Wife, Sandi Jackson Sentenced to 12 Months in Federal Prison
WASHINGTON—(ENEWPSF)—August 14, 2013. Former U.S. Representative Jesse Jackson Jr. and namesake of the famed civil rights leader was sentenced today to 30 months in prison for misspending $750,000 in campaign funds. In addition, Jackson Jr. will serve three years of supervised probation and 500 hours of community services that is unrelated to politics.
Sandi Jackson, his wife and a former Chicago alderman was sentenced to 12 months in federal prison.
Jackson Jr. and his wife pled guilty in February to using campaign credit cards to make approximately 3,100 personal purchases over seven years beginning in August 2005. Among the expenses: $10,000 for multiple flat-screen TVs and DVD; $2,300 in transportation services at Disney World; appliances for their Chicago home, including a washer, dryer and refrigerator; renovations at their home near Dupont Circle; furs; a Rolex watch, Michael Jackson memorabilia, private-school tuition for their two children and trips to Costco.
In an emotional statement to the court, Jackson Jr. said, “I misled the American people, I misled the House of Representatives. I was wrong and I do not fault anyone.” He also expressed regrets to his mother and father.
Jackson Jr. has requested that he be allowed to serve his term in an Alabama prison so he could be “far away from everybody for a while.”
U.S. District Judge Amy Berman Jackson (no relation to Jackson Jr.) said the former congressman and his wife used his campaign funds as a “personal piggy bank.”
“There may be blurred lines for Congress to follow when their lives are political, this case did not come near those areas,” she said after a more than three-hour hearing. “This was a knowing, organized joint misconduct that was repeated over many years.”
Prosecutors said in court papers that Jesse Jackson Jr. was driven by “greed and entitlement,” and had asked the judge to sentence him to a prison term of four years.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Matthew Graves called Jackson Jr.’s crimes “staggering,” since the couple had independent financial resources and had earned $350,000 in 2011.
