Posted on 04/29/2008 7:42:35 AM PDT by SmithL
MEMPHIS - The Rolex watches, fancy suits and plush hotels are all things of the past for former state Sen. John Ford.
Ford, 65, reported Monday to a federal prison camp in Louisiana to begin a 5 1/2-year sentence for taking $55,000 in bribes during the FBI's statewide corruption sting called Tennessee Waltz.
Once one of the state's most powerful lawmakers, Ford was known as a flashy dresser with a taste for fine dining and expensive hotels.
At the prison camp, he will have half of a double bunk in an open dorm with 124 other inmates, getting up each morning at 6 a.m. and retiring at 10:30 p.m. He will likely be assigned to kitchen work or to helping maintain the grounds of a 468-acre prison complex.
"The inmates at the camp wear dark green shirts, dark green pants and black work boots," prison spokesman Karen Million said. "He can have a wedding band with no stone and a value less than $100 and one religious medallion of less than $100 value."
Federal sentences have no provisions for parole, and Ford's only expected forays outside the camp will be court appearances in Nashville, where he is scheduled for trial June 24 on corruption charges unrelated to Tennessee Waltz.
At Ford's trial in Memphis, jurors watched secretly recorded videotapes of him taking stacks of $100 bills from an undercover FBI agent pretending to represent a company called E-Cycle Management.
E-Cycle, which was supposedly in the business of buying and reselling government computers, turned out to be a fake created by the FBI. The investigation led to criminal charges against 11 defendants, including five former state lawmakers and several local officials in Memphis and Chattanooga. All were convicted.
Ford, a Memphis Democrat, spent three decades in the Senate and was the best known of the accused. He is the brother of former Memphis Congressman Harold Ford Sr. and the uncle of former Rep. Harold Ford Jr., D-Tenn.
In taped conversations, Ford told undercover agents that he traveled first class only, staying at top hotels and eating at the best restaurants when working for clients like E-Cycle. He flashed a diamond-encrusted Rolex, boasting he got it from a real estate developer for helping head off state pollution fines.
Wesley Snipes gets a new roomie...
Obvious that he is a Democrat, when party affiliation does not appear in the title or first eight paragraphs of the story. Given its AP, I’m surprised they listed it at all.
“He is the brother of former Memphis Congressman Harold Ford Sr. and the uncle of former Rep. Harold Ford Jr., D-Tenn.”
Most likely ALSO guilty of many crimes, though never prosecuted...
This is one of the prison facilities that has no fences thus the inmates are on the honor system to stay within the prescribed boundaries.....
Gets up at 6, in bed 10:30, assigned to the kitchen & ground maintenance. I get up at 0530, otherwise I do the same.
Tru dat!
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