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PHILADELPHIA — U.S. prosecutors are taking the rare step to appeal the sentence of former Pennsylvania state Sen. Vincent Fumo in his sprawling corruption case. The 67-year-old Fumo is serving a 4 1/2-year sentence for defrauding the state Senate, a museum and a nonprofit of millions. Prosecutors had sought a 15-year term. In an appeal filed Thursday, they call Sr. U.S. District Judge Ronald Buckwalter's decision "unreasonable" and "unduly lenient." They are also appealing the one-year term of ex-Fumo aide Ruth Arnao. Fumo was convicted last year of using the victim groups to maintain his mansion, spy on political rivals,...

The FBI and Internal Revenue Service are investigating state Senate Democratic Leader Robert J. Mellow for unspecified illegal activity, FBI spokesman Frank Burton Jr. said today. The agencies were executing search warrants at Mr. Mellow's home in Archbald and at his legislative office in Peckville, said Mr. Burton, an FBI spokesman in Philadelphia. FBI agents are removing items from Mr. Mellow's Archbald home and from his Peckville district office. Agents carried filled plastic bags from his office and house to their vehicles, but refused to comment on what they took or the nature of the raid. Mr. Mellow has been...

After a long corruption investigation and a two-month trial, current Hartford Mayor Eddie Perez - a Democrat - was found guilty of bribery and a couple of other charges. He was found not guilty of fabricating evidence. Read more...

PRINCETON, Ind. -- A southwestern Indiana attorney running for prosecutor has been indicted on charges that he had sex with a female client for her to pay off a $550 debt for legal work in a civil case. Authorities said an Indiana State Police investigation of William Wallace, 57, of Princeton, began when the woman reported that Wallace had shown her boyfriend a video of their sexual encounters.

Michael T. Conahan, a Luzerne County, PA Common Pleas Judge whom federal prosecutors charged last September with sending supposedly delinquent kids to a privately-run juvie hall in exchange for cash from its builder and former owner, has agreed to plead guilty to a racketeering charge as reported by Hank Grezlak and Leo Strupczewski for The Legal Intelligencer. Conahan's co-defendant and fellow Judge Mark A. Ciavarella Jr. continues to maintain his own innocence. In any event, "news of the plea deal is likely to cause a great deal of unease among some in Northeastern Pennsylvania, sources told The Legal Intelligencer, because...

Accompanied by her lawyer, a nervous-looking Alyssa Lenhoff walked into the Franklin County Municipal Court Monday to plead guilty to state ethics charges. At one point, she appeared on the verge of tears as the judge accepted her plea and told the wife of Ohio's former attorney general, "it gives me no pleasure to meet you here." Lenhoff was given a suspended jail sentence and fined $1,000 and court costs. The single count of having an unlawful interest in a public contract dealt with her work to obtain a $6,500 grant from the Ohio Attorney General's Office while her now-estranged...

NEW YORK (AP) -- Federal authorities raided a government-funded clinic run by the state Senate's majority leader, one day after New York's attorney general accused him of siphoning $14 million from it. About a dozen FBI and IRS agents and investigators from the attorney general's office appeared Wednesday at the Soundview Healthcare Network in the Bronx, where a big canopy above the front door lists Sen. Pedro Espada Jr. as its president and CEO.....

New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo is accusing state Senate Majority Leader Pedro Espada Jr. of siphoning $14 million from the senator's government-funded Bronx clinic. Cuomo announced a lawsuit Tuesday against nearly 20 current and former officials of an Espada company known locally as Soundview. The attorney general says Espada diverted charitable assets to himself, relatives and friends and for his political operation. There was no immediate comment from Espada, who had called Cuomo's investigation a "witch hunt" to boost the attorney general's political career. They are both Democrats. Espada is a freshman senator who was instrumental in a coup...

An Orange County grand jury has indicted attorney James Toledano, the former chairman of the county's Democratic Party and a three-time Assembly candidate, on two felony counts related to an alleged extortion scheme. The jury on Friday also indicted one of Toledano's clients, former personal trainer Michael Earl Roberts, on the same charges. Roberts, 44, allegedly made dozens of harassing and threatening phone calls to a former client and her friends between 2006 and 2008 and threatened to sue her, according to the Orange County district attorney's office. Roberts said he was going to "destroy" her by having false and...

HAMMOND, Ind. – A federal judge has ordered a former northern Indiana mayor and two ex-aides to pay $108 million in civil damages in an alleged sidewalks-for-votes scheme. The suit says former East Chicago Mayor Robert Pastrick and others spent $24 million in public money on private driveways, patios and walkways to court voters in 1999. Pastrick left office in 2004 and was never charged criminally.

Newly appointed House Ways and Means Chairman Sander Levin (D-Mich.) repaid a Maryland property-tax credit Friday that he should not have received, his office confirmed.

TUSCALOOSA, Alabama (Reuters) – Larry Langford, the former mayor of Alabama's largest city, Birmingham, was sentenced on Friday for his role in a high-profile federal case for corruption. Judge Scott Coogler sentenced Langford, a 63-year-old Democrat, to 15 years in prison. Prosecutors had sought a term of at least 24 years after Langford's conviction on an array of fraud and bribery charges last year. "I'm not interested in who I make happy or don't make happy," said Coogler as he pronounced the sentence. In addition to his time behind bars, Langford was sentenced to three years probation, ordered to pay...

D.C. Council Member Marion Barry personally benefited from the contract he obtained for his former girlfriend and directed earmarks that "provided substantial financial benefits to some of his close friends and supports," according to a report by attorney Robert S. Bennett. In the report, Bennett stated Barry violated "D.C. law, council rules and policies and procedures" and recommends his findings be referred to the U.S. Attorney for possible criminal charges. Barry responded that he did nothing wrong because the council had no written procedures outlining whom a council member could give a contract to. In July, after news surfaced that...

Jersey City Deputy Mayor Leona Beldini was found guilty Thursday of two of six counts in a scheme to extort bribes from a government informant posing as a developer seeking favorable action on high-rise condominium project. The jury returned its split verdict shortly after 4 p.m. on the second day of deliberations in U.S. District Court in Newark. Beldini, 74, was acquitted of the most serious charges of conspiracy to commit extortion and two counts of attempted extortion. The jury found her guilty of two counts of receiving bribes from Solomon Dwek, the convicted swindler behind the largest FBI corruption...

Roske/APHiram Monserrate vows to fight his expulsion from the state Senate. ALBANY - The state Senate voted to boot embattled Sen. Hiram Monserrate on Tuesday night, citing the lawmaker's conviction in the assault on his girlfriend. The vote was 53 to 8 with one abstention. The dramatic vote came after hours of impassioned closed-door debate - the only question seemed to be just when Monserrate would be expelled. Senate Democratic leader John Sampson, wanted to make the ouster effective on June 30, giving Monserrate time to appeal his conviction of misdemeanor assault against his girlfriend. But with Republican support, there...

Three-term City Councilman Larry Seabrook was indicted today on extortion, fraud and money laundering charges -- including shaking down a Bronx boiler company who had received a contract from the Yankees -- after he was caught stealing as part of an ongoing probe stemming from a slush fund scandal, authorities said. The feds claim Seabrook, who has been a member of the City Council since 2001, shook down the unnamed company for $50,000 after they were awarded a lucrative contract by the Bronx Bombers to install boilers at the new Yankee Stadium. Seabrook (D-Bronx) took the money, in the form...

The former assemblyman Anthony S. Seminerio, who prosecutors said took more than $1 million in payments from people and organizations doing business with the state, was sentenced to six years in prison by a federal judge in Manhattan on Thursday. For 30 years Mr. Seminerio, a Democrat, cultivated a streetwise persona and the trappings of crude political clout while representing the 38th District in southwest Queens. * * * The judge also chided him for his “refusal to acknowledge the breadth and depth of your criminal conduct.” Mr. Seminerio, 74, is among more than a dozen state lawmakers who have...

Like father like son. Chicago Alderman Isaac “Ike” Carothers has pleaded guilty to corruption and faces 28 months in jail. His father, former Alderman William Carothers, was convicted of attempted extortion in 1983. Here’s how Chicago’s WGN TV News announced the 31st Chicago City Council Alderman since 1973 – but, hey, who’s counting – to be convicted of crimes that include paying a bribe, taking a bribe, extortion, attempted extortion, tax fraud, tax evasion, racketeering, and ghost-payrolling schemes. Ike was formally charged with fraud and bribery last May by U.S. Attorney Patrick J. Fitzgerald, the legal beagle who has former...

Ald. Carothers pleads guilty to corruption, resigns February 1, 2010 6:48 PM | 44 Comments | UPDATED STORY Ald. Isaac "Ike" Carothers pleaded guilty today to federal corruption charges in a deal with prosecutors that calls for him to be sentenced to 28 months in prison. Hours after entering the plea, Carothers resigned from the City Council in a letter to Mayor Richard Daley. "Please keep me and my family in your prayers," Carothers wrote. In admitting he accepted $40,000 in improvements to his home for supporting a developer's controversial project in his ward, Carothers joins a long list of...

ATHENS, Ohio -- The chairwoman of the Athens County Democratic Party has resigned following her conviction on two misdemeanor charges of falsifying campaign-finance reports. In a letter to the county Board of Elections dated yesterday, Susan Gwinn announced that she had resigned Monday and turned over control of the party to Vice-Chairwoman Debbie Perry in accordance with party by-laws. Visiting Judge William H. Wolff Jr. filed his verdict in Athens County Common Pleas Court earlier Monday. The judge found that Gwinn falsified two campaign-finance reports in connection with her run for prosecutor in 2008: a pre-primary report, by not including...