U.S. District Court Judge John Adams sentenced former Cleveland City Councilman Ken Johnson to six years in federal prison Friday. He'll also pay restitution to the IRS, the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development and the city of Cleveland. He's been taken into custody.
His former executive assistant, Garnell Jamison, was sentenced to five years in prison.
Johnson and Jamison were convicted in July for conducting years-long schemes to evade taxes and steal public money.
Johnson was convicted on all 15 counts for submitting false monthly expense reimbursement records to Cleveland City Council, using the defunct Buckeye Shaker Square Development Corporation to funnel federal grant money to his personal bank account and filing false tax returns with the IRS.
Jamison was convicted on all 11 counts brought by the federal government for his involvement in the expense records scheme and the false tax returns.
The former head of the Buckeye Shaker Square community development organization, David Hopkins, has a sentencing hearing scheduled for Oct. 10 in Adams’ court.
The prosecution asked for a prison sentence of between nine and 10 years for Johnson and six to a little over seven years for Jamison. The attorneys for both men argued for lenient sentences because of their standing in the community and stable family lives.
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