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Wednesday, July 15, 2009

Newspaper: Fumo sentence a 'farce'

The judge who sentenced former Democratic state Sen. Vince Fumo to less than 5 years in jail in one of the biggest corruption cases in Pennsylvania history ignored state sentencing guidelines and the recommendation of the U.S. Attorney's office.

The extremely light sentence handed down to Fumo sends the wrong message to crooked politicians across Pennsylvania, according to an editorial in The Philadelphia Inquirer.

From the editorial:
Vince Fumo is headed to prison, but for less than five years. That's hardly a sentence that will put fear into the corrupt and contented culture that allowed the once-powerful former state senator to dominate Philadelphia politics for decades.

The farce that played out in federal court yesterday will change the culture little once Fumo is in his prison jumpsuit. U.S. District Judge Ronald L. Buckwalter sentenced Fumo to only 55 months in prison, and went out of his way to criticize The Inquirer for being "mean-spirited" in its criticism of Fumo's illegal actions.
Read the full editorial at the newspaper's Web site.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Buckwalter appointed to Federal Court 1990 (Clinton admin.) that tells you something. He is a flamming joke.

Crusty said...

His largeness fast eddie was one of the 250 flamming a##holes,(that's an Ardoism), that wrote letters of support for Fumo. Since Buckwalter was so influenced by them , the public should be made aware of who these aholes are. Of course we know the the biggest one in the state is at the top of the list. Thanks Lancaster County for sending one of your worse to the bench.