AUSTIN – A defiant Tom DeLay vowed Monday to fight a three-year prison sentence for money laundering, calling himself the victim of “malicious prosecution” by Democrats.
“I can’t be remorseful for something I don’t think I did,” DeLay said, standing before the Texas judge who sentenced him.
The former GOP House majority leader was led out of the courtroom by marshals and taken to the county jail, where he posted bond. He will remain free pending appeal of his conviction related to a 2002 scheme to illegally funnel corporate money into Texas races.
DeLay, once one of the nation’s most powerful political figures, was sentenced to three years in state prison and 10 years of probation.
The money helped Republicans take control of the Texas House and redraw congressional districts to enhance DeLay’s influence in Washington.
“Justice was served,” said Travis County Assistant District Attorney Gary Cobb, the lead prosecutor.
DeLay’s lawyer, Dick DeGuerin, left the courtroom predicting the case would be overturned on appeal. “This will not stand,” he said.
The sentencing capped a daylong hearing in Travis County district court in which DeGuerin pleaded for lenient treatment, saying his client’s precipitous fall from the No. 2 job in Congress had left him “a man who is unemployed and is unemployable.”
DeLay, whose hardball political style earned him the nickname “The Hammer,” was unrepentant as he addressed the judge before sentencing. He declared he had done nothing wrong and was being persecuted for his conservative views.
“They don’t agree with my politics,” he said.
Sitting nearby was his wife, Christine, and his daughter, Danielle, who dabbed tears from her eyes as her father addressed the court.
Senior Judge Pat Priest rejected DeLay’s claims of a partisan prosecution. He said the former Republican leader from the Houston area had abused the public trust.
“Before there were Republicans and Democrats, there was America,” the judge said. “And what America is about is the rule of law.”
A jury convicted DeLay in November of conspiring with two associates to use his Texas-based PAC to send $ 190,000 in corporate money to an arm of the Washington-based Republican National Committee. The RNC then sent the same amount to seven Texas House candidates.Under Texas law, corporate money can’t go directly to political candidates.
The judge imposed a three-year sentence on a conspiracy conviction.
On a separate money-laundering charge, he sentenced DeLay to five years in prison, but that was probated for 10 years.
If DeLay loses his appeal, he would serve three years in prison and seven years on probation.
The appeals process could take years.
Since his indictment, DeLay has remained largely out of public view with the exception of a stint on the network show Dancing With the Stars and a round of TV appearances supporting a book in which he defends himself as a conservative Christian and denounces the prosecution that ended his political career.
During Monday’s hearing, former U.S. House Speaker Dennis Hastert took the stand as a character witness for DeLay.
Hastert, an Illinois Republican who was House speaker from 1999 to 2006, said the former Texas congressman had a deep religious faith and had supported programs for foster children and championed a family law court in the District of Columbia.
He said DeLay worked hard to boost funding for NASA, which was in his district, and to increase the amount of gas tax money returned to the state from the federal government, he said.
“Tom, whenever he did anything, he jumped into it full-bore with a lot of passion,” Hastert said.
Cobb, the prosecutor, pressed Hastert repeatedly over whether DeLay has taken responsibility or expressed remorse.
Hastert said hadn’t heard DeLay do so.
“Is it a conservative value that you obey the laws of the state of Texas?” Cobb asked.
Hastert sidestepped the question, saying that obeying the law is a value for everyone, conservative or liberal.
