A former lawyer who was accused of attempting to bribe the Medford police chief to get metropolis approval for a pot store has been sentenced to jail.
Somerville man Sean O’Donovan, 56, was sentenced on Wednesday to 2 years in jail, adopted by three years of supervised launch.
O’Donovan was additionally ordered to pay a $150,000 advantageous.
“Driven by greed, Mr. O’Donovan tried his hand at an old school bribery scheme in which he tried to bribe a police chief for the sake of lining his own pockets,” Acting U.S. Attorney Joshua Levy stated in an announcement. “Fortunately, his attempt was promptly thwarted by the integrity of the Police Chief he targeted, as he immediately reported him to federal authorities.”
O’Donovan was accused of attempting to affect the Medford police chief in reference to the lawyer’s consumer’s leisure marijuana enterprise.
At the time, the chief had lately been appointed to serve on a committee to rank such functions on behalf of the mayor, who would finally choose three candidates to open retail marijuana shops in Medford.
The feds stated O’Donovan approached the chief’s brother and provided to pay as a lot as $50,000 in tax-free money to the brother in change for the chief’s help for the pot store.
O’Donovan was slated to obtain a stream of revenue of at the very least $100,000 yearly from his consumer’s marijuana enterprise if its Medford software was profitable.
After the brother knowledgeable the chief about O’Donovan’s corrupt provide, the chief alerted federal authorities. Both the chief and his brother cooperated with the investigation.
O’Donovan by no means knowledgeable his consumer of the bribery scheme.
“Today’s sentence should serve as a warning to anyone who thinks they can corrupt government officials for personal gain: your conduct will be uncovered, and will land you in federal prison — regardless of who you are,” Levy stated.
In October, O’Donovan was convicted by a federal jury on two counts of trustworthy companies wire fraud and one depend of bribery regarding packages receiving federal funds.
Source: www.bostonherald.com”