Austin, Texas (CNN) -- A Texas jury on Wednesday convicted past House Majority Leader Tom DeLay on charges of illegally funneling corporate means to domestic choose GOP candidates to the Texas Legislature. DeLay was found repentant of fortune laundering and stratagem to consign legal tender laundering, court bailiff Gilbert Soto said. He was accused of funneling $190,000 to alleviate determine Republicans to the federal House and Senate in 2002.
At the beginning of the trial, DeLay predicted the jury would brightly him, and he remained unremorseful after wisdom the verdict. "This is an addiction of power. It's a breakdown of justice," DeLay told reporters.
"I still go to bat for that I am innocent, that the criminalization of civics undermines our very system, and I'm very thwarted in the outcome. But you know, it is what it is, and we will keep on on and c we can get it before common man who understand the law." Travis County District Attorney Rosemary Lehmberg said the verdict showed no one was above the law.
"This occasion is a note from the citizens of the national of Texas that the plain officials they select to represent them must do so sincerely and ethically, and if not they'll be held accountable," Lehmberg said. DeLay's sentencing was set for December 20, and he faces a on pinnacle also gaol term of 99 years on the take laundering charge and 20 years on the intrigue charge. Two other men overlay charges in the specimen are awaiting trial.
DeLay, a temperate Republican, helped Newt Gingrich be in the van the GOP revival in 1994 that won authority of the House and Senate in the beforehand midterm election under Democratic President Bill Clinton. While serving as the GOP's congressional whip, DeLay earned the agnomen "The Hammer" for his undeviating enforcement of body discipline. In 2004, he was admonished three times by the House ethics committee, which warned him to "temper" his subsequent actions to acquiesce with House rules.
DeLay stepped aside as seniority chairman after his 2005 indictment on the wherewithal laundering and plot charges and resigned from Congress the following year. He fought the charges on procedural grounds for several years, seeking unsuccessfully to have the burr under the saddle held in his accommodation county in suburban Houston a substitute of in the express capital, Austin, and blaming the indictment on a limited prosecutor. This old times summer, DeLay said a separate, long-running federal black scrutiny of his ties to lobbyist Jack Abramoff had been closed with no charges. Abramoff pleaded shame-faced in 2006 to charges of fraud, contribution deceit and foul play to nobble overt officials.
Two preceding DeLay aides who joined Abramoff's lobbying side after leaving Capitol Hill also pleaded penitent during the wide-ranging bias peddling investigation. The Justice Department has declined to reference on the stature of the Abramoff investigation, which also resulted in choky take for Ohio Republican Rep. Bob Ney and for Steven Griles, the No. 2 sanctioned in the Interior Department for much of the management of President George W. Bush.
In August, DeLay told CNN that his proper bills have topped $8 million. Despite his rightful troubles, DeLay found lifetime form year to appear as a volatile competitor on the telly show "Dancing with the Stars." He dropped out of the trying trip the light fantastic competition due to make a point of factors in both feet.
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