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Statement

Statement.

1.  Completed North Carolina Highway 13 299
2.  Completed Wade Dump 5482
3.  Working Harco, Illinois 6153 --Diannaa ^(Talk) 19:39, 4 March 2011 (UTC)
4.  Completed Fusion Technology Center 3393
5.  Working Hampson (surname)
6.  Working Turtle Creek

Further Reading

Valby, Karen (2010). Welcome to Utopia: Notes from a Small Town. New York: Spiegel & Grau. ISBN 978-0385522861.

ABSCAM

5 IN ABSCAM SENTENCED TO PRISON

     - 
     ERRICHETTI DRAWS STIFFEST PENALTY: 6 YEARS PLUS FINE

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Philadelphia Inquirer, The (PA)-August 14, 1981 Author: JANE EISNER

       By Jane Eisner
       
       Inquirer Staff Writer
       
       NEW YORK - Three former congressmen, the former mayor of Camden and a
       
       Philadelphia city councilman yesterday became the first defendants sentenced
       
       to prison as a result of the FBI's Abscam investigation.
       
       U.S. District Judge George C. Pratt set the stiffest punishment - six years
       
       in prison and a $40,000 fine - for former Camden Mayor Angelo J. Errichetti,
       
       whom he had singled out as a ringleader in the political corruption  cases.
       
       Pratt handed out sentences of three years' imprisonment and fines of $20,000
       
       to the three former congressmen, Raymond F. Lederer and Michael J. " Ozzie"
       
       Myers, both Philadelphia Democrats, and John M. Murphy, a New  York Democrat,
       
       and to Philadelphia City Councilman Louis C. Johanson.
       
       The sentences were stayed until appeals in the cases are heard. All of the
       
       men said they would appeal to the Second U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in
       
       Manhattan.
       
       Pratt postponed sentencing former Rep. Frank Thompson, Jr., a New Jersey
       
       Democrat, until the potential effect of a prison term on his heart condition
       
       could be fully assessed. Thompson's lawyer read a medical report compiled
       
       earlier this year that contended that imprisonment " might well kill"
       
       Thompson, 63, who underwent heart surgery in 1965.
       
       Pratt, who had presided at the defendants' jury trials, spoke very little
       
       before he announced the sentences, although in the past he has been sharply
       
       critical of the defendants' arguments that they had been entrapped  by the
       
       FBI's undercover investigation of political corruption.
       
       " Sitting where I do, I always consider it a privilege to hear a case,
       
       " Pratt told the hushed, crowded courtroom. " Only when I come to a day like
       
       today do I consider it a misfortune."
       
       The two-hour proceeding took place in the same Brooklyn federal courthouse
       
       in which the first Abscam trial was held nearly a year ago. Afterward, the
       
       defendants again maintained that they would eventually be vindicated  of any
       
       wrongdoing.
       
       " I'm glad that Phase One is over. Now it's on to Phase Two," a somber-
       
       looking Myers, 38, said as he left the courtroom. " I can't be happy that I
       
       was given a term. I'm not happy, I'm not sad."
       
       Errichetti, 52, who also is a New Jersey state senator, sat impassively even
       
       as the judge handed him a sentence twice as severe as that given to the other
       
       defendants in the courtroom.
       
       " I feel fine," said Errichetti, who now must give up his seat in the
       
       Senate. " I wasn't surprised. I've never been surprised in my life."
       
       Errichetti had no comment when asked why he thought his sentence was longer
       
       than the others, but his attorney, Raymond Brown, pointed out that the judge
       
       had written after an earlier proceeding that Errichetti " was  the center of a
       
       cesspool of corruption."
       
       Thomas P. Puccio, the government prosecutor, had requested that each
       
       defendant be sentenced to " substantial periods of imprisonment."
       
       Five of the defendants had been convicted of bribery and conspiracy and
       
       could have been sentenced to 15 years in prison. Murphy was acquitted of
       
       bribery, the more serious charge, and faced a maximum five-  year sentence
       
       for his conspiracy conviction.
       
       As he left the courtroom, Puccio said he was satisfied. " They are fair and
       
       just sentences," the prosecutor said. " In my view, that's a substantial
       
       period of incarceration."
       
       When asked what he planned to do now, Puccio replied: " Go back to Martha's
       
       Vineyard."
       
       The future for the defendants is not as definite. Their appeals to the
       
       circuit court and, possibly, the U.S. Supreme Court, could take a year or two.
       
       They have left public office and have few other sources of income.  In
       
       speeches before Pratt yesterday, some of the defense attorneys sought to
       
       dramatize the plight of their clients.
       
       As the defendants crowded around a long table, Brown denounced the hearing
       
       as " a mass condemnation proceeding" and described Errichetti as " a creature
       
       of abject shame."
       
       " If a man has ever been pilloried and flogged in the public mind, if a man
       
       has ever been demeaned in spirit, then this man has suffered. Give him a
       
       sentence that would allow him to walk the streets of Camden," Brown  implored.
       
       Myers' attorney, Neil E. Jokelson, was equally dramatic. " He has lived in a
       
       fishbowl, he has been expelled from Congress, he has been disgraced and
       
       embarrassed," Jokelson said.
       
       " It seems to me, your honor, that a sentence of years in this case doesn't
       
       add to the public good."
       
       Some of the defendants simply expressed their repentance. " Mr. Lederer
       
       asked me to tell the court that he is deeply contrite. He has nothing further
       
       to say and neither do I," said his attorney, James J. Binns. The  only Abscam
       
       defendant to win re-election after his conviction, Lederer, 42, resigned his
       
       Third District seat rather than face expulsion from Congress.
       
       John J. Duffy, the attorney representing Johanson, 52, said he had been
       
       instructed to express his client's remorse. " He wants to say that he's sorry
       
       to his constituents in Philadelphia, his brothers and sisters on  the City
       
       Council and to his dear friends Ozzie Myers and Ray Lederer. He believes in
       
       retrospect that he acted the fool," Duffy said.
       
       Thompson's attorney, Stephen Kaufman, read excerpts from several letters of
       
       praise written by colleagues of the 26-year congressional veteran, including
       
       one from former President Gerald R. Ford.
       
       Murphy, 55, who did not testify at his trial in December, was the only
       
       defendant to speak before the judge yesterday. He lashed out at " criminal
       
       excesses of Abscam" and contended that the videotapes used at his trial
       
       showed him denying that he took any bribe money. Murphy, who represented a
       
       district in Staten Island for 18 years, said he was confident that he would be
       
       absolved.
       
       Philadelphia lawyer Howard L. Criden, who was tried with Myers, Erichetti
       
       and Johanson last August, was supposed to have been sentenced yesterday, but
       
       Pratt delayed sentencing until Oct. 2 because Criden is recovering  from a
       
       heart attack.
       
       extortion united states
     Edition: FASection: LOCALPage: A01

Record Number: 8102040962Copyright (c) 1981 The Philadelphia Inquirer

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