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Former GOP Rising Star Sentenced To Two Years In Prison

U.S. District Judge James Spencer on Tuesday sen­tenced for­mer Virginia Gov. Bob McDonnell to two years in prison for political

Bob McDonald
Bob McDonald

cor­rup­tion, the lat­est chap­ter in the spec­tac­u­lar fall of one of the Republican Party’s for­mer ris­ing stars. In September, McDonnell was con­vict­ed on 11 counts of cor­rup­tion in a case that exposed how he and his wife, Maureen, con­spired to pro­mote a dietary sup­ple­ment mar­ket­ed by Jonnie R. Williams, Sr. in exchange for $177,000 in loans, vaca­tions, and oth­er gifts from the Richmond busi­ness­man. Maureen McDonnell, who was con­vict­ed on eight counts, will be sen­tenced on February 20. Federal sen­tenc­ing guide­lines called for a pun­ish­ment for McDonnell of between 10 years and 12 years and sev­en months in prison. Given that judges in Spencer’s dis­trict imposed the rec­om­mend­ed sen­tence more than 70 per­cent of the time in recent years, McDonnell, 60, entered the week star­ing down the pos­si­bil­i­ty of more than a decade behind bars. But pros­e­cu­tors on Tuesday low­ered their request­ed sen­tence to between 6.5 and eight years in prison, and McDonnell’s 24-month sen­tence falls well short of even that reduced rec­om­men­da­tion. Spencer ordered McDonnell to report to prison on February 9.

Elected as Virginia’s chief exec­u­tive in a 2009 land­slide, McDonnell was con­sid­ered a top prospect to serve as Mitt Romney’s vice pres­i­den­tial run­ning mate in 2012. After Romney lost the elec­tion to President Obama, many expect­ed the pop­u­lar gov­er­nor to mount a 2016 pres­i­den­tial bid, but his polit­i­cal for­tunes rapid­ly declined in 2013 as the inves­ti­ga­tion into the McDonnells’ rela­tion­ship with Williams com­menced. Shortly after McDonnell hand­ed the keys of Virginia’s guber­na­to­r­i­al man­sion to Terry McAuliffe in January 2014, he and Maureen McDonnell were indict­ed in the case. The ensu­ing tri­al laid bare the rifts in the for­mer first couple’s mar­riage, and McDonnell tes­ti­fied that he and the one­time first lady no longer lived togeth­er. On Tuesday, how­ev­er, Maureen McDonnell made a sur­prise appear­ance at her estranged husband’s sentencing.
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