DC businessman gets 3 months’ jail for corrupting elections
WASHINGTON — A District of Columbia businessman who illegally poured more than $3 million into city, state and federal elections — helping a mayor of Washington get elected and then creating a scandal that helped drum that mayor from office — was sentenced Monday to three months in prison.
Jeffrey Thompson acknowledged setting up a $650,000 slush fund to help Vincent Gray defeat then-mayor Adrian Fenty in 2010. Thompson, 61, also gave more than $600,000 in illegal funds to help Hillary Clinton’s 2008 presidential bid.
U.S. District Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly went beyond the recommendation of prosecutors in sentencing Thompson to prison. The government had asked for six months of home confinement, partly because of co-operation by Thompson that did not result in criminal charges. The judge ordered Thompson to serve three months of home confinement and three years of probation following his jail term.
The most prominent figure in the scandal was Gray, who denied all wrongdoing and was not charged after a five-year investigation of his 2010 campaign.