute requests for acquittal or a new trial, saying one filing didn’t raise anything new and the other was based on an erroneous premise.
Curtis Fallgatter, Nelson’s attorney, argued in a motion filed Thursday evening that the judge and jury had not paid attention to the fact that Florida law allows appointed board members to lobby the entities they serve.
That idea, Corrigan said, had been raised numerous times throughout the trial and was not a reason to change the guilty sentence Nelson received.
“This motion doesn’t raise anything new that the court has not previously been confronted with and addressed,” he said.
The second motion accused the prosecution of misconduct by telling the jury that Young, its star witness, did not have a deal with them in exchange for his testimony. Thre was no signed deal with Young, but the government has now urged the judge to be lenient in his sentencing because of his cooperation.
"Mr. Fallgatter did everything he could to ask the jury to disbelieve Mr. Young, and the jury’s verdict was the jury’s verdict," the judge said.
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