Former state Judge Alan Green was sentenced to 51 months in prison in federal court in New Orleans recently for taking bribes from a bail bond company, the Times-Picayune reports in a pair of stories about the judge’s career and sentence. Green has consistently denied that the $10,000 in cash payments from Bail Bonds Unlimited were bribes, saying they were “off-the-books” campaign contributions.
Green’s conviction involved him reducing or splitting bonds for violent arrestees at the request of the bondsmen. A woman who said she was kidnapped, raped and almost killed by a man Green had set fee on bail wrote a letter to U.S. District Judge Lance Africk to describe the impact of Green’s crime on her life. But his attorney said Green had been an advocate for poor people and Green’s pastor also wrote to Africk urging leniency and describing his history of good works.
Link: http://www.nola.com/news/t-p/frontpage/index.ssf?/base/news-5/1139556761131400.xml