![Gary Norton, then mayor of East Cleveland, speaks at a community meeting in 2014. Norton pleaded guilty to obstruction in federal court this year. [Nick Castele / ideastream]](https://npr.brightspotcdn.com/dims4/default/e4ab57c/2147483647/strip/true/crop/980x551+0+0/resize/840x472!/format/webp/quality/90/?url=http%3A%2F%2Fnpr-brightspot.s3.amazonaws.com%2Flegacy%2Fuploads%2F2021%2F5%2F14%2F2014norton.jpg)
Former East Cleveland Mayor Gary Norton will serve a year of probation after pleading guilty to obstructing a federal investigation.
U.S. District Judge Dan Polster sentenced the former mayor Thursday. Polster also handed down a one-year probation sentence to Vanessa Veals, a former East Cleveland staffer who’d also been charged with obstruction.
In September 2018, after Norton had left office, federal agents interviewed him as part of a fraud and bribery investigation, according to a charging document filed last year.
Although the FBI told Norton not to talk about the interview, he told Veals about it. She later deleted emails she’d received from Norton asking her to print out letters on city letterhead, according to the charges. Prosecutors alleged that Veals also forged a city employee’s signature on those letters.
Norton’s attorney, John Mitchell, wrote in a pre-sentencing memo that the former mayor disclosed the FBI interview in a moment of panic, but that he accepted responsibility for his actions.
“Gary has done everything he can do to accept responsibility and atone for his criminal conduct,” Mitchell wrote. “He has done so with one over-riding reason: to put himself in the best possible position to continue to care for his children and maintain his employment.”
In January, Norton and Veals both pleaded guilty to one count of obstruction of justice.
