AUSTIN — Former state Attorney General Dan Morales once made $92,000, ran for governor of Texas and lived in an Austin home now valued at more than $1 million.
(Harry Cabluck/Associated Press)
Former Texas Attorney General Dan Morales heads to the federal courthouse in Austin to be sentenced.
By year's end, he could be making 12 cents working as a janitor, sharing a 6-by-10-foot room with one or two other men.
On Friday, U.S. District Judge Sam Sparks sentenced Morales to four years in federal prison, the maximum set by a plea deal in which the Harvard-educated lawyer admitted he falsified documents in an attempt to give a friend a piece of the state's $17 billion settlement with tobacco companies.
The judge also said the San Antonio native must pay more than $330,000 in penalties and restitution, including refunding taxpayers for the cost of his court-appointed lawyer.
And he ordered Morales to get counseling.
Sparks then stunned Morales, his family and much of the packed courtroom by ordering the 47-year-old politician to begin serving the sentence immediately.
"You've breached a very valuable trust the people of Texas gave you," the judge told Morales. "If nothing else, it justifies that I remand you to the custody of the U.S. marshal at this time."
Upon hearing those words, Morales, who had told reporters outside the courtroom that he might make a statement after the hearing, became somber.
His wife, Christi, muttered under her breath and became visibly angry. She cried as marshals led Morales in handcuffs to Caldwell County Jail in Lockhart, near Austin.
During the hearing, Morales expressed "sincere regrets and remorse" for his actions. He thanked Texans for electing him to office and noted public officials are held to a high standard.
Although he insisted most of the things he had been accused of were false, he added, "I recognize that even a single incidence of falling short of the standards cannot be permitted."
U.S. Attorney Johnny Sutton, at a news conference after the hearing, said Morales betrayed Texans who depended on him "to promote justice in a fair and honest way" as the state's top lawyer.
According to the plea bargain, the scheme would have handed some $520 million of the tobacco settlement to Morales' friend and adviser, attorney Marc Douglas Murr.
Prosecutors alleged some of the money would have gone in turn to Morales, who pleaded guilty to one count each of mail fraud and tax fraud.
Arbitration panels cut the $520 million fee to $1 million, and Murr, 47, who eventually gave back a partial payment he received, pleaded guilty in early October to mail fraud.
Although Morales' attorney William Ibbotson argued that Murr earned the legal fees, federal authorities said the lawyer did little to no work in the massive and profitable litigation.
Prosecutors contended Morales backdated contracts to show Murr worked on the tobacco litigation. They said Murr told investigators he acted as a "sound board," advising Morales on the litigation.
But when asked for evidence of his work, Murr produced four pages of documents — out of 15 boxes and two envelopes provided to investigators — that gave little proof that he had contributed significantly to the litigation.
"He said he didn't have any work product," FBI agent Robert Hightower testified.
Murr is scheduled for sentencing Dec. 19 and faces up to six months in jail and five years of probation.
Sparks noted he received several letters from the public about Morales.
He read portions of one in which Charles LeMaistre, a former chancellor of the University of Texas System and a past president of the American Cancer Society, praised Morales for fighting big tobacco companies, with little or no political support, when they had quashed similar attempts in other parts of the country.
Other letters, the judge said, called for Morales to spend life in prison without parole.
The judge ordered Morales to pay $36,000 to the federal government for the three years he will be on supervised release after he serves his prison time. Sparks also ordered him to pay the Internal Revenue Service $146,112 in income tax liability.
As part of his plea deal, Morales admitted taking money from his campaign and using it, in prosecutors' words, as a "personal piggy bank."
The judge also ordered Morales to repay taxpayers $155,000 for the services of the public defender, whom the judge reluctantly appointed in April to represent Morales.
Chief Deputy U.S. Marshal John Butler said Morales would stay at the jail in Lockhart pending paperwork and other actions that ultimately would turn him over to the U.S. Bureau of Prisons.
That process could take 30 to 90 days, Butler said.
Traci Billingsley, a spokeswoman for the U.S. Bureau of Prisons in Washington, said the prison system takes security precautions with former public officials, but she declined to elaborate how it would handle Morales.
Neither Morales' lawyer nor the judge made a recommendation on where Morales should be housed, but Billingsley said her agency takes into account security needs, an offender's criminal history and other factors in deciding where to place that inmate.
