After two days of hearing from witnesses called to support federal prosecutors’ request that former state Rep. Tyrone Brooks go to prison, the one-time Atlanta legislator’s lawyers will spend Wednesday offering up reasons he should be sentenced instead to probation for tax, wire and mail fraud.
U.S. District Judge Amy Totenberg said Tuesday she expected to sentence Brooks on Friday after hearing directly from Brooks and then closing arguments from his lawyers and federal prosecutors. The now-70-year-old activist, who got his start with the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.’s movement, has already lost the rights he spent decades protecting — the right to vote and the right to hold office.
Prosecutors want Totenberg to sentence him to two years in prison, a punishment they requested because they said Brooks has refused to accept responsibility even after he pleaded guilty to tax fraud and no contest to five counts of mail and wire fraud. He resigned his legislative seat in April, the day before he entered his plea.
Brooks’ lawyers, including former Gov. Roy Barnes, are asking Totenberg to sentence him to probation, keeping in mind the decades his has spent fighting for civil rights.
According to the witnesses who testified on Monday and Tuesday, Brooks created a scam charity, Universal Humanities, and then persuaded the Teamsters and major corporations to donate to a program called Visions of Literacy, which did not exist. Brooks diverted to his personal bank account almost $1 million donated to Universal Humanities and to the Georgia Association of Black Elected Officials, which he led for many years.
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