Don Siegelman

Don Siegelman

4 August 2012. A Federal Judge on Friday sentenced former Alabama Governor Don Siegelman to six and a half years in prison on bribery and conspiracy charges. Siegelman had served 9 months in prison and will receive credit for that time. Siegelman, 66, and former HealthSouth CEO Richard Scrushy were convicted in 2006 on bribery and corruption charges. Scrushy  made $500,000 in contributions to Siegelman’s 1999 campaign for a statewide lottery. After Scrushy made a $250,000 donation, Siegelman appointed him to the state’s Certificate of Need (CON) board, which oversees hospital improvements in the state. Siegelman had appealed the ruling all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court, which rejected the appeal without comment in June. “There is no doubt in this court’s mind that what took place was a bribe — an explicit bribe,” U.S. District Judge Mark Fuller said. Siegelman, a Democrat, served as secretary of state from 1979 to 1987, he then put in four years as the state’s attorney general. He won election as lieutenant governor in 1994, then governor in 1998. Referring to Siegelman’s time as Alabama attorney general, Fuller said that Friday in court was the first time he had ever heard Siegelman say he respected the system and accepted the verdict. “You came from the highest legal office in the state of Alabama, and it has taken you 21 years to understand that, and I find that difficult,” Fuller said.