After eight hours of jury deliberation, Ford faces up to 20 years in prison

Memphis Commercial Appeal ^ | 7/18/8 | Richard Locker

[SmithL]

NASHVILLE -- A federal court jury convicted former state senator John Ford of all six charges in connection with his $850,000 in consulting work for two major TennCare contractors.

Ford, 66, is already serving a 5 1/2 year sentence for a separate conviction on federal bribery charges in Memphis. He faces up to 20 years in the Nashville case but sentencing will not occur for several weeks, possibly months.

The middle Tennessee jury deliberated a total of eight hours -- six on Thursday -- before returning to the courtroom where it sat since the trial began on July 1.

The verdict was delivered less than an hour after jurors listened a second time, in open court, to a secretly recorded 2004 conversation in which Ford bragged to an undercover FBI agent that he "put together the deal" with Doral Dental Services, a TennCare contractor.

[SmithL]

Former State Senator John Ford is uncle of wannabe-senator Harold Ford, Jr. He's already serving Federal time for his TN Waltz conviction.

[SmithL]

Thanks for the heads-up!

[MeanWestTexan]

Democrats just being democrats.

[MeanWestTexan]

Democrats just being democrats.

[AU72]

True to the media style-book, only crooked Republican pols can have their party affliation mentioned.

[TennTuxedo]

Has the rioting begun in Memphis?

[hermgem]

This former State Senator John Ford must be a Democrat as his party affiliation is not mentioned in this article.

[TribalPrincess2U]

The list is getting long.
I use to keep track but it’s almost impossible.

Still waiting on W. Jefferson (D) to be on the convicted list.

[NCC-1701]

"...After eight hours of jury deliberation, Ford faces up to 20 years in prison..."

Make that: After eight hours of jury deliberation, Ford faces up to 60 years in prison.

Two of the charges carries a twenty year sentence each. The other four carries a five year sentence each. Even if the senteces are run concurrently, good ole John will be prison for between 53 and 56 years. I reality, that means that Ford will most likely die in proson. What a fitting end for The Deal Maker.

[Polyxene]

“He faces up to 20 years” = RAT Resume Enhancer

[vetvetdoug]

The key to the conviction is that the jury was made of Middle Tennessee voters. If this had been Memphis, Ford would have been acquitted and the Fords would begin their lawsuit for defamation of character.

[jdub]

Thats part of it. I went to the trial one day. In my opinion, the key was they had an airtight case, and Ford’s lawyer sucks big time.

[Rockitz]

Nowhere in the article is he identified as a RAT- TYPICAL!

[Rockitz]

There really needs to be a media literature survey to see how bad this practice is. I'd bet pols are on the order of 100 times more likely to be identified in an article if they are republicans rather than democrats.

[Grammy]

"Ford’s lawyer sucks big time."

His lawyer is appointed by the court, since dear Mr Ford insists he is broke. You'd think he would have broken out some of the loot he has hidden at least to get a better chance of seeing daylight sometime before he is 110.

[AFPhys]

Gee... I wonder whether this former senator was Republican?... I don’t see that mentioned anywhere in this article... hmmm...

[river rat]

This is FORMER State Senator Ford.

Uh oh -- there was a White man in that wood pile!

Remember the Democrat's promise?

[SmithL]

Folks in Memphis don’t need to be told which party is run by the Ford family.

[oyez]

The Ford family should be pretty much pretty kaput by now.

John (Catch me if you can) Ford should die in prison.

[Old Professer]

I swear, the only reason this didn’t happen yesterday is because the economy is so bad that the jury couldn’t resist just one more day of minimum-wage pay.

I wonder what tomorrow’s above the fold headline will be in my Tennessean??