“Well, nobody never ‘splained it to me that way,” said the judge, “So let me just set you free.”
Consider that a paraphrase. Because what U.S. District Judge Avern Cohn actually did was send Monica Conyers, a former member of the Detroit City Council, up the proverbial river for 37-months.
MLive.com reports from the detritus that is Detroit:
After months of relative silence following her plea deal, the former Detroit City Councilwoman let fly a string of excuses and requests Wednesday, asking Cohn to set aside her guilty plea and consider her children and aging husband, U.S. Rep. John Conyers.
“I don’t feel I should go to jail for something I didn’t do,” she told Cohn. “And it’s been said that you’re going to make an example of me, and the news media is pressuring you to put me to jail, and I just don’t feel that’s appropriate.”
She also vowed an appeal, a promise she made good on later in the day.
The Detroit Free Press reports Conyers filed a notice of appeal Wednesday afternoon and was appointed representation by the Federal Defender’s Office. Her attorney, Steve Fishman, told the newspaper he would not represent her in the appeal.
Her appeal is a long shot however, as the plea deal she signed in June indicates that if she receives a sentence of five years or less she “waives any right to appeal her conviction or sentence.”
Conyers resigned from the Detroit City Council in June after admitting she accepted cash from Houston-based Synagro Technologies in exchange for her vote on a sludge-hauling contract with the city in 2007.
“I may be guilty of extortion, but I never took a bribe,” she told Cohn.
Well, that just about settles it for us. This woman doesn’t deserve jail time, she deserves a Nobel Peace Prize.
Source: MLive.com
