Maureen McDonnell was convicted of nine counts of corruption, and her case is expected to be heard by the Appeals Court in October. McDonnell had filed a petition with the 4th U.S. Circuit July 24 after a three-judge appeals panel unanimously upheld the convictions in early July.
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U.S. District Court Judge James Spencer sentenced McDonnell, a one-time rising star in the Republican Party, to two years in prison.
“The Supreme Court’s primary consideration is going to be the gravity of the issues and whether they feel there has been enough of these cases that there’s confusion among the judicial circuits about what the standard should be”, Pollack said.
Henry W. Asbill, one of McDonnell’s lawyers, told the Times-Dispatch he expects McDonnell will not have to report to prison pending a decision on the request.
McDonnell was asking the federal court to consider his second appeal.
A jury in September found McDonnell and his wife, Maureen, guilty of doing favors for wealthy vitamin executive Jonnie Williams in exchange for more than $165,000 in gifts and loans. McDonnell said he is taking his case to the U.S. Supreme Court and looks forward to being vindicated.
McDonnell received more bad news last month when Virginia’s Democratic attorney general, Mark Herring, ruled that the former governor could be stripped of his state pension benefits. Both have been free pending their appeals; hers is scheduled to be argued this fall.
Bob McDonnell also arranged meetings with administration officials for Williams, who wanted not only university research on his product but also inclusion of Anatabloc in the state’s employee health plan.
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Nine people in the U.S. and Ukraine were charged Tuesday with making $30 million by hacking into business newswire services, reading corporate press releases before they came out, and then trading on that information ahead of the pack on Wall Street.
