So much so that he beat an incumbent Republican governor in 1998 and attracted national attention. He would have won re-election in 2002 had not, according to Siegelman, a few thousand votes in one county been switched due to a "computer glitch." He would have contested this in court but all the judges were Republicans.
Siegelman retired to the private practice of law with plans to run again in 2006. He did not then know that "Rove-inspired Republicans" had "a secret plan to prosecute me before the election." In 2005 he was indicted for bribery and corruption.
The act at the base of this claim was his solicitation from Richard Scrushy, the CEO of HealthSouth, of a major contribution to the campaign for the education lottery. Scrushy was subsequently reappointed by Siegelman to a state board on which he had served for ten years. The US Attorney, who was Bill Canary’s wife, asserted that this was an illegal quid-pro-quo.
Both men were convicted at trial. Both were sentenced to roughly seven years in federal prison. Trial, imprisonment and appeal is a very complicated story which you will have to read the book to appreciate.
Siegelman takes us through the details of his experience as in a horror novel. He had a lot of supporters, but the conviction stood. He couldn’t get certiorari [a writ or order by which a higher court reviews a decision of a lower court] from the U.S. Supreme Court, or a pardon from President Obama.
He did get a lot of publicity, including a 60 Minutes segment and many stories in national magazines and newspapers. His daughter majored in communications in college and took charge of the campaign to Free Don. His son went to law school in order to work on his case.
There are a couple comic moments in the book. In a Louisiana federal prison he was greeted by Edwin Edwards, four-term Governor of Louisiana, who was serving ten years for corruption. (Lest you think that governors going to prison is a Southern phenomena, Illinois holds the record for the most convicted governors).
Don Siegelman was finally released on February 8, 2017. He spent his two years on probation writing this book.
Not surprisingly, his political career is over. But he’s not done campaigning. Look to hear from him on the issue of prison reform.
Copyright ©2020 by Jo Freeman for SeniorWomen.com
Editor's Note: Jo Freeman worked in Alabama during the civil rights movement and has read a lot of Alabama history for her book about that period. She was on the FreeDon e-mail list while he was in prison. Alabama still doesn’t have a state lottery. All but four other states do.
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