{"id":4362,"date":"2009-03-17T17:01:00","date_gmt":"2009-03-17T23:01:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.nmpolitics.net\/index\/2009\/03\/aragon-sentenced-to-5-5-years-in-prison\/"},"modified":"2009-03-17T17:01:00","modified_gmt":"2009-03-17T23:01:00","slug":"aragon-sentenced-to-5-5-years-in-prison","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/2009\/03\/aragon-sentenced-to-5-5-years-in-prison\/","title":{"rendered":"Aragon sentenced to 5.5 years in prison"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a onblur=\"try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}\" href=\"http:\/\/1.bp.blogspot.com\/_IabUCQmoheQ\/ScAsIiXcksI\/AAAAAAAALKA\/oVjAqoRXB4c\/s1600-h\/Aragon,+Manny.jpg\"><img decoding=\"async\" style=\"margin: 0pt 0pt 10px 10px; float: right; cursor: pointer; width: 122px; height: 162px;\" src=\"http:\/\/1.bp.blogspot.com\/_IabUCQmoheQ\/ScAsIiXcksI\/AAAAAAAALKA\/oVjAqoRXB4c\/s200\/Aragon,+Manny.jpg\" alt=\"\" id=\"BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5314296085472907970\" border=\"0\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\">Former Senate President <a href=\"http:\/\/kob.com\/article\/stories\/s619263.shtml\" target=\"_blank\">Manny Aragon<\/a> was sentenced today to 5.5 years in federal prison for his role in the Bernalillo County Metropolitan Courthouse scandal, The Associated Press is reporting.<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\">Aragon was also fined $750,000 &#8212; most of which he has already forfeited to the government &#8212; and ordered to pay at least $649,000 in restitution, the news service reported.<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\">Read about it <a href=\"http:\/\/hosted.ap.org\/dynamic\/stories\/N\/NM_ARAGON_SENTENCING_NMOL-?SITE=NMSAN&amp;SECTION=HOME&amp;TEMPLATE=DEFAULT\" target=\"_blank\">here<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\">Aragon <a href=\"http:\/\/haussamen.blogspot.com\/2008\/10\/aragon-pleads-guilty-in-metro-court.html\">pleaded guilty in October<\/a> to three felony counts of conspiracy and mail fraud. He was accused of pocketing more than $600,000 in the scheme in which prosecutors say he and several others stole $4.2 million in taxpayer money by inflating and falsifying invoices during construction of the courthouse.<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\">Earlier this month, several high-profile politicians and others wrote letters <a href=\"http:\/\/haussamen.blogspot.com\/2009\/03\/letters-seek-leniency-for-aragon.html\">seeking leniency<\/a> for Aragon in the imposing of fines and restitution. Doesn\u2019t look like he got much leniency.<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\">Today\u2019s article from the news service says the sentence came after Aragon gave a \u201crambling 20-minute speech about his early years and his life in politics.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\">\u201cThe speech ended when he broke down from emotion while talking about the \u2018punishment\u2019 of losing his jobs as Senate president and as president of New Mexico Highlands University,\u201d the article states.<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\">And he apologized, as he has done before.<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\">The punishment of losing his job? Come on\u2026<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Former Senate President Manny Aragon was sentenced today to 5.5 years in federal prison for his role in the Bernalillo County Metropolitan Courthouse scandal, The Associated Press is reporting. Aragon was also fined $750,000 &#8212; most of which he has already forfeited to the government &#8212; and ordered to pay at least $649,000 in restitution, [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4362","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4362","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4362"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4362\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4362"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4362"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4362"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}