The Fate of Jesse Jackson Jr.
Former U.S. congressman Jesse Jackson Jr. and his wife Sandi both wept as they received separate prison sentences for felonies related to the misspending of some $750,000 in campaign funds on Wednesday.
The Chicago Tribune reported that Jesse Jackson Jr. was sentenced to 30 months in prison while his wife was sentenced to a year. They will be allowed to serve their sentences one at a time with Jackson Jr. opting to go first based on the wishes of the family.
Federal Judge Amy Berman Jackson noted that Jackson Jr.'s popular civil rights activist father had urged her in writing to place his son who has been diagnosed with bi-polar disorder under supervised care instead of prison, but she said she couldn't do it.
Doing that, she explained, would make it appear as if there were two systems of justice: "one for the well-connected and one for everybody else."
"I cannot do it," she noted. "And I will not do it."
Jackson Jr. wept and expressed regret as he apologized for his crimes.
