Posted on 01/26/2007 11:14:02 AM PST by SmithL
CHATTANOOGA — Former state Rep. Chris Newton, serving a one-year federal prison sentence in the Tennessee Waltz investigation of public corruption, has been moved to a community corrections program in Tennessee, U.S. Bureau of Prisons records show.
"He is in a halfway house," prisons bureau spokesman Mike Truman said Friday.
Newton served nine months of his sentence in a minimum security camp at the U.S. Penitentiary in Atlanta before he was moved Thursday to what the bureau calls community corrections.
The city where the halfway house is located wasn’t identified by the federal agency, but officials at Midway Rehabilitation Center in Knoxville confirmed Newton had arrived there.
Newton wasn’t available for comment.
The Republican from Cleveland is one of five current or former state lawmakers charged with taking bribes from FBI agents posing as businessmen seeking legislative favors. Local officials in Memphis and Chattanooga, and two "bag men" also were charged in the operation.
Newton, 36, pleaded guilty to extortion and bribery conspiracy and then resigned in the middle of his sixth term in the General Assembly.
He was also fined $10,000 for taking a $1,500 bribe and was eligible to earn up to 54 days off the sentence for good behavior.
After he is released from federal custody on Feb. 23, Newton is to spend two years on supervised release and complete 200 hours community service.
After pleading guilty, Newton told reporters he "became caught up in business as usual" at the state Capitol.
The Tennessee Waltz scandal led to a special session of the Legislature and passage of legislation creating an independent ethics commission for lawmakers. The legislation also restricts the contact lobbyists can have with lawmakers and caps cash political contributions.
All of the Democrats are still fighting the charges, pretending innocence, blaming others, or claiming racism.
And John Ford, who stole over one million, was just appointed a public defender.
You left out the "-INO." The fact he was caught was no surprise to me, he seemed to have little problem defending unethical individuals in the legislature.
Of course he's going to blame the public defender as being a poor lawyer when he is convicted. The man passed the bar, which is more than john's nephew harold ford, JR did...therefore the public defender must be qualified.
That reminds me of Diaper Dan in Knoxville. A guy who showed up every once in a while at a nursing home I worked at wanting to check in as being indigent and a mental patient. He would show up wearing a Diaper and a pair of Tennis shoes IIRC. The guy was maybe in his late 30's early 40's. Anyway it seems he was actually pretty well off and even owned a home. The cops finally caught up with him after a fiasco involving a trip to Kentucky.
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