Former Gov. John G. Rowland leaves the Federal Courthouse after his trial in New Haven, Conn., on Friday Sept. 19, 2014. Rowland was found guilty on all seven federal counts of violating campaign laws.
Former Gov. John G. Rowland appears to have exhausted his legal options for overturning his latest felony conviction.
A federal judge on Monday denied Rowland’s motion for a new trial, setting the stage for his sentencing to finally go forward at 10 a.m. Wednesday in U.S. District Court in New Haven after more than two months of delays and wrangling by Rowland’s defense team.
In a 12-page ruling, Judge Janet Bond Arterton shot down the latest claim by Rowland that prosecutors withheld critical evidence about a sham consulting contract between the disgraced governor and fellow Republican Lisa Wilson-Foley during her failed 2012 congressional campaign in Connecticut’s 5th District.
“Given the strength of the other trial evidence against defendant and that he has not shown that any material exculpatory evidence was suppressed, defendant has not met his burden of showing that there are grounds for a new trial,” Arterton wrote.
Rowland, 53, was convicted last September of working as an off-the-books political consultant to Wilson-Foley, who pleaded guilty to funneling $35,000 in payments to him through Apple Rehab, a chain of nursing homes owned by her husband, Brian Foley.
It was a stunning recurrence for Rowland, who resigned from office in 2005 and served 10 months in prison for accepting bribes from state contractors.
Rowland could face more than three years in prison as a two-time offender if Arterton follows the sentencing recommendation of prosecutors.
This is the second time in less than a month that Arterton has ruled against Rowland, denying an earlier misconduct complaint that prosecutors violated Rowland’s due process rights. The unsuccessful grievance relied on a similar argument — that a law firm retained by Foley’s husband (Patton Boggs) signed off on the contract between Rowland and the nursing home company.
The defense maintains that Rowland, who was elected to three terms and was once a rising star in the GOP, believed that he was a bona fide volunteer for Wilson-Foley’s campaign at the same time he was doing legitimate consulting for the nursing home.
Not wanting to be tainted by putting Rowland on the campaign payroll, the couple concocted a sham contract with the former governor, who was still an influential figure in his native Waterbury and other parts of the 5th District, where Wilson-Foley failed to get the GOP nomination for Congress. The 5th District stretches from Danbury to the Farmington Valley and includes Litchfield County, Meriden and New Britain.
Prosecutors are seeking a 10-month sentence for Wilson-Foley, but her lawyers want probation. A sentencing date for Wilson-Foley hasn’t been set.
Her husband received three years of probation, with the first three months to be spent in a halfway house, and a $30,000 fine for his role in the scheme.