Va. official sentenced to 10 years in prison for fraud

[Blue_Tires]

RICHMOND - A federal judge sentenced former Virginia Secretary of Finance John W. Forbes II to 10 years in prison Tuesday for defrauding the state's tobacco commission of $4 million.

Forbes, 54, who served as Virginia's top budgeting officer from May 2001 through January 2002 under former Gov. James S. Gilmore III (R), pled guilty to wire fraud in August.

He acknowledged that in 2001 he encouraged _blankthe Tobacco Indemnification and Community Revitalization Commission, on which he served as Gilmore's representative, to award a $5 million grant to a nonprofit he controlled.

The Virginia Literacy Foundation spent about $900,000 on scholarships and grants to community colleges in economically depressed parts of the state. Forbes acknowledged that he diverted the rest to his personal use, paying himself and his then-wife hefty salaries and transferring the money to shell companies he controlled.

Erich Ferrari, Forbes's attorney, argued he was deeply remorseful and should be sentenced to a little less than six years in prison. Forbes told Judge Henry E. Hudson that he had changed in the past decade.

"My life is vastly different than it was then. I'm a different man, a better man," he said.

But U.S. District Court Judge Henry E. Hudson said Forbes had shown a pattern of dishonesty and deceit, and accepted Assistant U.S. Attorney Michael Gill's recommendation that Forbes receive the high end of federal sentencing guidelines for his crime.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/11/23/AR2010112306493.html