A DeKalb County commissioner found guilty on two counts of extortion was sentenced Tuesday to three years of probation and nine months of house arrest, ending an almost decadelong corruption saga that gripped Georgia.
Recommended Stories
U.S. District Judge Mark Cohen sentenced Sharon Barnes Sutton after she was convicted by a federal jury last year. Prosecutors claimed Barnes Sutton demanded two $500 payments from a subcontractor who thought he would lose a lucrative deal with the county to build a wastewater treatment plant if he didn’t fork over the funds.
GEORGIA JUDGE TO RELEASE PARTS OF GRAND JURY REPORT ON TRUMP’S ELECTION INTERFERENCE
Cohen claimed Barnes Sutton wrote $500 on a piece of paper and mouthed the words “per month” to the contractor. During sentencing, the judge noted that Barnes Sutton was not at the center of the corruption scandal that kept DeKalb County in the headlines in the 2010s but did engage in wrongdoing.
“I am ashamed to be here in court,” Barnes Sutton read in a statement to the court with tears streaming down her face. “I never imagined in my life that I would be in a criminal trial accused of doing something wrong.”
Cohen could have sentenced her to 20 years in prison and slapped a $250,000 fine on top of it.
The sentencing came three months after a weeklong trial that found Barnes Sutton guilty of extortion but acquitted of bribery. She was indicted in 2019, three years after she lost her reelection race.
CLICK HERE FOR MORE FROM THE WASHINGTON EXAMINER
Her sentencing is one of the last from an era of DeKalb County that had been defined by corruption and shady deals.
