SALON

Wednesday, Oct 10, 2012 1:13 PM UTC

Tom DeLay to make case to appeals court

The former House Majority Leader will appeal his 2010 money laundering conviction

By , Associated Press

Topics: Texas, Tom Delay, U.S. House of Representatives, From the Wires, Corruption, ,

Tom DeLay to make case to appeals courtIn this Sept. 19, 2012, file photo, former House Majority Leader Tom DeLay speaks about his upcoming appeal on a money laundering conviction at his attorney's office in Houston. (AP Photo/Pat Sullivan, File)

AUSTIN, Texas (AP) — Former U.S. House Majority Leader and GOP heavyweight Tom DeLay is getting ready to make his case to an appeals court that his 2010 conviction for taking part in a scheme to influence Texas elections should be overturned.

Attorneys for DeLay, who once held the No. 2 job in the House of Representatives and the Travis County District Attorney’s Office, were set to make oral arguments Wednesday before the 3rd Court of Appeals.

DeLay, 65, was found guilty in November 2010 of money laundering and conspiracy to commit money laundering for helping illegally funnel corporate money to Texas candidates in 2002. He was sentenced to three years in prison, but that was put on hold while his case was appealed.

The former Houston-area congressman has maintained his prosecution was politically motivated by Ronnie Earle, the now-retired Democratic Travis County district attorney in Austin.

Prosecutor Holly Taylor has said politics did not play a role in DeLay’s case and his trial was a legitimate prosecution.

Jurors in Austin determined DeLay conspired with two associates, John Colyandro and Jim Ellis, to use his Texas-based political action committee to funnel a check for $190,000 in corporate money through an arm of the Washington-based Republican National Committee. The RNC then sent the same amount to seven Texas House candidates. Under state law, corporate money cannot be given directly to political campaigns.

Prosecutors claim the money helped the GOP take control of the Texas House, enabling them to push through a DeLay-engineered congressional redistricting plan that sent more Republicans to Congress in 2004, strengthening his political power.

DeLay’s attorney, Brian Wice, has said he plans to argue that no crime occurred because in 2002 money laundering in Texas only applied to funds in the form of cash and not checks. The state law was later changed to also specify checks.

Wice said money laundering did not occur because no illegal funds were funneled through the RNC.

The appeals process was delayed in part because some of the appeals court justices recused themselves. Also, DeLay successfully had a judge on the panel removed because of anti-Republican comments she made.

Wice said the composition of the panel after the changes — two Republicans and one Democrat— won’t give him an advantage.

The appeals court was to issue its ruling at a later date.

___

Follow Juan A. Lozano on Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/juanlozano70

Continue Reading Close

More Juan A. Lozano.

Next Article

Related Stories

Featured Slide Shows

What To Read Awards: Top 10 Books of 2012 slide show

close X
  • Share on Twitter
  • Share on Facebook
  • Thumbnails
  • Fullscreen
  • 1 of 10
  • 10. "The Guardians" by Sarah Manguso: "Though Sarah Manguso’s 'The Guardians' is specifically about losing a dear friend to suicide, she pries open her intelligent heart to describe our strange, sad modern lives. I think about the small resonating moments of Manguso’s narrative every day." -- M. Rebekah Otto, The Rumpus

  • 9. "Beautiful Ruins" by Jess Walter: "'Beautiful Ruins' leads my list because it's set on the coast of Italy in 1962 and Richard Burton makes an entirely convincing cameo appearance. What more could you want?" -- Maureen Corrigan, NPR's "Fresh Air"

  • 8. "Arcadia" by Lauren Groff: "'Arcadia' captures our painful nostalgia for an idyllic past we never really had." -- Ron Charles, Washington Post

  • 7. "Gone Girl" by Gillian Flynn: "When a young wife disappears on the morning of her fifth wedding anniversary, her husband becomes the automatic suspect in this compulsively readable thriller, which is as rich with sardonic humor and social satire as it is unexpected plot twists." -- Marjorie Kehe, Christian Science Monitor

  • 6. "How Should a Person Be" by Sheila Heti: "There was a reason this book was so talked about, and it’s because Heti has tapped into something great." -- Jason Diamond, Vol. 1 Brooklyn

  • 4. TIE "NW" by Zadie Smith and "Far From the Tree" by Andrew Solomon: "Zadie Smith’s 'NW' is going to enter the canon for the sheer audacity of the book’s project." -- Roxane Gay, New York Times "'Far From the Tree' by Andrew Solomon is, to my mind, a life-changing book, one that's capable of overturning long-standing ideas of identity, family and love." -- Laura Miller, Salon

  • 3. "Billy Lynn's Long Halftime Walk" by Ben Fountain: "'Billy Lynn's Long Halftime Walk' says a lot about where we are today," says Marjorie Kehe of the Christian Science Monitor. "Pretty much the whole point of that novel," adds Time's Lev Grossman.

  • 2. "Bring Up the Bodies" by Hilary Mantel: "Even more accomplished than the preceding novel in this sequence, 'Wolf Hall,' Mantel's new installment in the fictionalized life of Thomas Cromwell -- master secretary and chief fixer to Henry VIII -- is a high-wire act, a feat of novelistic derring-do." -- Laura Miller, Salon

  • 1. "Behind the Beautiful Forevers" by Katherine Boo: "Like the most remarkable literary nonfiction, it reads with the bite of a novel and opens up a corner of the world that most of us know absolutely nothing about. It stuck with me all year." -- Eric Banks, president of the National Book Critics Circle

  • Recent Slide Shows

  • Share on Twitter
  • Share on Facebook
  • Thumbnails
  • Fullscreen
  • 1 of 10

Related Videos

More Related Stories

Comments

 2 Comments

Comment Preview

Your name will appear as username ( profile | log out )

You may use these HTML tags and attributes: <a href=""> <b> <em> <strong> <i> <blockquote>

follow salon

Most Read

From Around the Web

Recommendations